Many leaders are grappling the with the challenge of leading multiple generations in the workplace.
This isn’t completely new, but it is having a greater impact because people are living longer.
Advances in healthcare and standards of living have caused this increase in life expectancy. Because people are generally living more healthily for longer, they are engaged in the workforce for a longer period too.
In this post, I’ll take a look at the impact of the increasing generations in the workplace, and what thoughtful leaders can do to navigate the changes in a positive way.
The Impact of Generations in the Workplace
If people are living longer, they’re going to work for longer too. After all, people generally need income to live.
But people also need a sense of purpose, and work provides purpose and meaning to people of all ages.
So what does this mean?
It means that you might have a 20 year old working in your office, alongside a 75 year old … with all ages in between!
You might even be faced with as many as six generations in the workforce at any one time.
People of different generations have been shaped by various factors. These include events such as world wars or pandemics, or advances in technology such as the rise of the internet and social media.
Due to these influences, you might notice the following differences between generations:
- Language. Language has evolved over time and you’ll find that younger generations may use different words and slang terms that older generations may not be familiar with (and vice versa)
- Experience. Obviously, if you’ve lived and worked for longer, you have more experience. Experience can be helpful, but can also hold us back because we think we know it all!
- Attitude or worldview. Different generations have varied attitudes to work and life in general. These don’t apply equally to every person in a generation, but there are several themes that tend to arise.
These differences can obviously provide a source of conflict, which I’ll look at shortly.
Learn More: Thoughtful Leader Podcast #236: Leadership Lessons From Younger Generations.
Common Stereotypes of Generations in the Workplace
When I deliver training and the topic of generations comes up, I sometimes get the class to do a stereotyping exercise.
I ask them “What are some of the stereotypical things we think about the younger and older generations?”
For the younger generations, I often hear:
The bad: Lazy, entitled, uncommitted, no work ethic, sensitive.
The good: Adaptable, good with technology, innovative.
And for the older generations, I hear things like:
The bad: Stubborn, resistant to change, not tech-savvy.
The good: Good work ethic, experienced, resilient.
One group even said to me that older workers were “smelly”.
But then, someone else said “younger workers are smelly too!” so this particular factor may be common to both younger and older generations.
This just goes to show that our perceptions of generations are often shaped by our experiences with specific people of that generation!
Conflicts Between the Generations
As you might expect, the various beliefs about the generations can give rise to conflict.
The common conflicts I observe often relate to:
- Work ethic. Older workers can have a tendency to see younger people as uncommitted and lazy. This can cause frustration for leaders, because they’re not seeing the level of commitment that they need to get the work done.
- Efficiency. While younger workers can appear to be “lazy”, this is sometimes because they think there are better ways to do things. Sometimes “this is the way we’ve always done it” is not the best way to do it.
- Terminology. The generations speak differently, and can confuse each other. Younger people may use unfamiliar slang, while older workers might use terms that they have gained from many years of experience which younger workers may not understand.
- Resilience. A general perception of younger workers is that they are entitled and give up easily, whereas older workers are stoic and resilient. Older leaders may become frustrated when they believe they have to tiptoe around the delicate feelings of “sensitive” younger workers.
So not only do we have diversity of personality, culture and gender in our teams (among many other sources of diversity), we now have to deal with the influence of generations, too!
But these challenges aren’t going away anytime soon. In fact, it makes sense that they will become more common, and greater, as more generations remain in the workforce.
Learn More: Avoiding Conflict? Here’s What You’re Really Doing.
How Do We Handle All These Generations?
Next, I’ll take a look at some ideas to try to handle these generational differences when you’re leading.
It’s not easy, and adds greater complexity to an already tricky melting pot of things to consider about people in your team.
1. Use the generations as “clues, not absolutes”
It’s very easy to stereotype and label people of a certain generation (especially if they aren’t doing what you want or you don’t agree with them).
But, we need to hold back from doing this as best we can.
After all, if you consider the iceberg of human behaviour (see this post for what it’s all about), generation (or age) is only one factor beneath the waterline of our icebergs that shapes our behaviour.
There are a huge number of other factors that influence behaviour, such as culture, past experiences, biases, beliefs, mental and physical health.
