Closing The Workplace Generation Gap
Author: Sam Galea

With the obvious exception of the very young and elderly, the
fact that there is a generational mix in the Australian
workplace simply reflects our general population demographics.

In the factories, workshops and offices of the past the
different cohorts were more stratified with older people in
senior management positions and younger ones in menial roles.
However compared to a generation ago when both society and work
was based on this hierarchal structure today's workplace is one
where teams of diverse ages work together on the same project,
where older leaders manage across generations and where younger
graduates manage older workers.

As a result of working well into their 60s and perhaps 70s,
Baby Boomers will be managing not just Gen X, the generation
below them, but also Gen Y and probably Gen Z. At the same time
there are also many Xers and Ys who are already managing
increasingly older Boomers.

All this gives credence to the view that greater generational
understanding is more important today particularly in relation
to the three cohorts making up the majority of today's
Australian work force: Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964;
Generation X born between 1965 and 1979; and Generation Y born
1980 to 1994.

Social researcher Mark McCrindle defines a generation under
three factors: a group of people who share the same life stage,
live through the same economic, educational and technological
times and whom the same social markers and events shaped.

That is a useful definition although an addition I would make
is that these social markers and events were ones that impacted
during the formative years of fifteen to twenty-five creating
paradigms by which each generation continued to view their
world as they aged.

None of this is to deny the obvious, simply that youth of all
eras demonstrate similar characteristics such as experimental
lifestyles, questioning of the status quo, pushing of
boundaries and more. In addition, as individuals, we bring
well-developed personal values to work every day and these also
greatly influence our communication behaviour. Nevertheless, I
believe that the social markers and events we share with other
cohort members are also a very strong factor in influencing
characteristics, values and therefore workplace performance.

The full version of this article and my keynote presentation on
this subject reference these in detail but for now let me go
straight to the common characteristics and values influenced by
these social markers.

Baby Boomers

The older "leading edge" Boomers are highly motivated by
security and the work ethic and have a reputation for being the
workaholic generation while younger "trailing edge" Boomers have
values tending towards those of Gen X.

Overall Boomers are very motivated by responsibility and they
tend to reach decisions easily perceiving themselves as
authority figures on just about any subject and tending to
emphasise this aspect by leaning on reputation, experience and
self-reliance, which can all be taken as simple inflexibility
by Gen X and Y.

Having grown up in an era where the spoken voice in teaching,
media and public life was all-important the preferred Boomer
learning style is essentially auditory so meetings,
presentations and straight-forward classroom learning are
totally normal and acceptable to them. In addition they are
very content driven and have a preference for hard facts and
information.

As managers and leaders, Boomers like to be in control tending
towards a cooperative management style rather than an
authoritarian one and because they are content-driven Boomers
are analytical rather than emotional as leaders.

Generation X

Gen X has grown up with a belief that there are no absolutes, a
characteristic often reflected in their attitude to careers.
Simply put, today's job is there only to enhance value in terms
of future opportunities.

They value variety, freedom and work/life balance. In his book
"Generations At Work" Raines writes, "Xers are very clear about
the meaning of work balance in their lives. Work is work and
they work to live, not live to work". This Gen X sense of
freedom shows up in a need to manage their own work without any
micro-management. Additionally work/life balance is extremely
important and the freedom to achieve this is often perceived as
a greater reward than money – freedom being the ultimate reward.

Gen X is very motivated by individuality, their own sense of
achievement and their ability to relate to peers. Good
education has created a questioning approach to work which can
be seen by older managers as a lack of respect. They feel they
have a right to know "why".

The Gen X management and leadership style is more laid-back and
cooperative compared to Boomers, and they are more inclined to
manage by consensus with a high respect for creativity.

One thing to keep in mind is that in seven years the youngest
Boomer will be 50 and the oldest will be in their late 60s so
one thing is certain, corporate power is moving into the hands
of Gen X at a great rate. A recent study by the Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology (Family Business Studies) stated that
over the next decade AUD$1,544 TRILLION will be passed on from
the existing leaders of family businesses to the younger
generation.

Generation Y

The strongest word to characterise Gen Y is informality. Mind
you this generation is also very long on idealism but they
combine this with a commitment to having fun with a strong
emphasis on social relationships.

They also bring a great deal of optimism into the workplace
however this can often translate into high expectations in
terms of salary, job flexibility and duties with less
willingness to take on the initial grunt work and an
unrealistic desire to skip this and go straight to the top.

They tend to be a sceptical bunch and this scepticism is a
product of the era in which they entered the workforce – an era
of downsizing, deregulation and leaner, meaner corporations. A
significant number of them also saw their Boomer parents made
redundant after a lifetime at one job. These factors have
influenced them to focus on short term rewards, a concept often
not in tune with traditional workplace incentive and promotion
policies.

Their self-discovery is very strongly oriented towards
achievement but this is a sense of achieving an end-result
rather than following processes. They also prefer to arrive at
decisions by negotiation, an approach that is the total
opposite of authoritarianism and in fact most of what they do
at work tends to be a negotiation of some sort.

Gen Y is more computer literate at a younger age than any
previous generation because they have been in front of PCs
almost from the day they were born. This dictates their
preferred learning style that is visual and kinesthetic, rich
in narratives and metaphors and multi-sensory – a style that
also feeds into their training environment, which they prefer
to be the opposite of the structured classroom.

Their management and leadership style is an amalgam of all this
and when they are given an opportunity for greater
responsibility Gen Y members are eager to take this on however
their leadership style is more consensus-driven than Gen X and
they are also eager to be mentored through this stage of
development.
By absorbing and analysing this information, comparing it to my
own experiences in a 25-year management career, more recent
observations as an executive coach and through additional
research I have arrived at a matrix which compares generational
characteristics against some suggested strategies that a manager
can use to both motivate cohort members and encourage more
positive workplace communication.

Those interested in receiving the full version of this article
and a copy of the matrix may contact me through my website
www.coachability.com.au .

Whether you are in senior management, a front line manager, HR,
L and D or simply someone who has an interest in what makes
people tick; this generational knowledge can be very useful
additional tool to assist in creating better workplace
communication and preventing problems that may feed into poor
staff retention.

I believe that good leaders are those who are prepared to
recognise generational diversity within their teams and as a
result, these leaders practice more than a "one size fits all"
approach. They find ways to close the workplace generation gap
so that every generation can be heard equally in the
realisation that no one group has all the answers.

Website: www.coachability.com.au
Email: samgalea@coachability.com.au

COPYRIGHT 2007

About The Author: Former CEO Sam Galea runs Coachability an
Executive Coaching practice based in Sydney, Australia
http://www.coachability.com.au . He coaches leaders challenged
by inappropriate employee behaviour and performance,
particularly in cases where retention of that staff member is
critical to the operation.