Today’s workforce spans five generational groups, including the American President at one extreme and fast food workers and lifeguards manning their first jobs at the other.  People who’ve lived the zeitgeists of their generations ascribe shared meaning to what it means to be the age they are now with the experience of the eras they’ve lived. What does it mean regarding the workforce and technology, and how do we benefit from a team’s diversity of age and experience?

Who Are We, and What Do We Care About?

A few of the oldest generation members – the Traditionalists – are still in the workforce. Then, there are Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z – to list the 5. According to Pew Research in 2018, 35% of the workforce is comprised of Millennials, though other, newer statistics showing that as high as 50%. Millennials are entering into and thriving in the prime of their careers.  They’re managing older people. Within the next five years, there’s a likely mass Boomer retirement ahead. What’s it all mean?

Consider the rapid advancements in technology.  Contrast that with concepts like the library card catalog, date stamp, and a time when bank checks had the 19__ printed on them. Three of the five generations remember these library practices well. Most of Generation X finished school without computers dominating the classroom. All three of those generations have lived into and through the rise and later domination of technology.

The Clash of The Baby Boomers and Millennials

The Baby Boomer generation birthed its own babies, and those are the Millennials.  There’s a clash in the mindset and work styles, from loyal job-staying Boomers and the “opportunity is elsewhere, and I’m going to grab it” Millennials. Memes show Generation X standing between a warring Baby Boomer and Millennial and shrugging – not understanding the turmoil.

Millennials value inclusion, contribution, upward mobility, flexibility, and growth. Contrast that with the Baby Boomer focus on a tie to work as self-worth, values ascribed to interrelated financial and job security, and traditional workplace loyalty.  This generation is goal and title oriented.

Baby Boomer wisdom of “the what and why of things” is vital to organisations and their future.  This older generation often feels that as workers they had to “pay their dues” and put in their time to get where they are. Their Millennial counterparts arrive full of enthusiasm and ready to contribute and wishing not to be put in a bucket of fermenting “dues” to be paid. They offer ideas, and if those ideas are not acknowledged and discussed, they then stop offering.  And often they leave to find somewhere where they perceive that dues-paying matters less.

And, oh, goodness, the assumptions members of the generations make about each other. Millennial about Boomer: waiting it out until retirement, set in his ways, unwilling to learn technology, unable perhaps.  Boomer about Millennial: moves too fast, doesn’t understand what we had to undergo to get here, can’t bother to teach me all this whizbangery she’s doing.  It continues.

Mission, Vision, Goals, and Hope

How can the workplace instead benefit from their intergenerational teams, which are by nature more diverse when other and differing demographics are measured? Pair people with different strengths to work toward a common goal. As a worker, find a way to get to know the person or team you’re paired with or in. Focus on mission, vision, and goals – and affirm that each person wants respect, meaningful contribution, and appreciation – and then discuss together or as a team how these desires manifest for each person.  It differs.

In simpler terms, be strategic about mixing people from different generations to work together.

Strengths Finder is a great tool to determine where to focus regarding those strengths. Mine, for example, are Strategic, Maximizer, Activator, Intellection, and Input.

Succession Planning?

What’s a strong purpose for intentional mixing generations on projects and work teams? The goal of diversity is diversity of thought – different lenses viewing a common issue.

We know that Millennials leave employers earlier and more often than older generations.  Additionally, older generations are retiring.  Couple those two facts, and succession planning of key roles becomes an obvious focus for retaining key corporate knowledge and enabling future growth. Intentionally working to upskill the entire workforce – regardless of age – can help address succession planning concerns as well.  

You Promised to Talk About Technology

Technology-focused teams face different technical challenges.  Unsurprisingly, some are clashes in how we did things “then” and how we approach them now. In the past 35 years we’ve experienced astonishing technological change, impacting change management practices and capabilities.

Tech teams have to set aside squabbles about the tech or attack them directly, openly.  Many organizations need to conquer technical debt – which older generations might label as excellent code. Persisting the logic of the applications while building stronger and more securely coded versions (or whole new applications) requires the efforts of all team members.

Encourage Leadership Without a Title

To wrap up, we manage things and lead people.  Managers are titled; they’re given positions that intentionally move things along and, hopefully, improve them.  Leaders, however, can be anyone willing to risk status to invoke change for the better. Organisations that encourage workers to speak what needs to be heard embrace an essential kind of leadership.

Millennial workers want to take part and be valued for their contributions. Older workers like to have their knowledge and worth affirmed as well.  The appropriate team and leadership behavior, therefore, is to treat each person as an individual while also recognizing impacts from the shared experiences we lived that also make us part of our generation’s whole. Then, ask each team member to apply the lens of mission, vision, and goals of the organization.