Managing today’s recruitment/retention challenges requires a realization that employee shortages are no fleeting phenomenon. Technology and demographics have combined to fundamentally alter the labor market that operators were familiar with prior to the rise of the millennial generation in the early 2000s.

That’s the view we heard recently from two executives at Wildman Business Group (WBG), a regional industrial operator with six laundry locations in Indiana and Michigan. “We all need to accept at the end of the day, yes, there is a labor crisis,” says CEO Josh Wildman. He and VP of People and Culture Lori Stanger described not ...