Don’t look now, but one of your top players just signed with another club! This isn’t a one-off—this has just become part of the game. After much thought, I’d find myself being remiss if I did not bring to your attention that the “go flag” is up when it comes to other companies trying to grab good people and those same people keeping their eyes open for better opportunities.
It’s starting to look like a NASCAR race with people moving from one company to another. The only reason we haven’t seen a high level of job-hopping in our industry yet is that all the Designers and Salespeople have been so busy. Trust me, the time is coming. As sure as you’ll find a Fiddler on the Roof, you will see your top talent looking for other opportunities like Sherlock Holmes on steroids. They are now fully realizing that their value in the marketplace has skyrocketed. It’s hard enough to just find people these days, try finding really good people. It’s a small crowd.
What you are now seeing take place is more growth in the space between the haves and the have-nots. Companies used to move at 10-15 MPH staying fairly close in competitive advantages; but now, some are going 20 MPH while others are accelerating up to 60 and 70 MPH. It won’t be long before the distance between companies is the most we’ve ever seen and will only continue to grow. Don’t kid yourself. If you haven’t started the process of planning and executing your strategy for the future, then you may find yourself in the have-not talent category.
Let’s talk about the differences:
Haves Have-Nots
Strong Culture and Vision Today’s Workload
Training Programs Sink or Swim
Technology and Processes Spreadsheets
Flexibility Store Hours
Benefits 1099
How does all of this play a role in shaping the landscape of the Kitchen and Bath Industry in the future? In 2 words–Fewer Clubs. As soon as the top talent starts to migrate more and more to the 60 MPH business models the have-nots are going to start slowly {or maybe not so slowly} moving on to “other opportunities”.
Before I steal all the thunder from Thursday’s Kitchen and Bath Adventure Channel episode, I’ll leave you with this one last tidbit….Yogi Berra said it best “I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.”
