Multi-Generational Print Businesses Pass the Torch without Getting Burned

“Young fellas today won’t work the way we did 11 years ago.”

That sounds like a complaint that today’s employers and managers make about the so-called millennials, but it’s actually a line of dialogue from a 1940 short film called Hired!, produced for Chevrolet to train sales managers. Those “young people” in 1940 are now long retired or have, to put it euphemistically, “exited the market.” They would also go on to fight World War II, so it’s odd to think that members of that generation were considered “slackers” by their forebears.

Every generation thinks the next one doesn’t have the same work ethic, but in general they do. Each, however, comes of age in a completely different environment. Nowhere is that more true than in the case of the millennial generation, awash in technology, and entering the job market in a persistently underperforming economy.

Here’s a sobering fact:

Anyone born after 1982—or is around 32 or under—has never been a full-time employee during an economic boom.

The last boom ended in 2000, but it’s been downhill since, especially post-Great Recession. Why is this important? Never having worked in a professional position in an economic boom means that all they have known in their work lives is constant pressure to be more efficient, to be more productive, to justify costs, to pay attention to the bottom line. Employment has never been more cutthroat and tenuous. With unemployment being as persistently high as it has been, it’s been a hirer’s market.

For the printing industry, the concerns are twofold. The first is attracting young people to the industry at all. The second is understanding the way they communicate.

“They all communicate on their cellphones,” said Kim Granholm, owner of Aurora Fastprint, Aurora, IL. “They don’t even e-mail all that well. Everything is texting.”

Aurora Fastprint is a small commercial printer whose roots date to 1976 when Granholm’s father, Tom Bartlett, bought a Big Red Q Quick Print franchise. In 1979, he changed the name to Aurora Fastprint. Granholm bounced around in some unfulfilling cubicle jobs after graduating college in 1998, and joined her father’s company in 2001. “He offered me the opportunity of owning my own business,” she said. “I thought I would try it out for a few years to see if I liked the industry.”

It turned out that she did, and in 2007, she bought Aurora Fastprint, although her father still stays on part-time as a “semi-retired owner.” At the time, a ~30-year-old becoming the company’s owner and wanting to make some changes was a culture shock to the old guard.

“There were some older staff who had been in the trade for quite some time, and here comes this young girl who doesn’t have a lot of experience in the trade, changing things,” she said. The first item on the agenda was going computer-to-plate—or, in fact, computer-to-anything. “When I started, there wasn’t even a computer in the shop,” she said. “It was hard to train the older staff to even use a computer which for me was very frustrating.” Getting her father to switch from manual ledger accounting to QuickBooks and to incorporate Printers Plan was also a challenge. “You just get so used to doing things the same-old same-old.”

From time to time, Aurora Fastprint brings in interns from the local high school to do graphic design or work in the bindery. They learn from the experience—and Granholm learns from them. “They just have an energy about them,” said Granholm. “They’re excited to learn. They don’t mind working hard. They definitely like to communicate more than the older generation.” Which is not to say that there isn’t some degree of culture clash. “They like to have a fun work environment,” she said. “They like to listen to music. My dad’s generation was, ‘Turn off the music. If you’re having fun and people are laughing, then work’s not getting done.’ They do their work, but they like to have fun while they’re doing it.”

Their chosen way of communicating—texting and social media—sometimes means that they don’t communicate well with some customers. “There are certain people who always want a phone call,” said Granholm. “We try to be respectful and know exactly what their [contact] requirements are. And if it’s a phone call, it’s a phone call. It’s not hard to teach the younger generation that, but you do have to teach them that when so-and-so calls, you should call them back. You can’t text them or e-mail them. If they’re looking for their order, they expect a phone call back. It’s respectful. They don’t get that, but then I don’t think anyone told them that before.”

Granholm has noticed that younger employees handle problems and disagreements better than some of the older generations. The typical response, when there is adversity, is to go on the defensive. She’s found, though, the attitude of her younger hires is more like, she said, “‘Let’s work around this and be friends.’ It’s opened my eyes to different ways to think about things, and deal with people and situations and employees.”

Being able to work with younger people is important, especially in terms of understanding how they communicate. “I don’t think you realize the impact of social media in business until you start to talk to some of the younger generations,” she said. And this has more far-reaching implications than any inter-office generation gaps. “Eventually, those millennials will be our customers, so it’s important to make sure we’re always viewed as up-and-coming and in-the-know.”

All In the Family

Spartan Printing in Arlington, TX, was founded in 1963, and was bought by Jim Trebilcock in 1985. Today, there are three generations of Trebilcocks working at Spartan: Jim (age 80), Jim’s son Vince (50), and Vince’s son (25). Vince’s older sister also works there, as does his nephew. Spartan had begun as a small offset shop that also did blueprint printing for architects and contractors. Just prior to the Trebilcock acquisition, it had sold off its offset equipment. High interest rates in the mid-1980s negatively impacted the construction business and thus the market for architectural blueprints, and the company saw the need to diversify. They bought a small A.B. Dick press and were off and running, adding equipment and commercial printing capabilities slowly but surely. Today, Spartan is a trade printer, working solely with brokers, distributors, and other printers.

Vince Trebilcock and his sister are vice presidents and are in the process of buying the company. But, as with Aurora Fastprint, getting the old guard to move in new directions has not been without its challenges. “The digital age has definitely by far surpassed [my father’s] knowledge,” said Vince Trebilcock. “But he’s old school, he’s iron-on-the-floor and in this day and time, it’s changing.”

To wit, a recent expansion into wide-format printing. “That was a tough sell to him,” he said. The company didn’t have any specific wide-format customers when it acquired half-a-million dollars worth of equipment—a printer and cutter. The reaction was, “‘You don’t just buy something and hope business comes along.’ It was tough on us, but we saw the writing on the wall. You’ve got to keep moving and we have.”

Vince’s son is currently a press operator, and his nephew manages the bindery. Both are interested in moving up into the front offices, and Trebilcock is grooming them. “Ultimately, I don’t want to be here when I’m 80, no disrespect to my dad,” he said. Still some things never change from generation to generation. “All along, [my father] would have concerns grooming us. ‘You don’t have the same work ethic.’ And we do. We all work extremely hard. It just seems like every generation is a little different.”

Spartan Printing, like a lot of printing companies, had found it very difficult to hire anyone under 30. The only experience Trebilcock had had working with the younger generation is hiring temps from a local agency. “It seems like the younger generations are looking for immediate gratification,” he said. “‘If I get hired today, when’s my first week of vacation?’ A generation like my dad’s, you have to work here 15 years before you get a day off!”

Is Kim Granholm at Aurora Fastprint grooming the next generation? “I have two boys, they’re five and nine, and I’m very hesitant,” she said. “I think that it puts a personal strain on your family relationship.” Although, they’re still too young to be clear on what they want to be when they grow up. “They are more interested in sitting in the chair and having grandpa spin them around in a circle,” she said.

“You have to have the right mix,” said Trebilcock, “and by ‘right mix’ I mean, not one person in my family is power hungry. My sister does the accounting, and I do the hiring and firing. Each of us does our own thing.

“It works very well if everyone has their role clearly defined.”