In a recent conversation with the HR leader of a Midwestern U.S.–based financial services company, she told us that older employees were confounded by the views and behaviors of Millennial and Gen Z employees, such as their insistence on remote working, “fickle” work styles, and unbridled honesty when work wasn’t going their way. Conversely, the younger set found the company veterans to be inflexible, uncreative, and often naïve in their willingness to take company leaders’ word at face value.
3 Strategies to Bridge Generational Divides at Work
Generational disconnect is an ages-old problem. But for the first time ever, we now have five generations in the workforce. And the consequences of this disconnect are more severe in this post-Covid era: Company leaders are balancing the call for more purposeful work from their employees with ever-increasing performance demands to succeed in their markets. Based on their combined decades of academic and applied research as well as their hands-on experience inside and advising some of the world’s most progressive companies, the authors present three approaches that help people not only see the value in age differences, but also use that diversity to boost employee retention and productivity, innovate more consistently, and deepen customer relationships.