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Intergenerational Collaboration

Throughout modern history, organisations have had hierarchies where seniority was proportional to age. This is changing, as the creativity of individuals and their power to ideate will be most valuable in the workplace. They will work with colleagues of varying ages with similar attributes. In her latest book, " The Future of Work, The Shift Is already here” (2011), Linda Gratton  describes how the working world will change in this way over the next 30 to 40 years. This concept is also expanded upon by Gary Hamel   in his online YouTube series of talks on the “Future of Work". There are significant social differences between Baby Boomers, Gen-X’s, and Gen-Y’s that may hamper this evolution, or become sources of collaborative conflict. Therefore, in order for businesses to keep up with the ever changing world, it is vital to promote intergenerational collaboration in the workplace. Each group will aim to align themselves to the future of work, and will face individual challenges. However challenging this seems, the outputs of this change will be game-changing for many organisations if implemented successfully.

Baby boomers – born between 1943 – 1965. Formative events: post war economic expansion, Beatlemania. Characteristics: Team oriented and are more interested in personal gratification and growth, along with building stellar careers. Idealists, competitive, workaholics. Baby boomers have typically worked in traditional organisations where age, seniority and respect go hand in hand. BB's will retire at a raising bar of 66 upwards as they head towards 2020. People retiring now will be the last to enjoy final salary pensions, which start to come in at age 65. As work evolves, this group may find the changes difficult to adapt to, as almost everything they knew in the past is about to change. This does not mean BB's have to fear the future, and they can plan now. Linda Gratton (2011) says if we want to understand the future we can look at five forces which will have an impact; Technology, Globalisation, Demography and Longevity, Society and Energy Resources. Technology can lead to fragmentation and isolation but can also lead to increased networking and a building of online virtual worlds, a form of cyber friendship or companionship. They may even reach the stage of having virtual assistants on hand 24/7 to keep them abreast of their work commitments. BB's will not follow in their father’s footsteps but they will have to adapt to a world where they trade in their skill set and develop a form of barter ship. As the web extends into WEB 3.0, globalisation will present an opportunity to trade their experiences across the web to carry on working well into what would have been classed as retirement, offering workers the chance to work in areas they enjoy, being part of an online market place of skills, collaborating with different generational sets to bring success to a project.

Gen X – born between 1965 - 1982 Formative events: Dual income families, invention of the modern computer, introduction of the internet Characteristics: Generation X is technologically literate, self-reliant, looking for portable careers and being in charge of their own career paths. Adaptive to change and resourceful.

Whilst Linda Gratton refers to the shifts required to adapt to ‘the future of work’, Erickson, T (2010), in ‘What’s Next, Gen X?’, alerts us to the fact that due, in part to downsizing and flattening of organisational structure, Gen-X employees work more hours than ‘boomers’ or younger Gen Y counterparts, “30% say they work fifty hours or more per week. Yet only 43 percent are passionate about their jobs, only 33% feel energised by their work, 36% say they feel they are in dead end jobs, and more than 40% report feelings of burnout.” For Gen X, embracing management  as  being  “as much about lateral relationships among colleagues and associates as it is about hierarchical relationships” (Mintzberg, 2011) , is a significant shift, representing movement into areas of key skills such as ‘virtual collaboration’, ‘sense making’ and ‘social intelligence’.

Gen Y / Millenials – born between 1982-2004. Formative events: Born into or grew up in a technological age, with fast changing technology (mobile phones, cars), global terrorism, diversity. Characteristics: Generation Y is more civic minded and optimistic, thrives on collaboration and values work that has meaning. Globally concerned and realistic.

