The Generational Divide in the Workforce
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Learning Objective: Discover how to address generational differences to leverage each generation’s strength Today’s workforce is comprised of four different generations: The Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. These generations are unique in the blend of the defining events that have shaped their lives, the values that they hold dear, and in the way they navigate their careers. Several studies have been conducted to provide a greater understanding into the differences and similarities of these generations. This interactive discussion will shed light on the generational divide to enable your organization to facilitate a greater interconnection across these generations and within organizations. At the end of this seminar, participants will: a. Understand workplace generational differences and similarities b. Challenge stereotypes and explore truisms for each generation c. Identify methods to communicate and collaborate across generations
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The Generational Divide in the Workforce
- 1. IMPACTS OF GENERATIONAL SHIFTS IN THE WORKFORCE Presenters: Cozy Bailey cebailey@mitre.org Tamal Burise tburise@mitre.org DeAnthony Heart dheart@mitre.org Chasidy Perrin cperrin@mitre.org “The authors’ affiliation with The MITRE Corporation is provided for identification purposes only, and is not intended to convey or imply MITRE’s concurrence with, or support for, the positions, opinions or viewpoints expressed by the authors.”
- 2. Video Showing Challenges of Millennials Simon Sinek on Millennials in the Workplace Source: YouTube
- 3. Setting the Stage Source: Proteus
- 4. Why Should We Care? Source: HubPages - Motivating, Managing, Retaining Generation X and Gen Y, Z Employees: Updated on November 14, 2016
- 5. Challenges & Stereotypes of Managing a Multigenerational Workforce Adverse stereotyping – Older workers often look at the younger generations as entitled, lazy, and obsessed with technology – Millennials and Gen X challenge the system and are generally difficult – Younger workers see older workers as being stuck in their ways and refusing to embrace new, innovative ways of thinking and vice versa Loss of knowledge and experience – As older generations move out, younger generations may not have the experience to successfully carry out the job beyond technology – Without knowledge transfer, a gap in capability and experience could result Increased workload – With younger employees on staff, older employees often see an increase in their workload because they must train younger, newer employees Delivery issues – Older employees tend to take more time and put more pride in their work – Younger employees will deliver faster and more efficiently than older employees Source: The Challenges of Managing a Multi Generational Workforce White Paper
- 6. Generational Differences in Communication • Understanding what people value and what motivates them makes it much easier to communicate job expectations • Different generations tend to value different communication styles, team structures and job perks • The difference between older and younger generations in preferred communication styles has almost become a cliché Source: Dilbert Cartoon – Business Communication Tuesday, November 4, 2014
- 7. Adapting to the aging workforce Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. AARP • Ten thousand Baby Boomers will turn 65 each day through 2030, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics • Those that retire will take with them most of the institutional knowledge they spent an entire career amassing • Ranges from intellectual capital, expertise in their given industry, and insights into key customer relationships including measures regarding policy, procedure, and documentation
- 8. Transition Strategy to Improve Workforce Challenges Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. AARP
- 9. Generation Workforce Perception Source: XYZ: How Generation Affects Employee Engagement – Amanda Shore, September 14, 2015, Herd Wisdom
- 10. Attitudes Towards Technology Use
- 11. Attitude Towards Social Media Photo Credit: Entrepreneur, 2015
- 13. Again, Why Do I Care? Millennials will be roughly 50% of the USA workforce in 2020 and 75% of the global workforce by 2030 Reference: Forbes article: Three Reasons You Need To Adopt A Millennial Mindset Regardless Of Your Age
- 14. So what can we do about it? • Staff • Manager/Supervisor • Senior Leadership
- 15. Staff • Be transparent. Don’t hide anything from us, especially bad news • Pay us well • Allow for flexibility • Allow for autonomy, but also guide us • Be a mentor not a manager. • Help us see a clear career path forward • Give us more autonomy over our development • Promote us when we deserve it • Find ways to make things fun • Mutual Transparency is Valuable • We all need to Understand the Value of Compensation and Benefits • Flexibility Must be Mutually Beneficial • Build relationships that promote autonomy and good behavior • Manage Individuals Forward through Mentorship • We all need to Understand Guidelines and Expectations for Promotion • Involve Junior Staff in Making Things Fun! Management Source: NVTC Millennial Board, 2016
- 16. Continue to break down barriers to enable your workforce to grow and learn together Senior Leadership Image Credit: Pixabay
- 17. Game Time Rules – We pose a question, if you believe the answer to the question is yes you move to the right side (our left) and vice versa – We will ask a few people to shed light on to why they believe the answer to the question is either yes or no Let’s Begin!
- 18. Question 1 Do people in a particular generational group behave matching the stereotypes recognized by their peers? NO YES
- 19. Question 2 Do people in a particular generation believe that the stereotypes assigned to their generation are accurate? NO YES
- 20. Question 3 Do you believe technology makes life more complex? NO YES
- 21. Question 4 Are there differences in how each generation perceives compensation? NO YES
- 22. Question 5 Should organizations have training for employees to generate a common understanding of the varying generations in the workforce? NO YES
- 23. Generational Stereotypes • Do people in a particular generational group behave matching the stereotypes recognized by their peers? • Do people in a particular generational group believe that the stereotypes recognized to their generation are accurate?
- 24. Q/A Session
Editor's Notes
- Stop at 1:09 seconds. DeAnthony to bring hot spot
- Years associated with each generation Tamal to add sources to image
- Increased workload - not understanding that most jobs need more than just technology to perform Source:
- How many Gen Y and Millennials are in the audience that would be offended if a co-worker suggest this? Generation Y sends text messages, tweets and instant messages to communicate, while baby boomers and older Gen Xers tend to prefer phone calls and emails. Throw in that younger workers tend to use abbreviations, informal language and colloquialisms, and you’ve got a recipe for serious communication breakdowns.
