Generational Attitudes and Blue Collar Work

Brace yourself as we discuss generational attitudes towards blue-collar work and expose the harsh truth of the cultural stigma that's been plaguing the industry. 

We delve into how Baby Boomer generation, having enjoyed the fruits of their labor in factories and skilled trades, handed down advice to the succeeding generations which ironically led to a significant workforce gap in the trades today. 

From discussing the high prices for services due to a lack of skilled workers to addressing the generational divide in work attitudes, this episode is packed with insightful discussions and hard-hitting truths about the state of the blue-collar industry. Tune in and let's challenge the status quo together!

Highlights:

1:02 - An article about the cultural stigma that’s having a disturbing effect on the generational handoff is the subject of the episode. 

3:24 - Addressing the issue of how Boomers communicated blue collar work and the impacts it’s now having on the entire future workforce. 

6:05 - How not promoting trade school is also impacting the future of blue collar work.

8:38 - The issues of how Boomers vs. younger generations view working 40 hours and work in general. 

Steve Doyle:

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Brad Herda:

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Welcome to Blue Collar BS, a podcast that busts the popular myth that we can't find good people, highlighting how the different generations of today the boomers, gen X, millennials and Gen Z are redefining work so that the industrial revolution that started in the US stays in the US.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Blue Collar BS with Brad and Steve, and I am Brad and this dumb motherfucker is Steve. So really, we're going to start there with that. 12 seconds into the show. 12 into the show, wow, yep. Thank you so much, mr Doyle, for making sure that everybody is on guard for this episode. Woo, let's go. What just happened? So, as I can see, you're going to be on your best behavior today.

I am, that's per normal.

That's awesome. What is our topic de jour that we're going to be discussing today a little bit more in depth?

A little bit more in depth. So I found this article on Fox Business. I'm going to read. Sure, I mean this. This Gen X knows how to read.

More of their pictures. Yeah, there were pictures Come on.

Okay, good, Of course there were. So this article, the topic of the article it's about a job expert pushing back on cultural stigma that's having a disturbing impact on skilled work and the generational handoff, as we've been talking about on our show how the blue collar jobs we are seeing double digit demands across industries and what are we doing as an industry to help with that? But then also, how are we integrating that in our supply chain? Because the demand is there. We're not filling that pipeline, so there's a huge demand.

Right, we're not even filling it anywhere at all. We're not even doing anything close to what needs to be done from an impact perspective. And yeah, it's scary.

Yeah, absolutely so. As we read down through here, I want to highlight just one of the comments in here is that we're looking at the cultural issue where a lot of baby boomers Not me, by the way.

That's not me. I'm Gen.

X, whatever Right. The boomers are some of the wealthiest generation that we've had, and what they've passed down from generation to generation is from their generation into their grandkids is that they had to work really hard in a factory, or they worked really hard early on and they earned a ton of money, earned a ton of respect to build their career, but what ultimately they said is I had to do a lot of hard work and I don't want that for my kids or my grandkids. So what happened with that? What would you assume happened as a result, brad, from boomers passing that stigma down?

That's no different than what happened in 2001 and what's been happening, what we've been talking about. When you keep telling people, no, no, no, no, no, don't do this, don't do this, and you don't have pride in your own, in what got you where you are, and having the humility and gratitude right to be grateful that the unions did what they did back then, to be grateful that the pensions that were there back in the day got you to this point Now. Granted, things have changed dramatically in the 70s and 80s, because some of that was very political, some of that was greed, just not willing to talk about what was going to happen, but you painted this picture of well, this is bad. I don't want my kids to do this. I don't want my grandkids to be doing this. Well then, who the hell is going to do it?

You were the largest generation on the planet at the time, telling people don't go, do what we did. Right. Thank you very much. You got what you asked for. So now here's the best part. Here's the fucking best part about all this, right? You got the boomers now bitching and complaining about how expensive it is to get shit fixed because they can't do it anymore. Oh well, why is the plumber $175 to come out and just check my toilet? He was only here for five minutes. Why? Because I'm paying the guy 75 bucks an hour to be in the van, to drive 45 minutes to go fix your fucking toilet.

Yep, thank you very much because I don't have a problem you actually got somebody to show up.

You actually got somebody to show up because half the time you've called 40 people and nobody returned your call.

Well, that's a millennial problem, but that's a whole nother story. We can get into another show. Ooh, ooh what. We can get into another show. I thought you went there. You went there, I know I mean. So you've self-created the situation and now you're complaining about it, and yet they're not supporting the opportunity for those that are still active in the industry to train, educate, promote and bring people in, and it's frustrating as well.

Absolutely.

Super frustrating, and you've got pockets of the country trying to do all these things on their own. Well, we need to have a post-secondary trade school so we can do all these other things. Cool, great. But we also have a federal government that's not going to support it, because why would we want to do that? Right?

We're pushing the challenges.

