How American workers feel about their role in the company differs with the generations, according to a survey of 27,813 employees at 13 companies conducted by ISR, a Chicago research and consulting firm. “Employees nationwide face workplace challenges in dealing with a number of issues, including company leadership, talent management, competitiveness and empowerment,” says Patrick Kulesa, ISR Global Research Director. “Our research uncovered significant differences in how the generations view their companies and their roles in them. Understanding these generation gaps and why they occur can help firms to increase employee engagement – and decrease turnover.”

The survey found that the youngest employees, those under 25, are the most optimistic about company leadership and career development, but are less engaged with their organizations. The Gen Xers (25-44 years old) are the least satisfied and most pessimistic about their corporate futures. The Baby Boomers (45-54) and Veterans (over 55) are least favorable on job authority and having information necessary to do their jobs, and they’re more concerned with “big picture” issues. “Past experience and changes in the social structure and the corporate environment may well have contributed to the disparity in attitudes between the generations,” says Kulesa.

Key Findings:
The most optimistic group is the Nexters, or Millenials. These under-25-year-old employees are positive about company leadership and opportunities, even though they feel they don’t have adequate authority to service customers from their positions as front-line service providers. And although they have a natural inclination to work in teams, they’re not feeling favorable toward workplace groups. Although a common assumption would be that older workers want more stability, Nexters were the most disgruntled about the constantly shifting objectives of their companies. “This is a case of positive energy meeting the stiff realities of corporate America,” says Patrick Kulesa, ISR Global Research Director. ” These young employees are not fully engaged. Research suggests they would like to feel more empowered to serve customers.”

The most pessimistic employees are the Generation Xers, employees between 25 and 44 years old. “They’re the wet blankets in the workplace,” says Kulesa. Gen Xers are least positive about their company’s competitiveness in the market. Late Gen Xers, in particular, (35-44 years old) are least satisfied with their companies overall, and the most worried about employment security. Unlike Nexters, who are more conformist, Gen Xers are more independent and creative, notes Kulesa. He adds that research suggests that Gen Xers may also be concerned about the control that the Baby Boomers have over their corporate futures. The Gen X pessimism and need for security may well have been shaped by the changing family structures of the 70s and the 80s and the dramatic increase in divorce.

The older workers, the Baby Boomers (employees 45-54) and Veterans (55 and older) make up what Kulesa terms an “empowerment cliff.” The Baby Boomers, as well as late Gen Xers, do not believe they have sufficient job authority. The Veterans, by virtue of their greater experience and credibility, should feel empowered to challenge traditional ways more than any other generation; yet they do not. “Interestingly, the factors that drive employee engagement vary across these generational groups in a very distinct way,” Kulesa says. ” Nexters and Gen Xers are more motivated by the reward systems (current and potential), while Baby Boomers and Veterans focus more on recognition distinct from pay and benefits.”

Copyright 2007. Reprinted with permission from hr.com

SOLUTIONS:

Mixing Four Generations in the Workplace
This video shows how to find common ground between all workers so everyone can be their best.

Generations: M.E.E.T. for Respect
This valuable program explains the potential for generational conflict, and how to nip problems in the bud.

Dialogue Among Generations
Learn the art of dialogue in this video that focuses on communication across generations.

By John Rossheim

What do you get when you call a meeting of a Silent, a Boomer, an Xer and a Nexter? The potential for plenty of intergenerational learning and the risk of a gaping disconnect that can harm productivity and perhaps even nudge from the workforce older professionals of rare talent and experience.

“For the first time in American history, we have four generations in the workplace,” says Chuck Underwood, a Cincinnati management consultant who specializes in multigenerational dynamics. For companies, this means recruiting and retaining workers ranging from those who are old enough to have fought in World War II, to those who are young enough to ask, “What was the Berlin Wall?”

In the 2000s, the youngest and oldest generations are burgeoning in the workplace. The Nexters, born since 1980, are beginning to graduate from high school and college and launch careers. Meanwhile, late Baby Boomers and members of the so-called Silent Generation are remaining in the workforce – by choice or economic necessity – in greater numbers. American workers age 55 and older stood at 22.7 million in May 2004, up from 20.7 million in 2002, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What are the chief challenges for organizations with four-generation workforces? To understand something about each generation; to educate managers and line workers about the meaning of these cultural differences; and to apply generational savvy to staffing strategies that will best serve customers and the bottom line.

