The organisational generation gap
pharmafile | July 28, 2008 | Feature | Business Services |Â Â careers, generations, recruitmentÂ
If you look at your organisation carefully, it is likely you will find three or even four generations represented among the staff. They may still be at different positions in the hierarchy according to age and career, but they are increasingly likely to be working alongside each other in project or operational teams.
The Age Discrimination laws and declining birth rates mean that this situation is unlikely to change any time soon. People are going to be working longer, and employers will want to keep staff longer as well. Young recruits who join the workforce at the start of their careers will not necessarily be displacing someone who is retiring at the other end.
While there have always been different age groups in companies, until relatively recently they were not expected to work directly together. Young apprentices could see their career mapped out in the ages of their superiors – greater seniority coming with greater age – but would not expect to sit round a table with someone old enough to be their father or even grandfather.
Nowadays, teams are built around talents and capabilities, and are becoming more diverse. Organisations know that a diverse team can be more than the sum of its parts. Generational synergy may be a key factor in determining the success of companies in the future. It is increasingly crucial that 'learning organisations' learn from every employee, not just those in senior positions.
Multi-generational teams bring new communication challenges. People of a similar age and outlook communicate in the same way. Their lives and experiences tend to have been shaped by the same events and circumstances. Mix up the generations, put a 60-year-old and a 25-year-old together, and you bring a whole range of differences to the table.
So the manager's task is not only to combine the right mix of skills, but also to facilitate communication between colleagues who might include those who remember rationing and those who cannot imagine life before mobile phones. What are the new rules for communicating effectively in multi-generational organisations?
Know your generations
The four generations in the workplace are not simply younger versions of each other. Their values and attitudes have been formed in response to widely different circumstances and historical events. People trying to solve the cross-generational conundrum refer to 'Matures', 'Baby Boomers', 'Generation X' and 'Generation Y', and define them by the major events and prevailing attitudes of their formative years. Waiting in the wings are the 'Millenials', those born around the turn of the 21st century, who will bring yet more diversity to the workplace in a few years' time.
Those in the Mature category are in their mid-sixties and older. The youngest were born just as the Second World War was ending, into a time of rationing and austerity. Their lives were shaped by economic depression and war around the world. Matures grew up valuing duty, honour, country and sacrifice – they are happy to conform and willing to put up with hard times. Their generation expected a job for life and equates age with wisdom. They follow the rules without question.
Baby Boomers are the post-war generation, the progeny of the boom in birth rates that started in 1946. Workplace Boomers are aged between their early forties and early sixties. They tend to be optimistic and look for opportunities for personal growth.
Boomers are the workaholics who introduced 'presenteeism' – they like to be seen to be working and like trophies to mark their successes. Their era was defined by change for the individual, in the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution. Their wars were fought in Vietnam and on the campuses of universities.
Generation X were born between the mid-1960s and the early 1980s, so in the workplace they are represented by those aged from their late twenties to early forties. Changes in parenting attitudes, and the fact that their Baby-Boomer parents were both working full time, meant that Generation X were the 'latch-key kids' and were treated as friends rather than children by their parents. They grew up questioning authority and their parents' workaholism. Their suspicion makes them the conspiracy theory generation, and perhaps their distrust of authority was well founded, as they saw jobs for life become a thing of the past. Radical political change for Generation X was about the pursuit of freedom – they see themselves as individuals and value independence. They are motivated by fun and do not equate leadership with status.
Generation Y is the information technology generation. As Emma Reynolds, co-founder of Ask Gen Y said, 'We've never had to memorise a phone number and we've never had to get off the sofa to change channel on the TV.'
While they may be the youngest in the workplace, they can have valuable skills. They live in a connected world of mobile phones, instant messaging, social networking on the internet, and even the rather archaic (to them) medium of e-mail. They are the next generation of optimists and tend to be more group-orientated than Generation X. Their most valuable asset is time and they tend to multi-task rather than focus on one thing. Generation Y sees itself as the problem-solving generation, including having to solve the environmental problems that their parents and grandparents have bequeathed them.
Ignore what you have just read
The generation gap in the workplace cannot be solved by a history lesson. Studies of multi-generational teams do give us insights into what to expect from the different generations, but these are only generalisations and relying on them can lead to misunderstandings.
For instance, the consensus is that Matures will work hard to produce quality and will not push for individual recognition, while Baby Boomers will take the attitude that everyone must work until the job is finished.
Generation X-ers apparently like to work in teams where each member has a unique role, but do not believe that team members need to work in close proximity to each other. Generation Y looks for the benefits to themselves of working in a particular group. But how will you react if your youngest colleague behaves like a Baby Boomer and a Mature spends all day listening to their iPod?
