REACHING THE NEXT GENERATION TRAINING, EDUCATION PROGRAMS HELP BUILD THE FUTURE OF YOUR COMPANY BOB CAPUTO, CFPS | AMERICAN FIRE SPRINKLER ASSOCIATION
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s an organization and as an industry, we’ve been focused on the next generation for many years now. We all understand the importance of passing the baton to a qualified and confident next level but low and behold, we’ve discovered that the next generation of young professionals don’t seem to learn the way we older generation learned. Perhaps more importantly, we older generation folks realized that we try to teach the way we learned, so we’ve been frustrated by the communication gap. Well, let’s get real about the next generation and the fire sprinkler industry. For starters, we need them a lot more than they need us. After we let that reality sink in, ask yourself, who are we and who are they? In a lot of cases, as in many small businesses, “they” are the children of the business owner. It’s not uncommon for second and third generations to be the first in their family to have attended college, which means they may have broader choices in career opportunities than their parents had. That said, even if we could capture every next generation of family members, we couldn’t fill the pipeline of this industry’s need for people to work as designers, installers, estimators, or the next generation of leadership. We need to further our reach to bring new people into our industry, new DNA. We need to find those positive attitudes and aptitudes early on and introduce them to the exciting opportunities the fire sprinkler industry has to offer!
26 SPRINKLER AGE | MAY/JUN 2021
AFSA’s NextGen Initiative (NGI) members hosted a full day of events at AFSA38 in San Diego, California, including an evening mixer. Where do we look, and how do we find them? High school career fairs, military job fairs, and community colleges are good places to start. A lot of people leaving the military are headed back home to their point of geographic origin, looking for opportunities. These people are healthy, usually drug-free, and used to taking and giving orders. They show up on time and are responsible. For a lot of our members, these traits would be halfway to success. Did you know what you wanted to be for the rest of your life when you were 17 or 18? We all know the fire sprinkler industry offers a wide variety of opportunities for a wide range of personalities, but young people might not know this. We should highlight how exciting it is to see how the world works from behind the scenes, from the “back of house” in everything from food processing plants to
the local shopping center, hospital, hotel, or high-rise building. We see it all. Not only that, but we get to save lives and property, which for many of us has always added a sense of pride.
BREACH THE COMMUNICATIONS GAP But we still have that communications gap. How do we talk to these younger people when they don’t seem to speak the same language? I read a recent article that reinforced a few key points we’ve addressed when speaking on this topic at past AFSA conventions: • First and foremost, young people seek authenticity. Be authentic. They’re used to seeing ads and sales pitches all over social media, so they’re used to tuning those out. Avoid the fluff and try to be as personable as possible. Be transparent in your messaging, too. You can’t fake sincerity.
