Cut Younger Employee Turnover – With 6 Manager Essentials That Actually Work
Pay helps. Culture helps. Flexibility helps. Many things help retention.
But after years of research, client work, and conversations with leaders across industries, Haydn identified six manager behaviors that most consistently influence whether younger employees stay, engage, and grow.
This half- or full-day program gives managers and supervisors the practical behaviors, conversations, and tools that consistently make the biggest difference in retaining younger employees, without requiring them to spend half their day focused on retention.
“Cut through the theory and all the research and tell me what’ll actually
work to help us cut turnover with people in their 20s.”
The Question That Started It All
A manufacturing leader once asked Haydn a pointed question.
He’d been wrestling with younger employee turnover for years. He had tried things,
studied the research, and run pilots. He knew enough to be skeptical of easy answers.
When he learned Haydn had left his previous firm and gone independent, he didn’t ask about the theory.
He asked one question.
That question became the foundation for The 6 Essentials for Managers that Cut Turnover — a practical framework built for the environments where managers actually operate.
The 6 Essentials
The six manager behaviors most consistently linked to retaining younger employees.
Tell the Truth Early
They get told the truth before they are hired.
Don’t Leave Them Alone
They aren’t left alone after they get hired.
Create Clarity
They don’t have to guess how they’re doing or who is on their side.
Have Open Conversations
They have open conversations with their manager about work, the team, and how both are working in their life.
Explain the Why
They know what’s going on in the business and why things are not always the way they want.
Talk About Their Future
They have clear conversations with their manager about their future.
The Challenge
Turnover costs more than recruiting dollars.
Every time an employee leaves, managers lose time recruiting, onboarding, retraining, and rebuilding team momentum. Strong employees get frustrated. Supervisors get worn down. Teams struggle to stabilize.
In many organizations, employees in their 20s account for most of the turnover managers are dealing with. Managers often respond by pulling back — waiting to see if newer employees will “stick” before investing time and attention. Unfortunately, that hesitation often makes turnover worse.
Most managers genuinely want to keep good employees. But many have never been shown the specific day-to-day behaviors that help younger employees feel connected, informed, supported, and motivated to stay.
Younger employees make daily decisions about whether to stay. Most of those decisions are shaped by ordinary interactions with their direct manager.
What Participants Will Learn
Managers and supervisors will leave able to:
1
Discern the two types of turnover so your managers don’t focus on things that don’t cut it.
2
Discover how the new life stage of Emerging Adulthood causes most of the turnover for Gen Z and younger Millennials.
3
Discover how the newer life stage of Unencumbered Adulthood causes most of the turnover for your older Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.
4
Sort through the misunderstandings that discourage managers from investing in younger employees.
5
Know the 6 Essentials that Cut Turnover for Emerging Adults and how to adapt them for the rest of the work force.
6
Recognize the signs of the 6 Essentials that aren’t working.
7
Practice the skills that make each essential work. Modular Series™
8
Practice the tools that they will take with them to enable long term implementation.
Why This Program is Different
Most manager training teaches retention techniques. Managers learn them, nod, and go back to doing what they were doing before.
Not because the techniques don’t work.
Because most managers are sitting on a set of deeply held assumptions that make the techniques feel unnecessary, risky, or simply wrong for their situation.
- “Most of them won’t stay anyway, so why invest the time?”
- “If I let them vent, it just encourages more complaining.”
- “Talking about career growth will make them leave faster.”
Until those assumptions get examined —out loud, in the room — no tool or framework gets traction.
Each essential is built around the specific manager assumption that blocks it.
Participants don’t just receive a tool — they work through the thinking that keeps
experienced managers from using it.
The result is practical tools managers will actually use because the resistance to using them has already been addressed.
The framework draws on Haydn Shaw’s decades of work with generational dynamics, along with his research on Emerging Adulthood—the life stage shaping how many Gen Z and younger Millennial employees think about work, identity, loyalty, and their future.
Understanding that stage helps managers respond more effectively — without
stereotyping younger generations or lowering expectations.
Participant Materials
Participant guidebook
15 tools and templates managers can use immediately
Hardcover copy of Sticking Points by Haydn Shaw
Program Details
Half-day or full-day format
Delivered live in-person or virtually
Available as direct delivery or train-the- trainer certification
Part of the People Driven Results Modular Series™
Meet Haydn Shaw
Haydn Shaw is the Founder and CEO of People Driven Results, keynote speaker, and author of Sticking Points: How to Get 5 Generations Working Together in the 12 Places They Come Apart.
For more than 30 years, he has worked with leaders and organizations across manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, utilities, associations, retail, and hospitality.
Over that time, he has trained more than 30,000 supervisors and managers and worked with hundreds of organizations on leadership, retention, and generational dynamics.
His work on generational differences and Emerging Adulthood helps organizations better understand what younger employees need from managers to stay, engage, and grow.
Turn Everyday Management Moments Into Retention Moments
Most younger employees don’t leave because of one big event. They leave after a series of ordinary interactions
that leave them feeling disconnected, unsupported, or uncertain about their future.
The 6 Essentials helps managers change those moments. Through practical tools, proven conversations, and manager
behaviors that actually work, supervisors learn how to create the conditions that keep good employees engaged and growing.
If retaining younger employees is a priority, let’s talk about how The 6 Essentials can fit your organization