Four Tips to Attract Younger Talent, Now

Across every segment within the printing industry, in all corners of the country, one issue remains universal: Staffing is a challenge. Printers have been struggling to fill open staffing positions for several years now but, as more skilled operators begin to reach retirement age, attracting younger generations into the graphic arts field is becoming even more critical — and more difficult.

The printing industry is competing against not just other print shops for these workers, but with other industries, ranging from manufacturing work in other sectors to high-tech jobs that appeal to what Gen Z workers have grown up thinking about. There is no one right answer when it comes to convincing them to give the printing industry a try, but there are a number of ways printing companies can transform themselves into more appealing options. This includes improving exposure to the printing industry as a career option, embracing a tech-forward image as an industry, and rethinking compensation models.

A conversation about how to improve the pipeline for workers in the printing industry is important, but what is your organization supposed to do to fill the open positions right now? Here are four tips to implement today to make your establishment a fantastic place younger people will consider for employment.

1. Take a few minutes to think about what your operation looks like from the outside. “Stop, freeze, and think,” Jules VanSant, founder of Bubble & Hatch and chairman of the PGSF board of directors, says. “Be thoughtful about what your business looks like, and see it through the eyes of what
the future generation sees a business looking like. And then create a plan to be more relevant.”

2. Become more relevant. “Familiarize yourself with what this generation is into,” Lisa Vega, executive director of The Mariano Rivera Foundation, advises. “Make sure you’re not outdated. Look within and see how you can incorporate things that will be more appealing to them. You don’t just want to secure them for a job; you want them to want to stay in the job.”

3. Learn how to speak the right language. Just showing up where the younger generations are congregating isn’t enough. You also need to be able to communicate with them in a way they can relate to. “Start defining what you do in terms these young people will understand,” Harvey Levenson, professor emeritus at Cal Poly, says. “There is a famous communication model that explains this — Schramm’s Model for Effective Communication — and what he did many decades ago is to say the only way to really impactfully communicate so everyone understands is to speak in terms of what the person you’re trying to communicate with identifies with, and understands.”

In other words, even when both are using English, for example, there can be a language barrier between generations in terms of terminology, slang, popular meanings, etc. If organizations want to connect with younger generations, they must learn to communicate effectively with them.

4. Look for ways to keep older generations wanting to stay on a bit longer while pipelines for younger workers are built and cultivated. Brian Regan, president of the Semper Group, notes, “When you have a need for 100 workers but only 50 exist, that is not an easy problem to solve.

“When it comes to the immediate need, one answer I came up with is from BMW; Europe is more advanced in their aging population problem, so BMW took a creative approach,” he explains. They couldn’t get enough new people and get them trained up to the level where people were retiring, so they figured out ways to delay retirement. Some of the solutions included automating tasks such as heavy lifting that their bodies simply couldn’t perform any longer, as well as offering more flexible hours and more opportunities for breaks.

“It’s different for every plant, but how do we get the skilled workers looking at retirement to stay longer until we can fix the problem?” Regan asks.