It’s an accepted fact of life that parents
and their children won’t understand one
another, particularly during the teenage years. But what happens when these generational differences branch outside of
domestic squabbles? What do you do when
your cubicle mate went to school with
your daughter? Or when your boss remembers World War II?
“This is the first time in history where
four generations are in our workplace,”
says David Stillman co-founder of Bridge-Works. “We have the Traditionalists (pre-1946), the Boomers (1946-1964), the Gen-Xers (1964-1982), and the Millennials
(1982-2000).”
Smart Business spoke to Stillman about
how to navigate the opportunities and challenges of this multigenerational work force.
What are the differences between the four
workplace generations?
Each generation has lived through certain events and conditions during their
formative years. As a result, they each have
adopted their very own — and unique —
generational personality that they keep
throughout their lives.
Traditionalists: Support the institution
and put their own needs aside for the better good of the institution. They learned
that if they make it more about our society
than about themselves, they could get the
job done. That’s how they won two world
wars, beat back the Great Depression and
started so many of our wonderful American institutions. They have always viewed
hard work as its own reward.
Boomers: Support the institution but
want to change it, put their stamp on it and
stand out from the crowd. And they’ve
done a great job. But if you are trying to
stand out from the crowd, the reward landscape is different. They want rewards in
the form of pay increases, better offices
and fancier titles so that they can be
noticed.
Gen-Xers: Skeptical of institutions after
seeing so much corruption. Xers question
everything from work policies to dress
codes. Their number one incentive is increased autonomy and freedom because they don’t trust anyone else but themselves. After watching previous generations downsized out the door, they’re not
willing to pay the same price for success as
previous generations and they want to create lives where they can put family first.
Millennials: This generation has seen
too much terrorism. As a result, Millennials
only want to be involved in an institution if
they feel what they’re doing makes the
world a better place. This group’s incentives include doing work that has meaning
and collaborating with different people on
teams. This 76-million-strong generation
will hit the work force in the coming years.
But this doesn’t guarantee a flood of
résumés to blue-chip companies. Since the
playing field has been leveled their whole
life, this is a generation that will be very
open to working at smaller businesses.
What are the main opportunities with a multi-generational work force?
First of all, this group of employees has
the benefit of four different perspectives.
You can capitalize on the experience of the
‘been-there-done-that’ generations and tap
the fresh ideas of the generations that are
in sync with new trends and practices such
as technology that reaches every corner of
the globe. This allows the introduction of new strategies that can be filtered through
past experience to determine what will and
won’t work in the business. Diverse perspectives bring about better, safer change
in refining internal operations and reaching
multigenerational external markets.
What are the important challenges with a
multigenerational work force?
Managers often supervise someone in a
different generation, so styles can clash.
Managers need to motivate employees differently.
Also, each generation has a different
communication style. Traditionalists and
Boomers are accustomed to formal and
political communication based on a top-down hierarchy that they were raised with
in the workplace. The younger generations
are accustomed to instant gratification and
results, and crave informal, honest, to-the-point feedback on a frequent basis.
The Millennials aren’t used to getting bad
news, so it’s a shock when they’re suddenly
told they’re not as great as they thought they
were. With this group, managers need to
ease into constructive criticism and explain
why they’re giving this type of feedback.
How can businesses prepare their leaders to
effectively manage these employees?
One crucial point is that companies need
to capture the wealth of business knowledge and experience that Traditionalists
and Boomers have accumulated before
they retire. Companies run the risk of hiring new people that they don’t have enough
time or money to raise up to the productivity level of retirees.
Another important point to remember is
that what matters to one generation, might
not matter to others. Neither one is right
nor wrong, they’re just different. Classic
collisions include time at a desk, dress
codes and work style.
DAVID STILLMAN, the co-founder of BridgeWorks, a company
dedicated to solving generational issues in the workplace and in
the marketplace. He will be the keynote speaker at the Tampa Bay
WorkForce Alliance Professional Career Expo on April 10 at the
Renaissance Tampa Hotel International Plaza. For more information, visit www.workforcetampa.com/expo.
