Employee retention: the notorious and ever-present affliction of the automotive industry. One of the most important components in the quest to win the battle against employee turnover is proactive employee engagement strategy. But what is employee engagement? I mean, what does it look like? How do we know which tactics are truly effective and which are a waste of time and resources? And how do we apply that information to a variety of employees?

The Brandon Hall Group recently released the results of its 2018 Engagement Survey. The report provides an excellent jumping-off point for figuring out how to effectively drive employee engagement: generational differences. The survey shows that there are "some striking differences in attitudes when it comes to valuing activities for engagement among organizations with a younger age-mix compared to older age-mix organizations. The younger age-mix organizations are more likely to consider team-building activities and recognition programs to be highly valuable for their engagement initiatives. The older age-mix organizations are more likely to consider career development, coaching, work/life balance supports, and wellness/well-being to be highly valuable."

The report provided this visual breakdown:

 Of course, it's important to tailor your employee engagement strategy to your particular dealership, and perhaps the best way to do that is to ask your employees themselves what types of activities they consider highly valuable for increasing their own engagement with the organization.

Do you find this to be an accurate summary based on your own experience? Managers, what engagement activities have you found to be more or less successful for your dealership? Non-managers, what age group do you belong to, and which types of activities do you find most valuable?

You can find the full report here.