Bridging the age gap | With four generations together in the workplace, getting along is a part of the job
April Clark is a baby boomer. Born in 1963, at the end of the boom, Clark admits she is in some ways typical of her generation: A mother of two, she was so focused on ascending the career ladder she returned to work just three months after having each of her children so she "wouldn't lose my place in line."
Clark, who is now Maine's regional director for Manpower Inc., a nationwide temp agency, says her baby boomer way of putting career ahead of other priorities is foreign to younger workers, members of Generation X (born 1964 to 1978), or millennials, also known as Generation Y, (born after 1978). Those younger workers are all about balancing life and work. They thrive on workplace creativity and excitement, and, especially in the case of millennials, they switch jobs on average once every 16 months to keep that spark alive.
While Clark didn't think twice about speeding back to work as a new mother, many younger workers not only would take their time, they also may jump the career track for interests other than family — like travel, education or simply the rush of a new adventure. All this jumping around spooks Manpower's clients, many of whom are boomer managers or business owners who can't understand why Manpower is recommending someone who's held, for example, five jobs in as many years.
Experts on generations at work say this is the first time in history that four generations of workers — people born anytime from the 1920s to 1989 — are sharing office space. Just as families struggle to find common ground between loved ones whose world views are shaped by the society they knew as children, so do some workplaces where old and young employees alike must come together to get the job done. Here in Maine, some companies have begun training their managers to be sensitive to generational tendencies, though the concept leaves at least one of Maine's largest employers a little uneasy.
Training managers and co-workers to modify their conduct according to generational personalities is an occasionally thorny issue in human resources circles in Maine and around the country, and it's one even devotees admit shouldn't be forced. According to a 2004 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 60% of human resources professionals said they weren't aware of any intergenerational conflict among employees. But among the 40% who said they were aware of such conflict, the most common sources of tension were just the type to stymie productivity — resentment and misunderstandings based on different takes on work ethic, dress, punctuality and relationship to authority.
"Now we have what I call a perfect storm — all of these generations in the workforce at the same time, for different reasons," says Meagan Johnson, a self-proclaimed "generational humorist" who will bring her popular "Zap the Gap" lecture to the Maine Human Resources Convention in May.
Johnson, a Gen Xer, began speaking on generational differences at work a decade ago after working in sales at Quaker, Kraft Foods Inc. and Xerox Corp. In what Johnson describes as a typical Gen X detour, she left the corporate world after being frustrated by older supervisors reprimanding her for things like a funky hairstyle rather than congratulating her for clinching sales. "I tell groups that we have such an opportunity with multiple generations, yet we tend to want to surround ourselves with ourselves, like with like," explains Johnson, who is based in Arizona. "But when we surround ourselves with multiple generations there is such an opportunity for input and collaboration. But it's up to you to be flexible to make it work."
"Generational signposts"
If there's a keystone generation in today's business world, it's the long-toiling, hard-working baby boomers. Today's managers and business leaders are most often boomers, which means their tolerance for generational diversity could make or break their company's recruitment and retention efforts.
"[Boomers] are going to be in the workforce for a long time, because they have more credit card debt than anybody," jokes Johnson. "Boomers don't think that joke is very funny."
They may not think it's funny, but boomers' unwillingness or inability to retire is one reason intergenerational management is lately getting some attention. In Maine and around the country, baby boomers are hanging on to the management jobs their younger cohorts covet. According to intergenerational expert and author Cam Marston, boomers make up the largest percentage of the American workforce — 45% — followed by Gen X at 40%, millennials at 10% and traditionals at 5%. Traditionals — including the so-called "Silent Generation" and the "GI Generation" of people born in 1945 and before — are coming out of retirement to make ends meet or simply because they enjoy the work. This means employees ranging in age from their early 20s to their 70s or 80s must work together in teams, meetings and on production lines.
Employees, for example, who grew up watching Ozzie come home like clockwork to Harriet must find common professional ground with Gen Xers who grew up in single-parent or dual-income households, and who learned early in life to take care of themselves. These "generational signposts," Johnson says, influence the way employees regard work.
One of the most striking examples of the differences between generations are the divergent ways a typical boomer manager and a typical entry-level millennial regard work/life balance. "These two generations just don't seem to get each other," says Manpower's Clark.
