Last week we talked about how baby boomers can better communicate with younger colleagues. This week, I have invited a guest blogger to help me with this blog. He is a young laboratory professional with one year of experience. He has had two permanent full time jobs since graduation. My Questions for my guest: What changes in the working conditions might have prevented you from leaving your first job? What do you think of the retention suggestions discussed last week?

As a recent college graduate, I understand as well as anyone the problem with employee retention, especially in young medical technologists. Many took jobs right out of college. Not only was it my first job, but also the first job I was offered at the hospital where I’d worked for a year as a lab assistant. I went in with the mentality that I would use this position as a stepping stone; this is one of the roots of the problem with employee retention. After a year, I left the position and moved on to another hospital.

While I had the intention to use this job as a stepping stone, there would have been ways to motivate me to stay. However, if a job does not provide you with any motivators to remain in the position, and instead presents an employee with more reasons to leave, it becomes difficult to keep young graduates in the same position for more than a few years.

As I look back and think about the things that would have motivated me to stay, I realize that these are actually quite simple. In addition, these motivators should be common sense for management. The two areas that jump out at me are:

1.       The opportunity to do, learn and experience new things.

2.       Being appreciated despite being young and inexperienced.

Young employees are energetic and enthusiastic workers. We are accustomed to learning and experiencing new things everyday.As our months of employment progress and we get into a routine, we can very easily also get into a rut. Once in the rut, we run the risk of becoming bored with the same routine. If I had been presented with the opportunity to help in new projects, assist with the correlations on a new instrument, or attend some of the relevant seminars in the hospital, it would have gone a long way to increase my happiness, and maybe at the same time ease some of the burden in the department.

The second and much more important consideration for me is for employers not to take young workers for granted. This unfortunate circumstance seems to be a rather common trend among my fellow graduates. We are young and entered the field immediately following graduation. We have lots of energy and practice in a profession that suffers from a severe personnel shortage. Therefore, the administrative tendency is to run the risk of overworking the young workforce with extra shifts, work and menial tasks that other people are not expected to do. Without the proper motivation and notice of the extra work, we just feel like we are being used. Probably few considerations can increase turnover and decrease retention like the feeling that you are being used.

Employee retention of young medical technologists can be extremely difficult and I know is an area of direct concern. However, as a young medical technologist with personal experience in this area, my suggestions for increasing retention of young professional staff members closely parallel those coming from the "boomer" crystal ball.

• Present these new graduates with opportunities to learn and experience new things.
• Do not take them or their youth for granted.
• Provide appropriate recognition and kudos for good work.

These are a few items that will go a long way for keeping these young employees happy and possibly keeping them around for a long time

As boomers we have brought our appropriate quota of children into the world—into a very different world than the one we were born into. When most of us were having children, the world was technologically advanced and moving forward at a blinding pace. My youngest son, now 23, does not remember not having at least one computer in the house. He is my IT go-to guy. Every home should have one.

As our children grew, boomers were working our way up the career ladder. Without realizing it, we raised our children to follow in our footsteps. We sent them to pre-school, kindergarten, after school programs, weekend enrichment programs, sports camps, music classes, etc., often guiding them in a number of directions.

Boomers did not experience the Great Depression, described by our parents until our eyelids drooped. The parents of boomers wanted their children to have the things they couldn’t have. So, we all went to college. Many of us were the first in our family to graduate college. Boomer aspirations for our children were not to give them what we didn't have but rather to make them clones of ourselves. We failed. Our children are Generation Y (see my last post). In no way are these young people our boomer clones.

Generation Y is the term applied to the 80 million in the U.S. born between 1978-1994. They want to work, but work isn’t their life. They are both high performance and high maintenance and they thrive on change. They are hopeful and eco-friendly and believe in contributing to their “cause.” Those in Generation Y tend to work well in teams and crave feedback. They are financially smart and driven by technology. They prefer a casual dress code and aren’t big fans of “paying their dues” (Slone Partners, Lab Institute 2009).

Now, we boomers are smart people (remember, we all went to college). We are just not using our smarts with regard to our young colleagues. We need to take this information and APPLY it.

Here is what I think:

o         Let these young people lead us technologically—and don’t be afraid to follow. Boomers are not good at following; remember, we pushed our way up the career ladder leaving carnage in our wake. Technologically, established technologists cannot lead so we should get out of the way. Make Gen-Y colleagues your go-to guys and gals.

o         Give young professionals a chance to perform. Encourage them to work hard. Reward them for doing this. I see young professionals who are discouraged because their work is not rewarded. These people are high maintenance. Reward, reward, reward!

o         Realize that for Gen-Y work is not their life (actually, I have taken a lesson from my children on this). Incorporate this philosophy into the reward system. Hours off, extended breaks, etc., may go a long way towards keeping these folks happy.

o         Be aware that change is the way. Rotate them through different departments. Apply lean workspaces that are not organized by departments.

o         Change is a way of life. Know that job changes are going to happen, don't interview for "the long haul."

o         Internal change may be rewarded with longevity. Encourage enrichment. Provide information on potential career enrichment options such as funded graduate education, career ladders and online options for all education. Our young professionals want to be able to perform job functions and be educated anywhere.

o         Think outside the box for scheduling. Allow for 7-on and 7-off or 10 - 12 hour shifts. Make young professionals part of the scheduling process.

o         Be prepared for schedule shifts and hourly adjustments.

o         Allow young colleagues to contribute. Incorporate individual contributions into the workplace.

o         Most of all—and this applies to all employees, not just young ones—say thank you! Most of us do not do this nearly enough.