That's not really a school. Any, that's not really a school. That's more of a skill-building piece. Really, are you kidding me? Yes, it is skill and education and soft skills and all those other things to go in because it's needed Doesn't matter. It's driving me crazy, as you might be able to tell you hit a nerve.

I did, I did. I kind of like it, kind of like it. We want to keep sticking the knife in this one, keep poking at it. Yeah, please, could you? I mean I could, I could. So let's talk a little bit deeper on that, right, because we've been harping talking, speaking in front of audiences on this exact topic, on the stigma, what are we going to do about the boomers and their attitude towards the trades and towards the? Well, I had to work hard, and why should my kids?

Well, there's the issue of they're still working and they still own the companies and they've made their own bed. Part of me, of my opinion, doing what we do and the folks we get to talk to, is like, ok, you made the bed, now you figure out how to get out of it, right, right, you don't want to change. You're not going to have what you think you're going to have anymore. You're going to see the crumbling of businesses and jobs being lost, enclosure and asset sales and things like that, because they didn't take the time to find out how to get a 20-year-old kid into the business. Because, yeah, and there's this whole cycle of, hey, remember when you were 20 and you had to work your ass off, well, they're going to work their ass off too.

They're just going to work their ass off differently, correct? They don't need to work from sunrise to sunset because they don't need to take their bikes to the job site. They don't, right? The technology is there. Uber's there, there's lots of other things that are there. We're not walking uphill both ways in the snow, uphill, both ways in the snow to get to our jobs anymore in many cases. Yep, and the pride of well, I'm working 14-hour days. Well, god bless. Well, they don't want to work 14-hour days.

Nobody wants to work 14-hour days.

Well, there is a stigma that if I'm not working 14 hours, I don't have them, I'm not bringing in my worth in certain industries and it's really annoying. I got some friends and tool and die and it's like, well, I'm not leaving if there's no guaranteed overtime. How about if they just pay you the right wage and you don't work the overtime? What's the Absolutely? How would that work out for you? What if you had your life and got the paid at the same time for delivering the same results and you didn't sandbag it Monday through Thursday? So, oh hey, we got to work Friday and Saturday in mandatory overtime. What if you just did the shit and got it done and you had your two, three days for your weekends? No-transcript.

Right. I don't think people would know what to do. Honestly, they would feel undervalued, underperforming. But then, once you got accustomed to it, going back to having to work overtime as production rates increase, it's going to be like pulling teeth.

Right, and then they're all going to sit there and complain well, how can we get hired? Or anybody? Because he didn't train anybody. You didn't welcome anybody into your factory. You didn't welcome anybody into your business. You didn't provide opportunity for anybody to learn, because you chastised the shit out of them when they showed up and go. Well, I don't know how to do that. Well then, why are you here?

Yeah, absolutely so. Further on in this article it also talked about how we help people realize that it's just bigger than them. So, because we're harping on boomers and what they've done, how do we help them realize that their actions and their attitudes towards the younger generation is much bigger than them?

So ironically, I'm going to tie this into some other things that I've been working on. Forbes published an article in August of 2022, top 10 reasons why businesses fail. One of those reasons is sustainability, and when we think about sustainability, we think about recycling and earth and other things. Very rarely do you think about employment Right, and that piece of having sustainable, repeatable employment cycle and constant flow of people coming into my building to want to work and understanding that the life cycle of an employment job right now is probably seven years to its peak. That's starting to increase as the Gen Zs don't want to keep changing jobs every seven years. If you give them a reason to stay, they're going to be the next 30-year employees, if given a reason to stay and the businesses are willing to support them along the way and pay them for their results and their wisdom over time. But that sustainability piece of look, this is what we need to do to keep my business afloat, so I have value, so I can add value to my business and I can transfer that knowledge.

We just interviewed a guest talking about the military and being to have that knowledge transfer. Which is why we are still one of the best forces in all the world is because we have the ability to transfer and communicate and shift knowledge from one generation to the next, because it's a constant turnover of people in and out of our military. But yet we don't see this up and down success and failure like we see on football teams or basketball teams. Why were the New England Patriots so dominant for so long? You can say it was Tom Brady, but whatever they did right, bring in other pieces, get other people to go.

And how did they come to something to go?

They had a way to transfer knowledge. They had a way to transfer the information, to live their culture, to live that level of excellence inside that locker room. Your business is no different, and if you treat it like shit, you're going to get shit.

Three points today. Brad, I like that last piece.

We'll end there then, today.

Yeah, that's right, we'll end there. So, brad, great conversation today with this article.

Definitely appreciate it All right man, we will talk to you soon, all right, thanks, all right.

Yep.

Thank you for listening to Blue Collar BS brought to you by Vision Forward Business Solutions and Professional Business Coaching Inc. If you'd like to learn more on today's topic, just reach out to Steve Doyle or myself, brad Herda, if you'd like to share, rate and review this show, as feedback is the only way we can get better. Let's keep Blue Collar businesses strong for generations to come.