- 44 million Baby Boomers will be retired between today and 2030, that is nearly a 1/3 of the current 142 million people who make up the US workforce today. Those people will be replaced by millennial and Z generation workers.
- How the generations view each other in the workforce Boomers views of I have tenure and the experience, lets talk in person and not over IM or email With Gen X we see Boomers not sharing information due to job security The views or perceptions of Millennials is that if they are not getting a far shake they will find another job Closing Approach – Everyone in this audience has there our own perception on how we view each generations; even our own
- Slides shows the different ages range of how Can anyone name all the social media icons? Different age ranges use social media differently with wide array of applications. Your job has applications to stay connected; email, Skype, Blackberry (as they are making a comeback) LinkedIn, Bank, News, Open Table, Fitness, Shopping, Games, Parking, Travel or Ride service Closing Approach – We all view social media in a good or negative way. There is just more at our finger tips than just answer and end a call now.
- Closing approach - As you have seen the different perceptions on how Generations are different with technology and social media the career goals are almost similar based from this survey
- Be transparent. Don’t hide anything from us, especially bad news Modified #1: Mutual Transparency is Valuable. Transparency is a two-way street. The challenge is that people want organizations to be transparent while not violating their personal privacy. This is not unique to millennials. As employees we want to know how we’re doing, what’s going on in our group/project, what’s going to change. As managers we need to know how employees are doing personally (within reason), and if there’s anything that may cause change. That is a symbiotic relationship where information sharing is something like a Service Level Agreement. It builds trust and promotes advocacy and partnership between employee and leader (whether work leader or project leader) Modified #2: We all need to Understand the Value of Compensation and Benefits This is true for anyone applying for a job, negotiating salary, comparing to industry. That’s good homework for anyone seeking a job, regardless of whether it’s a MITRE job or somewhere else. That’s why we see a monetary value when we jump to the My Total Rewards page. But not everything has a monetary value to it. MITRE Institute. Education Assistance. Paid Time Off Accrual. Partially paid FMLA. Not every company does what MITRE does. Original #3: Allow for flexibility Modified #3: Flexibility Must be Mutually Beneficial Some companies are notoriously hyperflexible or inflexible. MITRE promotes a reasonable amount of flexibility but does so under the constraints of what is negotiated with sponsors. Sponsors can be flexible or inflexible. I think we should endeavor in MITRE to be transparent on what work affords what flexibility. Not all work and collaboration can be done remotely. Collaboration can be higher fidelity when it is done in-person. Original #4: Allow for autonomy, but also guide us Modified #4: Build relationships that promote autonomy and good behavior In MITRE the hardest relationships to optimize are the three-legged triangle of group lead, work lead, and staff. It’s hard as a group lead to help an employee develop good behavior (proactive engagement with WL, GL) if an employee doesn’t want to develop good behavior. That leads to potentially unfortunate interventions, especially if WLs are not satisfied with employee contributions and the GL isn’t made aware. Original #5: Be a mentor not a manager. Original #6: Help us see a clear career path forward. Original #8: Give us more autonomy over our development Modified #5/6/8: We Manage Individuals Forward through Mentorship Everyone has a career trajectory, and they’re all different. Folks who are early to a career path may not understand all the possible paths. Heck, they may not even have a career path! But some may have a clear path in their mind and they need to understand how to travel that path. I believe the emphasis needed is in underscoring a basic need for early career path employees – they need help adjusting so they can be more autonomous. Adjusting to MITRE role, adjusting to a career/career path, adjusting to what is expected of them in their contributing role, adjusting how they operate, adjusting their calibration on quality work. The biggest related problems that I’ve experienced in my 10 years in MITRE (as an employee, a Project Lead, and a Group Lead) have been employees that don’t articulate what help they need and managers who aren’t able to have conversations on enabling individual career paths. That might be identifying learning opportunities, developing leadership skills or technical subject matter expertise, assisting in quality review of individual contributions, or seeking out additional mentorship opportunities for employees. Leaders (whether project/task or group) are intrinsically mentors. It shouldn’t matter if we are dealing with millennials or more “seasoned” individuals. Original #7: Promote us when we deserve it Modified #7: We all need to Understand Guidelines and Expectations for Promotion. This is not unique to millennials. We have level guide charts, but we also have center/division/department additional guidelines. But frequently employees and managers don’t have a common understanding about where employees stand on a trajectory towards promotion. For some, it’s not a priority. For some, it’s the most important thing. For folks that are early in a career, it’s hardest to understand the ‘baseline’ for promotion. It’s challenging to be able to make that into a quantitative series of steps, because it’s frequently not. An employee can do the things they think they need to do to get promoted, yet not get promoted. A manager can advocate heavily for employee promotion, but fail to get an employee promoted. The best thing we can do is have those ‘clear conversations’ and clearly set those expectations. That’s a two-way street where both parties are active. Original #9. Find ways to make things fun Modified #9: Involve Junior Staff in Making Things Fun! Sometimes even 38-year old group leads like me are far removed from what is fun, hip, awesome. It’s easy for me to solicit and receive feedback. It’s harder for me to put that into practice. A great technique in connecting with junior staff is to not only seek feedback but put them in charge of organizing activities to make things fun. While everyone’s idea of fun is different, it puts junior staff in a position to be ‘in charge’ and help build a team in a manner that isn’t subordinate to the will of a manager.
- Do people in a particular generational cohort behave according to the stereotypes assigned to their cohort?
- Do people in a particular generational cohort behave according to the stereotypes assigned to their cohort?
- Communication is an important aspect of managing employees. The interaction between leaders and followers is a critical process in any organization.