What message are You sending?

Kevin Hicks
Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course

For Kevin Hicks, the difficult part isn't in handling the rifts between the generations in the grounds crew at Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Regardless of how they're getting along, his biggest concern is keeping their work up to his standards, and that means motivation.

The biggest difference he sees among the generations in his crew is where the motivation for each group lies, he says.

"The people who work here who are coming back every year who are in their upper 40s and early 50s, they crave a little more stability than the younger sets, and they're motivated differently," he says. "My toughest group is my college-and-under group because they're a little fickle, and they're motivated differently, too. For some, they've got an entitlement mentality that can be tough to get over."

Stability is tough to emulate on a course, and Hicks can't make the job look any more appealing to younger workers than it really is.

"It's really important to communicate about what the job is right at the start," says Hicks. "It's not a glamorous job and you're not going to get rich doing it."

But rather than splitting his time between reaching to each generation's general desires, he finds a middle ground to promote the overall group.

"You've got to find other ways to motivate them," he says. "A lot of things we do are pretty universally motivating. We'll cook hamburgers once in a while or have an outing on another local course together."

But his most successful team-building motivator trades the golf ball for something slightly larger. His team takes part in a softball league populated by other local golf club crews throughout the season.

"It was a great motivator that kept people interested, and had a cheesy little trophy, but it was something to talk about. All you have to do is add a ball, and your team can have a lot of fun. It bridges the whole group really well; we had our 60-year old guys playing along with our college guys."

On the flipside of motivation is discipline, which can be a little more divisive across those lines, says Hicks.

"I think discipline is the biggest one you have to adjust for the different generations," he says, as every age group needs a different style, even among his own small children. "You take a 17-year-old kid who's abusing equipment, he could a lot of the time care less if you give him a day off without pay. But if you do that to a 50-year-old, they're crushed."

Regardless of behavior or age, a superintendent needs to know how to work with each of his employees simply because so much of his time is spent handling them.

"That's the difficulty of our job, and the travesty of what the universities aren't teaching the kids coming out here. People management is the number one time-eater of this job," he says. "Administration and human resources are what you spend the bulk of your time on."

Some of that time can be made up just by looking for the right crew member for the job during the hiring process. While it doesn't mean that different generations are outright better at certain jobs than others, sometimes they fit more appropriately.

"For our part time work, if we can, we'll look a little more toward the older set because they don't necessarily need the 40-hour week, and they're usually motivated a little differently than just cash," says Hicks. "We've benefited in the last 10 years in this area from a lot of early retirees.

"When we're hiring seasonal people, I don't mind looking at somebody with zero experience rather than past golf experience. A lot of the time you spend deprogramming them from how they do it elsewhere rather than teaching them how we do it."

But regardless of what position a superintendent is looking to fill, there's one criteria he should hope for in any generation.

"You definitely want to find people who seek a little bit of intrinsic value in what they're doing rather than what the paycheck looks like," Hicks says. Finding that quality means, "When I'm hiring, I'm always trying to be brutally honest and truthful up front. If you ask a lot of questions, you tend to weed out the people who are just looking for that paycheck."

Jim Hasz
Lake Breeze Golf Course

It'd be easy for Jim Hasz, superintendent at Lake Breeze Golf Course in Winneconne, Wis., to write off his youngest workers as lazy. A Boomer himself, Hasz helped design his course 21 years ago when he started there. But rather than regale them with his stories, he's glad to put stock in his college-age employees.

"I usually hire right as they're going into their freshman year of college and tell them right off the bat, if it works out and you like the job, you can have a job for four years if you want," he says.

About half of his small crew is made up of younger crew members, continually arriving from the nearby college.

Having several Gen Y workers at one time means they work alongside each other and can help train the newcomers year after year. But the built-in time limit with a college hire fits in with Hasz's managing style, as well, he says.

"As they get to their fourth or fifth year, their interest isn't as focused as when they started out," he says. "But the rewarding part about it is to watch these kids grow. Their maturity level from year to year is outstanding, and they keep the retired guys young too with their antics during the breaks."

Though he doesn't look for a particular type of hire, Hasz says the new workers generally fit in with the group.

"The overriding thing is if you're involved in sports or like sports, everything will work out fine. Now the older guys accept pretty much everybody," he says. "I haven't had any problems between my older guys and my younger guys; but maybe it's in the people I hire, people who can get along with other people."