It is very dangerous to pigeon-hole your colleagues according to their age. A generalised description of how a particular age group thinks and behaves will only ever be a generalisation.
A moment's thought reveals that defining a generation by a few seminal events and people is rife with contradiction. Baby Boomers protested against the Vietnam War in their thousands, but they also fought and died in the same war. Generation X were punks, but they were also New Romantics. Generation Y may be self-obsessed, but they are also going to save the planet.
Understand the generalisations, but treat them as background information and do not fall into the easy trap of stereotyping your colleagues. Remind yourself that only learning about the individuals themselves can tell you what they are truly like.
Listen
Listening should be one of those things that goes without saying, literally. You cannot understand someone if you do not listen.
It is often obvious when the person you are talking to is only waiting for their turn to speak and not taking in anything you are saying, and morale is quickly lost if people do not think they are being listened to. In the extreme, listening might even be more important than acting on what you have heard – the famous Hawthorne experiments of the 1920s showed that productivity increased even when working conditions were made worse; the employees responded to the fact that managers had heard their complaints and were trying.
Listening can also help you to learn what motivates people and to develop the right incentives package. In the multi-generational organisation, it is no longer safe to have a fixed set of benefits that apply across the entire staff. Not only does this show that you are not listening to their needs, but also that you lack flexibility. Salaries and incentives packages have to be updated very frequently.
By developing tailor-made packages that reflect the differences between your employees, you can demonstrate that you have truly listened to them.
Be open-minded
Something that is different is not necessarily wrong. A young employee who calls older colleagues by their first name is not being disrespectful. While the older generations have grown up addressing their elders formally as Mr Smith or Mrs Jones, younger generations have a more relaxed style. They do not see their elders as their superiors, so using the first name comes naturally.
The workplace is changing all the time. If you are from a generation of closed office doors and doing things by the book, open-plan designs and the apparently more relaxed attitude they suggest could be hard to get used to. Would a candidate be put off by what they saw, or could you demonstrate that you will be able to create conditions under which they would be comfortable?
Being open-minded also means accepting that different employees will be motivated by different things. Salary is not necessarily the key to motivating Generation Y, just as flexi-time is not always important to Baby Boomers.
Ask the right questions
Having a standard set of interview questions for candidates will not help you to understand the differences between a forty year-old and a recent graduate. The Age Discrimination Act means that you cannot choose who you interview according to their age, and so you will have to devise a way of interviewing that will get the best information out of the candidate, whatever age they are.
Open-ended questions, those that do not have a yes or no answer, help you to find out much more about the person you are talking to. Whether in an interview or a team meeting, giving people the opportunity to expand on a subject can give you insights that you never knew could be useful.
Use the right medium
Some people respond best to a phone call or a face-to-face meeting, others are more likely to act on an e-mail or a text. It seems obvious that the younger generations will be more comfortable with the latest methods of communication, but do not assume that they never want to see you in person.
Sometimes changing your method of communication from the usual can make a significant difference. It is unlikely that many companies still use Telex machines, but don't forget the fax. And how would you feel receiving a handwritten letter rather than a one-line e-mail? Would you respond differently even if they both contained the same request?
The right medium is not just how you send a message to someone, it also includes how you use social and team-building events to learn more about your colleagues. An away day can be a good way to find out more about someone's hobbies and unexpected skills, and will help you to build a more complete picture of them as a person.
Ask for feedback – and listen to it!
How will you know if you are communicating effectively? Successful teams, delivering to deadline and creating value would be one indication; reduction in staff turnover another.
But sometimes there might not be such obvious indicators, and when you are working on long-term targets you should seek regular feedback to make sure that things are proceeding smoothly. Frequent one-to-ones might be needed, especially if the team is not only diverse but also working in several locations.
Winston Churchill once said, "Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." Feedback is only beneficial if you use it in a way that shows you have taken your colleagues' ideas and opinions on board – that they have taught you something.
Summary
Good communication generally boils down to common sense, but common sense and good practice do not automatically go hand in hand when a deadline looms. You should be aware that not everybody communicates in the same way. Knowing about your colleagues' generation is a start, but listening is the only way to really understand them – and get the best out of them.
Box: Bridging the generation gap
* Learn – different generations grew up with different influences and technologies.
* Don't stereotype – how would you like to be pigeon-holed?
* Listen – don't just use a conversation or interview as an excuse to be heard.
* Be open-minded – what's different is not necessarily wrong.
* Ask the right questions – open-ended questions elicit more useful answers.
* Use the right medium – don't send a text to someone who doesn't know how to use it.
* Ask for feedback – don't assume that no comment means you're doing everything right.
Tarquin Bennett-Coles is manager of RSA Interims. For more information please email tarquin.bennett-coles@theRSAgroup.com or visit www.thersagroup.com
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