Boomers tend to be career driven, prefer formal, in-person reviews, and appreciate innovation coupled with a respect for organizational hierarchy. Career is incredibly important, and the nature of a boomer's career often relates to their desire to give back to society. But career isn't necessarily the center of the universe for that boomer's staff. Johnson says about half of millennials are still financially supported by their parents and therefore have the financial freedom to dump a job they find boring or unsatisfying. They want to be surrounded by creative people, have no problem giving feedback to supervisors, and appreciate frequent positive reinforcement (e-reinforcement by instant message or email is just fine).
"One of the things that happens in the presentations, in the beginning, from baby boomers, is that they say, 'I'm not going to tolerate that kind of behavior,'" says Clark. "But then I turn around and say, 'This is about business. If you need folks from every generation and you need entry-level folks, they tend to be younger people. If you're going to be competing with the people down the street [for talent], shouldn't you be trying to attract these individuals?'"
Ironically, the generation boomers find most perplexing to manage is precisely the one they created. According to Johnson, about 90% of millennials were raised by boomers who were advanced enough in their careers to be more engaged in their children's lives than they were able to be with their Gen X children. The result is a generation of tech-savvy talent with a strong sense of self-worth. They expect rapid promotions, frequent pats-on-the-back and a work-environment that accommodates their lives (Google, named by Fortune magazine as 2007's "Best Company to Work For," caters to Millennial and Gen X employees with enticements like gourmet food on-site, a rock climbing wall and plenty of independent projects).
"When I'm your parent I want to raise you as this confident free-thinker," says Johnson. "It's an ironic change that as a manager it's, 'Hey, don't challenge me.'"
Mind the gap
Manpower's Clark says plenty of good temp matches were falling into the generation gap. So in 2006, she gave her former Manpower Auburn branch manager Carol Albert the go-ahead to create the workshop "Four Generations at Work: Understanding Who They Are and Why They Think and Act Differently Than You!" After Albert moved out of state in 2007, Clark, who is also based in Auburn, began giving the workshop. Together, the women have since trained more than 600 managers, human resources reps and employees on the fine art of intergenerational tolerance.
"We really wanted to bring it to a local level and start a dialogue in our community about what work has looked like in the past, what it looks like now and what it's changing to," says Clark, who this year will present a truncated version of "Four Generations" at the Manpower annual meeting in Milwaukee. Manpower, Clark says, intends to recreate her workshop at other sites around the country.
But not everyone is convinced generational profiling is critical to productivity.
Marie Clements, the Portland-based assistant vice president for human resources strategies at Unum, says "the jury's still out" on whether her company will develop management training about intergenerational conflict. Clements last month wrote and forwarded an article to Unum's managers nationwide on intergenerational issues, and has directed her HR staff to research the matter, but at the moment she doesn't see a clear business case for a training devoted to generational work habits.
"I also want to avoid the perception that we are stereotyping people," she explains. "And to make it, for example, a lead track or program, I've got to look at what's a benefit to the company, and I'm just not sold yet that it's important enough to be broken up and focused on at that level."
Rick Malinowski, human resources manager at Procter & Gamble's Tambrands factory in Auburn, attended Clark's workshop with about 40 other Tambrands managers in December. Malinowski, a Gen Xer, says intergenerational conflict "shows up daily in communication" at his Tambrands site.
Tambrands employees work in teams of between six and 12 employees, and Malinowski says intergenerational misunderstandings can hamper productivity.
"The best way to look at it, for us, is we're trying to focus on what the principles and values of our employees are," says Malinowski. "I guess it comes down to understanding what people want from their career and what they value."
Tambrands now varies the manner and frequency of the feedback it gives employees to accommodate generational differences — the company, for example, has found younger workers appreciate frequent, public praise with a small token of appreciation like a five-dollar Dunkin' Donuts gift certificate, while Malinowski says older workers can be embarrassed by public accolades.
Malinowski believes being aware of generational tendencies helps Tambrands attract and retain the best workers.
"We're big on measuring results," he says. "So if your style's different from mine and we both deliver the same results, I feel we need to be accepting of the diversity between two groups as long as in the end we get the goals we're after."
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