Building a Successful Team of Millennials
How to hire great people and keep them motivated
At Bellhops, we were forced to grow our team at an incredible rate — going from two part time employees when I started heading up the operations department, to over fifty employees a year later. Having survived such rapid growth, I often get asked how I successfully coached up a team of millennials.
Being a millennial myself gives me useful insights into the importance of positivity and workplace freedom. And as the employer of millennials, I understand that must be balanced with the drive and ability to get the work done. It is a fine balance, and it comes down to two critical steps: hiring great people and keeping them motivated.
Ok. But how do you know if the people you hire are great?
In the early stages of hiring for the Bellhops operations department, it didn’t matter what college a hire went to, or even if he or she went to college. I wanted people that were so bought into the vision of the company that they would do almost anything for Bellhops. It also helped to have a good referral source, and I was lucky enough to have the best of the best in Matt “Iceman” Intemann (now our Human Resources Manager).
From day one, I only wanted to hire ‘A’ players, for the obvious reasons, and because ‘A’ players beget more ‘A’ players. Think about it. If you are an ‘A’ player, you are not going to want to work with ‘B’ players. ‘B’ players bring you down. You want to work with the best of the best. If you hire ‘B’ players, though, you risk the possibility that they will attract ‘C’ players to boost their confidence. ‘C’ players then bring on ‘D’ players, and on it goes.
So Iceman brought in the ‘A’ players, and I created an environment that kept them motivated.
Ok. But how do you keep ‘A’ players motivated?
The ‘A’ players we went for were all highly energetic and competitive. They felt inspired when challenged, so I made sure to do that for them. One way I did this was to set up daily competitions; e.g. who dealt with the most difficult customer, who booked the most moves that day, who answered the most inbound calls, and so on. And at the end of the day, we’d give out prizes — fake yeti thermoses, yo-yos, Bellhops Tervis Tumblers, and sometimes straight cash (don’t tell the accountants).
If I would have just stopped at creating a fun, energetic workplace, that would have sufficed for a while. Enjoyment in work goes a long way, to be sure. But it can only take you so far when working in a place that is consistently and very quickly growing, like Bellhops. What truly made all the difference was our emphasis on making mistakes. We not only assured our employees to be ok with mistakes- we encouraged them to make mistakes.
By removing the stigma on mistakes, you naturally build trust and rapport. Mistakes are also incredibly useful to the learning process. By giving employees a certain level of comfort with their mistakes, you are eliminating that unproductive stage in the new-hire cycle when he or she is second-guessing every little action. The freedom to make mistakes also unlocks a door to those brilliant and unique ideas that only come after iterations of not-so-good ideas.
At this point we had a talented and motivated team who was quickly learning and taking on more responsibilities. Sounds like my job was done, right? Not so much. Because as your team excels, the challenge to keep them challenged and motivated becomes that much greater.
Once we had a solid team in place, I could finally catch my breath and shift my focus even more to managing the hires we had brought on and trained. To better prepare me for that task, I read High Output Management by Andy Grove. This crazy book written in the 1980’s is still incredibly relevant and impactful today and has completely changed my views on management. Essentially, that book taught me how to be a manager of people. It taught me when to step in and correct someone and when not to — a concept called Task Relevant Maturity. And while this idea is easy enough to understand, it’s hard to put into practice when you’re on the line for your co-worker’s performance — especially if you are a type ‘A’ perfectionist like me. Even so, it is a must if you want to be a respectable and capable leader.
Another valuable lesson I’ve learned during my time at Bellhops is that successful employees want to consistently progress towards a goal. Therefore, a leader must give his/her job away every few weeks to the top performing employees. You will need to build a scalable process and trust someone else to not only take care of it, but to also make it better. For this reason, we are really big on internal hiring.
To sum it up, it was a team effort. It took Iceman to find and bring the talent in, buy-in from the employees, a positive, fun environment that encouraged mistakes, and learning to be ok with giving your job away every few weeks to the top performers. That’s how you build a successful team of millennials.
Have your own thoughts on the matter? Questions for Nathan or the Bellhops team? Put ’em in the comments! Thanks!