These all play a part, so if we just assume things about people because of their generation, we’re going to be wrong much of the time.
Ryan Jenkins is a speaker about generational differences at work and uses the phrase “clues, not absolutes” when referring to generations.
In other words, think about the generation of a person as a clue as to how that person may behave or think, but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all of how they operate.
2. Take time to understand the generations
It’s worth spending a little time understanding the various generations and some of the influences that shaped them.
This post is a good place to start, but you can do your own research more specific to the generations in your team.
Why is this important?
Well, I think it’s helpful to have an idea of the factors influencing the various generations.
For example, when I consider people from Gen-Z, I think about the time they grew up in, which would have been dominated by the internet and social media, along with various wars and financial insecurity.
This ready access to information could have the effect of making someone “lazy”, because they can find solutions without needing to know the answer directly.
Growing up with easy access to social media may make this generation more insecure, prone to unhealthy comparisons with others, and also susceptible to believing that they can “get rich quick” based on what they see online.
An understanding of each generation can give you a healthy dose of empathy. You’ll have an idea of where they’re coming from, and when you’re leading them this can go a long way.
Learn More: 4 Ways Leaders Can Build Empathy in the Workplace (and Why It Matters).
3. Find the common ground
At the end of the day people are just people, so getting to know them (regardless of generation) is a must.
Most people want to do interesting work, find a sense of purpose and meaning and to do a good job. They also have hobbies and interests.
Spend more time with people of different generations in your workplace, and you’ll find out more about them. And likely, you’ll have more in common than you might have originally thought.
This common ground can break down barriers and provide a sense of connection that can reduce some of the friction.
This sounds simple (and it is), but the real trick is to make the effort (even when you don’t feel like it).
4. Identify and use each person’s strengths
When it comes to leadership, it’s important that people are able to use their best skills to contribute to a team.
Otherwise, people feel like they’re not really doing valuable work or making a meaningful contribution.
Sometimes generations (especially younger ones) are influenced by factors that make them a perfect fit for certain tasks.
Got a younger “lazy” team member? Well, maybe they are “lazy” because they like to find better ways to do things and spend less effort.
Sounds perfect for an improvement project!
Got a tech-savvy youngster who knows how everything works? Make them the go-to person for tech help in your team.
Or maybe you have someone who is strong on diversity and championing various causes for the good of the planet. You might be able to get their help in leading a related initiative in your workplace.
There are opportunities out there, if you look for them.
Learn More: Thoughtful Leader Podcast #112: Why Smart Leaders Seek Continuous Improvement.
5. Watch out for the self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is an interesting phenomenon that can catch us unawares, if we aren’t careful.
This has been researched extensively in educational settings in particular, where teacher expectations have been seen to shape the performance of students for better or worse (even if the expectations of the teachers are incorrect!)
It starts with a belief about a person.
For example, a belief that our Gen-Z team member Jeremy is lazy.
Our actions are then shaped by that belief. That is, we will start to act like Jeremy is lazy, because we believe it.
Jeremy will start to pick up on these beliefs. He’ll notice that we don’t trust him with important work, and we check up on him often to make sure work is complete.
This can lead to Jeremy losing motivation, showing less commitment and then putting in less effort.
After this, we tell ourselves “You see? I knew Jeremy was lazy!” which confirms our initial beliefs.
The point is that we need to be very careful of what we believe about people from various generations.
We can’t take a belief about a whole generation as the truth about one person. We need to consider each person as a unique individual … because they are.
Otherwise, we may fall into the trap of having our behaviour follow our misguided beliefs.
Learn More: How a Self Fulfilling Prophecy Will Make or Break Your Team.
Growing Generations in the Workplace Are Here to Stay
Some of this post may seem like common-sense, and in many ways it is.
We want to build empathy, find common ground and utilise the strengths of each individual, regardless of generation.
You might say this applies to leadership in general, and I’d say you’d be right.
But when it comes to generations people often have strong beliefs, and these can shape our actions and experiences.
So when you are leading your team, consider the generation that they come from as simply one piece of the puzzle of that person, rather than being the sole reason for how they show up at work.
Do you have multiple generations in your team? How do you get the best out of them?
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