One of the most striking features of today’s workplace is the number of generations. We have entered an age of many different generations thrown together. Companies have become melting pots of different perspectives and attitudes.
It’s a completely new challenge for resellers.
The maturing baby boomer population is not retiring any more. Part of it is driven by financial considerations. The global financial crisis wiped out a lot of investments and growth in superannuation funds. But much of it too is being driven by demographics. Sixty is now the new 50, maybe even 40.
The World Health Organisation predicts we will see tech-savvy 100-year- olds in the workplace in the coming decades. Certainly septuagenarians including Gerry Harvey and Rupert Murdoch are kicking goals and Warren Buffett turns 81 this year.
At the same time, these maturing boomers are being followed by a much smaller group of Generation Xers, and an even smaller one of Ys. That makes potential hires and fires difficult, and the boomers are likely to stay.
Basically, today’s workforce can be broken up into four groups. First are the veterans. They are aged from 61 to 84. Many are part time, many have mentoring and training roles, but they all still contribute. The second group is the boomers, followed by the gen Xers. Then there is generation Y.
Each has different attitudes. Gen Y, for example, expects training as part of the routine.
For gen X, training is seen as something required to keep them motivated. If they’re not being trained and developed, they will look elsewhere. Boomers can’t take too much of it and veterans say
they have done enough and don’t have to prove anything.
The generations have different learning styles. Veterans prefer a classroom, boomers tend to like something that’s one-on-one and facilitated, gen Xers do it independently and for gen Ys, it’s totally collaborative and networked.
Gen Ys want feedback on demand, gen Xers would like it on a weekly or daily basis whereas Boomers will settle for something once a year. Veterans would say that no news is good news.
Furthermore, each will struggle with their own issues. Traditionalists tend to have difficulty dealing with related medical issues or depression and in some cases, consequences of their lifestyle behaviours, including smoking and alcoholism. They might also have issues with diversity.
Baby boomers prefer face-to-face interaction, consensus decision making, and they tend toward self-absorption. They do not like the strict management styles of their bosses from earlier generations. It was the boomers who introduced us to group decision making and made us focus on the process rather than company policy or procedure. Boomers are likely to struggle with issues such as the nontraditional work styles of generations X and
Y, sharing the appropriate level of praise and rewards, technology replacing human interaction and work/life balance. Gen X and gen Y would also say they struggle with practising what they preach.
The best of gen X are competent and know how to take risks. Generally, generation X will struggle with issues such as work-life balance, office politics and multi-generational team projects.
Significantly, gen Xers have more difficulty with multi-generational projects. Boomers are more tolerant, probably because Gen Ys are closer in age to their children and veterans to their parents.
Generation Y is a highly expressive, over confident group of risk takers. Full of energy, people in this group are full of creativity, innovation, global perspective, inclusiveness and immediacy. These are important energies for an organisation to harness. Generation Y will have trouble with such issues as absences related to their lifestyle decisions, respectful communication and, occasionally, the consequences of their lifestyles or risk taking. Some employers would also say they have issues about their functional literacy, especially their spelling.
All up, however, each generation brings its own strengths to the organisation and each has their set of unique challenges.
This means managers will have to ask some important questions. What are the main issues for each generation? What’s the learning style of each generation? What is the right mix of benefits and recognition for each generation? What can each generation learn from one another? What do leaders and managers need to know about each generation?
Smart resellers will design programs around this, creating alternative work arrangements like part timing and shorter working weeks to accommodate boomers, and implementing the flexibility that generation Y expects. It will mean accommodating employee differences and working to meet their specific needs and preferences.
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