Who’s Who: Each Generation Has a Distinct Profile.
Most discussion of the multigenerational workplace centers on the cultures in which four American generations came of age. Underwood’s characterizations of the generations are pithier than most:

Silent Generations (or Traditionalists or Matures). Born 1927 – 1945. They began their careers after World War II, when the premise was that the corporation rewards loyalty with loyalty back to you. Came of age when there were flush times for white men, scarce opportunities for others.

Baby Boomers. Born 1946 – 1964. They’re much less formal. Because there are so many, Boomers have faced fierce, lifelong competition. Entrepreneurial, yearn to distinguish themselves as individuals.

Generation X. Born 1965 – 1981. They’re entrepreneurial, prefer to work independently, and they’re looking for employers to help improve their skill sets. Don’t always play well with others.

Generation Y (or Millennials or Nexters or Echo Boomers). Born 1982-present. The most adult supervised generation has grown up trusting older people. Millennials love team play and are optimistic about their generation. We’ve just finished raising the oldest of them, but can only guess what kind of workers they’ll be.

Many Companies Botch Intergenerational Relations. Employers often make ham-handed efforts to leverage relationships between workers of different generations, according to Robert Thomas, executive director of the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business and co-author with Warren Bennis of Geeks & Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders.
“Most organizations say, ‘You’re old, be a mentor.’ And then, ‘You’re young, so you don’t know anything and you need a mentor,’ ” says Thomas. “Organizations need to carefully screen who they want to be mentors and proteges, train them, and instill that it’s a two-way street as a learning experience, Thomas adds.

And much of the literature of the multigenerational workplace can make workers of any generation feel pigeonholed. For example, the description of a conference session breezily stratifies millions of working people: “Through this workshop, you will develop a better understanding of the motivations and preferences of each generation . . .”

Training that Explains Differences Helps Bridge Generation Gaps.
“People are sensitive to being stereotyped,” says Glenda Harris, a counselor with Duke University’s employee assistance program in Durham, North Carolina. Who, after all, wants to be labeled Silent, Baby, X or Y? “We’ve addressed this by communicating how important it is to understand we’re all individuals.” “When we’ve presented this to groups, invariably there are a few people who are cautious,” adds Harris. But some professionals seem able to communicate information about the four generations without alienating all of them.

Some managers, sensing friction within a work group of wide-ranging ages, take it upon themselves to address multigenerational issues. Deborah Mohammed, regional call center manager at Mercy Health Partners in Cincinnati, took a seminar and brought the information back to her staff of 45 workers ages 17 to 72. “I helped them educate themselves about all generational groups and where they fit in,” says Mohammed. “I also made it clear that we all have behaviors that span all age groups.”
The training, conducted in 2003, was a success, Mohammed says. “The staff felt enlightened, and they were grateful to better understand each other.” Since the training, “the teaming has been much more fluid.” When older workers want technical advice, for example, they feel more comfortable now turning to tech-savvy Millennials on the team; the Millennials, in turn, feel appreciated.

Multigenerational Paradigms Must Hew to the Bottom Line.
Ultimately, employers won’t pay much attention to the multigenerational lens unless the effort can help align workforce management practices with business goals. In part to test this approach, Veritude is teaming up on a pilot project with RetiredBrains.com, an employment service for retirees or people about to retire. A goal of the project is to develop a new pool of candidates to staff Fidelity Investments call centers that serve retirement account customers.
“When you place a young person in a call center, their goal is to get out of the call center,” says Dan Chiacchia, manager of staffing and recruitment services at the Veritude site in Marlborough, Massachusetts. By offering older workers employment on their own terms – including part-time or flexible hours – Veritude hopes to place workers directly in the job that they really want.

In addition, because older workers often have faced retirement themselves, they’re likely to better understand the concerns of Fidelity’s retirement account holders. Fidelity wants to find out whether those improved customer relationships will translate to better customer retention.

“A generational strategy can help maximize employee productivity by maximizing fulfillment,” says management consultant Underwood. With the oldest and youngest working generations swelling by the millions, multigenerational staffing and training hold the promise of giving HR departments another way to contribute to the bottom line.

John Rossheim is a journalist in Providence, Rhode Island who writes for Workforce Insights on www.veritude.com. He writes
about workplace issues, employment trends and changing relationships between employers and workers.
Copyright 2007. Reprinted with permission from hr.com

SOLUTIONS:

Mixing Four Generations in the Workplace
This video shows how to find common ground between all workers so everyone can be their best.