Generation Y, the most recent generation to enter the workforce, have grown up in a world where making decisions, questioning authority and influencing the terms and conditions of a job are encouraged and accepted. Gen Y is also the first generation to grow up alongside technology, knowing a world where technology is a basic human necessity. The rise of smart machines and systems has become part of the furniture in both businesses and homes worldwide, aiding people in completing tasks and partnering with other humans to ease their duties. This generation enters the workforce with networking, multiprocessing and global-minded skills that Baby Boomers and a portion of Gen X could never have imagined. Interactive media such as text messaging, blogs and social networking have generated new skills and styles of collaborating in both Gen X and Y. Gen Y holds the mind-set of ‘always being connected’ which will eliminate the traditional 9-5 work schedule thanks to the capabilities technology has produced in the smart-phone and wireless internet. Gen-Y’s possess ‘New media literacy’, a key skill for the future of work as ‘the ability to critically assess and develop context that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communications’. Gen Y ‘live, then work’, build several parallel careers, have several jobs over their lifetime and require great flexibility in order to balance work life with personal and social life.

Intergenerational Collaboration barriers.

Going forward, businesses need to consider how they intend to make the transfer of knowledge and skills from Baby Boomers to Gen Y and vice versa. The biggest danger in merging BB's, Gen X and Y may be the impact that emotionally unintelligent managers can have on the younger generations as a result of the differences in reactions and judgments. We can see that these generational groups have differing sets of values and beliefs. They may also have stereotypical views of each other, and personal needs and expectations that must be met to remain satisfied. Intergenerational conflict often appears to stem from errors of attribution and perception rather than from valid differences. For employers, these differences represent a huge challenge as they attempt to get their employees to work together successfully to achieve a common goal. Today, these differences pose a greater threat than cultural differences may have done in the past. Key drivers such as the rise of smart machines and systems, a new media ecology, the computational world and super-structured organisations – Lynda Gratton calls it, “the Force of Globalisation – provides opportunity to framework a collaborative intergenerational means of shaping our future in the workplace.” Professor Keith Mackey quoting from from Read,E (2007)argues that “the difference we see in peoples work attitudes and outcomes are more likely to relate to differences in their length of experience and career stage, rather than specific generational effects.”

Framework for Creation of Intergenerational Collaboration.

Responding to these generational differences and conflicts requires communication, awareness and the ability to manage conflict. It is crucial to ‘know’ the new generation in order to connect with their preferred style and expectations. In order to do so, time should be taken to build trusting relationships where each generation brings their potential to the workplace in order to work towards a common goal. Building trusting relationships is an “old skill”, but is a cornerstone of teamwork.

Developing employees’ awareness of intergenerational issues and ‘sense-making’ between generations should contribute to an effective workforce. Awareness training should aim to make each individual aware of their own generational grouping and the challenges that others may face when working with them. This may be considered a tool that challenges individuals to be more considerate, flexible, accommodating, and collaborative.

Experience and professional skills can be gained within a multi-generational workforce if a business amalgamates the generations to work together and communicate, using strengths and skills collaboratively. Gen Y can certainly benefit from the BB's hardworking values and the knowledge of foundational procedures before technology reduced a lot of the workload. Gen X’s realistic approach to work can benefit Gen Y’s ‘never give up’ mind set and extreme determination by teaching them the instinct to pursue a goal or let it go. BB’s can make use of the technological skills possessed by Gen X and Y. These are single examples of a diverse skill set held by each group.

Putting rules and policies in place creates a respectful environment, where all three generations can co-exist and ensures that respect for others is upheld at all times.

According to Zemke et al., (2000), ’over communication’ is key to successful intergenerational collaboration in companies. This stresses the point that communication avoids the detractors that other organisations with poor lines of communication face. Poor communication leads to isolation, low morale, unproductive teams, and decreased innovation.

Targeted training should be used when applicable, as individuals within each group may have differing learning preferences.

All of the above demonstrates how intergenerational collaboration can be used to enhance the quality of work life and the blending of social interaction with employers and employees. As Bill George said, “we do not have to change ourselves but we can improve the way we do things”. Relative to any inter-generational collaborative work we should acknowledge that “generational context is not about age, but common experiences” whilst also recognising that “technology is not universal” and we must “assess team members affinity levels before making communication assumptions” within each generational group.

Diagram

Category:Management