Remember that there are people that know what we don't know. Find them, seek them out and in the words of Yoda, the Jedi master, learn from them. As a mother of three, my words of wisdom were often stated and seldom followed. However, as my children are all grown and in healthcare professions themselves, they do, upon occasion, follow one of my often quoted adages: “The sign of an educated person is not knowing all the answers, but rather knowing where to go to find them.” This was one of the tools that I used to help my children with school assignments that were out of my scope of practice. One sunny Sunday afternoon, my daughter and I dropped in on my friends, Mary and Andy, to ask for help with a chemistry crossword puzzle. Mary and Andy just happen to have PhDs in chemistry. So, if you are choosing to stay in your administrative position or wish to follow me into the depths of consulting, be sure to find your own "Marys and Andys" when you are beyond your scope.

When I returned home, I accessed the Web site for ADVANCE for Medical Laboratory Professionals. I searched for the term "expert" and was blessed with 330 hits. Guess what? We are all the experts. I searched through the articles in search of something relevant to present and was pleasantly surprised. I accessed one archived article entitled: "Choosing and Using a Consultant." The article was actually on choosing a computer consultant. However, the article put all of my above premises into practice:

·          Know when you are beyond your scope: Hire a consultant for what you don't know.

·          You are the expert. This would be the technical expert for the laboratory or area in which you are working.

I encourage you to access this article. It has very useful information that is relevant to resolution of many laboratory related issues. Even better, it touts us as the experts.

So, for now, with "a little help from my friends" my scope of practice for consulting is now established and my future career officially launched!

I hope you'll share your scope of practice. I would love to learn from all of the "Marys and Andys" out there who know things that I don't know. Maybe this blog will bring together a list of experts that might benefit us all.

Having recently attended COLA's Symposium for Clinical Laboratories in Orlando, Florida, I reflected on how valuable the symposium was for "launching" my consultant career.

Attendance at the symposium was actually in support of my current career as the laboratory coordinator of a COLA accredited lab. Staying current on COLA and CLIA regulations can be made fun and easy with regular attendance at one of the two annual COLA symposiums. While at the Symposium, I took advantage of the situation and spent some time networking and learning from the experts about the consulting business and becoming a consultant.

Along this line, I attended a session that was presented by an independent consultant. He opened by thanking all of us for attending and stating, “You are the expert.” Well, I turned around and surveyed the room to see whose arrival I had missed, but there was no one behind me (I, of course, was in my usual back row classroom seat). He was talking to me—"me" being representative of each person in the room.

About this time I noticed that I was levitating slightly off of the chair and my head felt a little funny as it swelled slightly. I wondered what he thought my area of expertise might be. Before I could jump out of my seat and ask him this all important question, my balloon-shaped head was deflated and I came crashing back down in my chair. He proceeded to tell us that we should know what we know and know what we don’t know. I wondered what he could possibly mean by that. He just told me that I am the expert and he has the nerve to tell me there are things I don’t know!

I, however, got the point and you should, too. These statements should serve as basic premises for not only setting up a consulting business, but also for performing your jobs on a daily basis.

• You are the expert.
• Know what you know.
• Know what you don't know.

You are the expert. This is why we are managers, coordinators, administrators, supervisors, lead techs or whatever other title with which we are adorned. Our area of expertise is what earned us this spot in the food chain. This does not, however, label us as an expert in all areas of the laboratory. Trying to be something that we are not sets us up for disappointment, failure and, worst of all, litigation. So, as I continued to listen to the presentation, I began to prepare a list of items that fall in my area of expertise. These items will be my scope of practice as I proceed with the development of my consulting business. If, you, like me, are aspiring to be a consultant, please establish your scope of practice early on.

 To be continued...

Greetings! It is with great excitement that I post my first blog for the online edition of ADVANCE for Administrators of the Laboratory. I would like to use this first post to introduce myself and discuss the direction in which I hope to take this bimonthly "administrative" exchange.

Professionally, I am a medical technologist with 30 + years of experience in laboratory science with a diverse array of experience. I have worked the bench in all areas of laboratory medicine across the scope of my career. I am currently employed at my alma mater, the University of Delaware, as the laboratory coordinator at Student Health Services. My master's degree in education provided me with multiple employment opportunities in both the education and administration arenas. All administrative positions employ the components of education. My hope is to incorporate into the blog my "writing across the curriculum" experience that was an educational focus in my classroom teaching at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. My daily administrative experiences, as well as my interactions with the Clinical Laboratory Science Program and professional organizations such as ASCLS and CLSI, will help to fuel the blog topics presented each month.

ADVANCE Web Editor Kelly Graham and I connected through a post to a medical laboratory list-serve. My post was requesting tips and pointers on establishing a consulting business. Kelly contacted me to determine if we might strike up a mutually beneficial relationship. This blog feature is the result of that interaction. I would like to take you on a  journey through the development of my consulting business. At times this may be at a "jogging" pace while at times it will be a "slogging" pace. During the slogging, I will fill my posts with laboratory timely management topics that represent universal concerns or focus. I may even invite some visitors to blog with me from time to time to present pros and cons or an expanded view of a topic.

The hope is for lots of interaction and comments related to my blogs. This may, in fact, fuel the fire for responses of additional blogs on a hot topic.

I have been developing a list of references for blogging as some of this is new territory for me, as well. I will end my post with an abbreviated list. Maybe you can add to them and we can create a reference list to share.

Refer to some of these blog references as we jog or slog along through the first few posts. I will be doing the same.

www.blogger.com

www.hwyblogs.com/how-it-works.php

http://howtoblogsite.com

Books available include:

Essential Blogging: Selecting and Using Weblog Tools

Blogging for Dummies