Generations: M.E.E.T. for Respect
This valuable program explains the potential for generational conflict, and how to nip problems in the bud.

Dialogue Among Generations
Learn the art of dialogue in this video that focuses on communication across generations.

“You can work with — or manage — people from all generations effectively without selling your soul on eBay or pulling your hair out on a daily basis,” says the Center for Creative Leadership’s Jennifer Deal. Look past the stereotypes and learn these ten truths about generational conflicts at work, gleaned from a seven-year CCL study.

1. All generations have similar values. Many people talk about enormous differences in values between older and younger people as if these differences were an established fact. The most striking result from CCL’s research is how similar the generations are in their values priorities. Family is the value chosen most frequently by people of all generations. Other values named to the top ten by all generations included integrity, achievement, love, competence, happiness, self respect, wisdom, balance and responsibility. So why do people at work think the values of different generations are so different? Because even though the values are the same, the behaviors that go along with those values may be very different.

2. Everyone wants respect. We often hear that younger people are disrespectful of older employees and people in authority. We also hear complaints that older people show no respect for younger talent and ideas. The reality is that everyone wants respect – they just don’t define it the same way. Older people primarily talked about respect in terms of “give my opinions the weight I believe they deserve” and “do what I tell you to do.” Younger respondents characterized respect more as “listen to me” and “pay attention to what I have to say.”

3. Trust matters. The different generations have similar levels of trust in their organization and in upper management – they don’t trust them much. People of all generations and at all levels trust the people they work with directly (bosses, peers and direct reports) more than they trust their organizations. And people trust their organization more than they trust upper management.

4. People want leaders who are credible and trustworthy. What do different generations expect from their leaders? It turns out that age does not appear to matter much. People of all generations want their leaders to be credible, to be trusted, to listen well, to be farsighted and to be encouraging.

5. Organizational politics is a problem — no matter how old or young you are.
Everyone who isn’t winning at the political game dislikes it. People from all generations are concerned about the effects of organizational politics on their careers, on being recognized for the work they are doing and for getting access to the resources they need to do their job. Even if they don’t like it, employees know that political skills are a critical component in being able to move up and be effective at higher levels of management.

6. No one really likes change. The stereotype is that older people dislike anything about their workplace being changed and that younger people love change. These assumptions are not true. In general, people from all generations are uncomfortable with change. Only 12 people in the study said they actually liked change! Resistance to change has nothing to do with age; it is all about how much one has to gain or lose with the change.

7. Loyalty depends on the context, not on the generation. It’s often said that young people are no longer loyal to their organizations in the way that young people were in the past. Our research shows that younger generations are not more likely to job-hop than older generations were at the same age. In addition, people of all generations don’t necessarily think that being loyal in the old sense is good for their careers. The perception that older people are more loyal is, in fact, associated with context, not age. For example, people who are closer to retirement are more likely to want to stay with the same organization for the rest of their working life, and people higher in an organization work more hours than do people lower in the organization.

8. It’s as easy to retain a young person as it is to retain an older one — if you do the right things. Just about everyone feels overworked and underpaid. People of all generations have the same ideas about what their organization can do to retain them.

They want:
- Opportunities to advance within their organization.
- Learning and development.
- Respect and recognition.
- Better quality of life.
- Better compensation.

9. Everyone wants to learn — more than just about anything else. Learning and development were among the issues brought up the most frequently by people of all generations. Everyone wants to learn — people of all generations want to make sure they have the training necessary to do their current job well. They are also interested in what they need to be learning to get to the next level in their organization. Five developmental areas have made it onto every generation’s list: leadership, skills training in their field of expertise,
problem solving and decision making, team building and communication skills.

10. Almost everyone wants a coach. We’ve heard that younger people are constantly asking for feedback and can’t get enough of it. We’ve also heard that older people don’t want any feedback at all. According to our research, everyone wants to know how he or she is doing and wants to learn how to do better. Feedback can come in many forms, and people of all generations would love to receive it from a coach.

This article is adapted from a new CCL publication: Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Ground by Jennifer J. Deal (Jossey-Bass/CCL, 2006).

SOLUTIONS:

Mixing Four Generations in the Workplace
This video shows how to find common ground between all workers so everyone can be their best.

Generations: M.E.E.T. for Respect
This valuable program explains the potential for generational conflict, and how to nip problems in the bud.

Dialogue Among Generations
Learn the art of dialogue in this video that focuses on communication across generations.