In the previous post I referred to Gen Y. My son, Frank, is heading up our new digital arm of operations for my hospitality executive search firm here at the Rizzo Ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley. He is constantly bombarding me with new things to look at and ways to get things done faster and easier using technology.
I read a lot of things during any given day, from resumes to reports, or just mountains of emails and good old regular mail, as you would expect for any business. However, I make time to read the things Frank makes a point for me to see when they cross my desk, and this study was one of them. Sometimes in a whole report a line or two can mean a lot.
The Facebook study of Gen Y by Millennial Branding said, “The US Military is the largest Gen-Y employer overall and Deloitte is the largest corporate employer.”
That is a huge statistic, especially given the state of the economy today.
As mentioned in the previous post, the report also said, “The travel and hospitality industry hires the most Gen-Y candidates now because young people are having trouble getting internships and jobs so they turn to bartending and waitressing jobs.”
Times have been tough recently, as we all know. Getting a job has been especially hard if you have been in the military and are returning home to a tough economy with a lack of support and no immediate work prospects.
Gen Y has been put in an awkward position. The promise of corporate employment seems a thing of the past. However, hospitality is already well on the road to recovery. The beauty of the hospitality industry is that you can work your way up. You can even choose to go sideways. It is up to you. The experiences and destinations are wide open. That is why we have started a program called Hospitality Heroes.
The aim of this new arm of our hospitality executive search firm is to place the men and women who have served our country in positions that will benefit not only them, but also the properties that hire them. Maybe it is time for the Facebook Generation to move from military to hospitality.