Hasz spends at least a whole morning working with each of the new recruits to make certain they understand what needs to be done for a chore to keep the course operating smoothly.

"You have to explain everything with them," he says. "I'll teach them how I want it done and explain why I want it done that way. I find if you explain it, they're more accepting to do it your way rather than just telling them you want it that way."

Once they have the hang of it, he'll start them out with some of the smaller jobs, using positive reinforcement to guide them.

"Experience is the best teacher," he says. "With my older guys, they've been with me for years and they're much more dependable. But I'm finding that sometimes they're starting to feel a little like they know it all. They do stray away from what I want and I have to reel them in a little bit now and again."

But when it comes to the technical side of turf, Hasz keeps his message the same regardless of the age group.

"To me, I don't have to change all that much. If I've got an older gentleman, I teach him in the same way as I do the younger kids," he says. "It's just the process I go through. The thing that may change is that they may have more experience on some equipment whereas the younger guy may not, so you just spend a little more time with the younger guy."

Hasz also splits up his teams to give each the best balance for the job assigned, he says. He'll put the younger workers together sometimes, or have one of the older crew members help keep them in line. Together, they usually get through the assignment more quickly. But the college crew members help keep the job fun.

"We get our work done and have a good time," he says. "When it's fun, it's not work."

Ryan Cummings
Plymouth Country Club

Even though Ryan Cummings, superintendent of Plymouth Country Club in Plymouth, Ind., is just a year or so shy of Gen Y himself, he's always heard he's got the spirit and drive of a Boomer or beyond.

"I don't normally fit the mold of the generation I'm defined in," he says. "I have maybe a different work ethic, but you're always going to have those differences even within a generation. You have to look at your crew and figure out how best to communicate with them on an individual basis."

There are a few differences in how each generation communicates on the course, though.

"A Boomer wants more of a formal, direct communication style," he says. "A Gen X or Y'er wants more of a social, indirect form of communication. For instance, I'll allow them to use their cell phones to text me or my assistant rather than driving to the other end of the course. From the initial hire, I try to sit down and figure out the best way to communicate with them to get the job done."

Within his small team, they span four generations, reaching from college-aged workers to before the end of World War II. Sometimes, they split along generation lines based on what they assume about each other even when working together, he says.

"There's the old cliché that the older generations see the younger with that negative connotation that they're all wild and they just don't get it," he says. "The older generations sometimes don't see the work ethic in the younger generation because it's just a different work ethic. The older generations just come to do the work and have a tremendous amount of pride in what they do. They take more of a pride in their use of the equipment, maybe because they've worked on that particular piece for 20 years.

"The X and Y'ers look at things with a more holistic approach," he says. "They really don't see it as a job, but taking care of a green space. They view their job as exercise."

Cummings blends those strengths to get the best out of his whole crew's efforts, he says.

"They all do take pride in their work," he says. "It's just a matter of how it's accomplished that's different. The Boomers and Vets can take a leadership and teaching role, and they can learn a lot from the younger generations as far as tech goes and maybe reinstilling that freer spirit they had years ago."

Cummings strengthens that team dynamic by using a rewards system and course outings to create a bond between crew members even if they aren't part of the same generation. There's also the monthly barbecue or some grabbed time on a rain delay morning when they can all discuss what's happening in the world and on the course. He makes use of the daily five-minute staff meeting to talk about issues facing the whole crew, but also to give crew members an opportunity to give positive feedback to each other.

"A lot of my college kids will take a minute and tell the older workers how much they liked how the course looked after they had done a particular task," he says. "I've found that the younger generation is a little more apt to give that positive feedback. We've been pretty successful in opening up that team dialogue."

He also spends time one-on-one with each person on his crew, going over the work and finding ways to improve the job.

"Out on the course, I try to meet with each employee and give some feedback on what they're doing," says Cummings. "The older generations like that direct feedback. The younger guys, they accept it. That one-on-one feedback is very important to the success of our operation."

Regardless of how he handles crew members individually by their age group, there are some things all of his employees respond to, he says.

"Each has their own set of strengths that you try to identify and how they work best within the team, but you first have to find some similarities that every generation has," he says. "They all want a leader that's trustworthy, and they all want respect for their opinions."