The Workforce Conundrum: Generations Unite

Key Summary

• The workforce now includes up to five generations, adding complexity for employers and managers.
• Most employees today are Boomers, Gen X and Millennials, with Gen Z emerging as future contributors.
• Generational differences influence workplace expectations and require intentional planning.
• Designing adaptable workplaces helps companies support current employees and prepare for future generations.
• Addressing these differences improves organizational success and reduces the need for major cultural shifts.

In Part 9 of IPC President and CEO John Mitchell's blog series on workforce issue, John covers generational differences in the workplace.  As you may recall from Part 5: Demographic Differences, we reviewed two primary topics: generational differences and gender differences. In today’s blog, I want to take what we discovered and talk about what companies and organizations might do to enhance their success when confronting these differences. As these are broad in implication, I expect this blog will be broken into two parts: this week’s blog will cover generational differences while next week’s will cover differences in gender. What Are the Generational Differences? There are now up to five generations in the work place. Business life was complicated enough when there were just two generations in the work place, so this adds several degrees of difficulty to the manager or business owner. As most of the workforce is dominated by Boomers, Generation X, and the Millennials at this time, our “What’s” will focus here, but we will also touch on Generation Z. The reason for attention to Gen Z - even though there are not many in the workforce at this point - is that if you are going to make a change, you also need to focus on your future employees. Done correctly, a well-designed workplace will be able to accommodate future generations, and you can avoid making major cultural shifts when the next generation becomes dominant in the workforce. READ MORE