It’s possible to have five generations in the workplace right now, and it’s an opportunity for companies able to elicit the best from each generation’s skills.GETTY IMAGES
When Brian Rosen looks at the roughly 2,800 employees he oversees at Colliers Canada, he sees a work force that reflects a unique moment in modern history: five generations working together, for the first time, in the same place.
“Our Canadian team largely cuts across four generations, with a few people from the fifth (silent) generation,” says Mr. Rosen, president and chief executive officer of Colliers Canada, part of Colliers International Group Inc., a real estate services and investment management company based in Toronto. “So, we definitely have a wide range of ages on our team.”
Colliers Canada is among the many businesses in the country that now employ workers from five generations – silent or traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z – spanning a century of life experience. Researchers attribute the historic presence of all five generations at work to factors including longer lifespans, a desire among some older Canadians to continue to work, and an inability to retire because of the high cost of living.
For employers, having five generations on staff presents a unique opportunity to tap into widely diverse skill sets, say workplace and organizational experts.
“But the challenge is figuring out how we can maximize the skill sets of the different generations we have on our teams while managing the differences in order to achieve better performance and collaboration,” says Gisele Kovary, head of learning and development at Toronto-based management consulting firm Optimus SBR. “How do we make informed decisions about our business and about our multi-generational talent so that they can engage and perform well as a team?”
While generations shouldn’t be viewed as homogeneous groups, it can help employers to understand each generation’s common attributes and tendencies, and how these might translate to skills applicable to the workplace.
For example, traditionalists have long tenures in the workplace and tend to respect authority. This can make them particularly adept at providing an historical perspective and guiding younger workers on how to fit within the organizational strategy, says Ms. Kovary.
“Then you have the Boomers, who tend to be a little bit more focused on building consensus,” she says. “They are very politically savvy, so they may be quite skilled at stakeholder engagement.”
Among Gen X, a common attribute is an eagerness to learn. This makes them highly adaptive and nimble, adds Ms. Kovary. Millennials, on the other hand, place a great focus on diversity and inclusion. Many among this generation have succeeded in flattening hierarchies in their workplace.
“The skill set around that is really their ability to challenge the status quo and ask for what they want,” explains Ms. Kovary.
And Gen Z? Ms. Kovary points to the creativity and innovation evident among many in this group. Having been born at a time when the internet and mobile devices were already a part of everyday life, Gen Z workers are technology natives.
This often causes older generations to describe Gen Z as tech-addicted.
“But when we did some focus groups with Gen Z, the word they used to describe themselves was tech-empowered,” says Ms. Kovary. “They just feel they’re empowered through technology and we’re seeing that with AI and their ability to quickly pivot and adapt to it – that’s a strength that’s increasingly valuable in the workplace.”
Employers who want to make the most of their multi-generational teams’ skill sets need to also recognize and address potential points of friction between generations, says Laura Hambley Lovett, a Calgary-based organizational psychologist.
As an example, she cites the different communication styles and preferences of each generation.
“Boomers generally prefer face-to-face or phone conversations whereas Millennials and Gen Z are comfortable with digital platforms so their reflex will be to use a messaging app, maybe followed by a video call,” says Ms. Hambley Lovett. “With Gen X – my generation – our first thing might be an e-mail, which a Millennial or Gen Z would probably view as inefficient. So, if I send them an e-mail, they might not get back to me right away and I start feeling frustrated.”
Hosting educational sessions to make employees more aware of how each generation prefers to work and communicate can help. Or employers can encourage their workers to agree on certain communication protocols.
“A communication charter can come in really handy when you’re on a team that’s multi-generational,” says Ms. Hambley Lovett. “This charter would highlight the preferences of each team member and detail the different ways the team will communicate among themselves. When everyone agrees that for certain purposes they’ll use e-mail or Teams or chat, then they’ll start to get into a better flow.”
It’s also important for employers to provide opportunities for the various generations to learn from each other. One way to do this is through cross-mentoring, where employees from different generations are matched as mentor and protégé. Unlike traditional mentoring arrangements, where the mentor is typically an older and more senior employee, cross-mentoring would be based on filling skills gaps, regardless of workers’ ages.
It’s an idea that resonates with Mr. Rosen. Mentoring arrangements should be based on what employees need to learn or are able to teach at a particular point in their career, not on their age or tenure in the organization, he says.
“So, if you have a 40-year-old employee with 15 years of experience in the company and industry, that person could very well mentor someone who’s 57 years old but is just two years into the industry,” says Mr. Rosen. “Skills and experience in your job and the industry should dictate how mentorships are lined up.”
Giving employees access to workplace skills-focused educational courses is another way to build skills across generations, says Jodi Kovitz, chief executive officer at the Human Resources Professionals Association, the Toronto-based regulator and association for Ontario HR professionals.
“The notion of professional development is vital to success in the future of work,” she says. “And I think that it’s absolutely critical to keeping our five generations in the work force, by providing equitable opportunity to develop complimentary skill sets across generations.”
Ms. Kovitz ads that “for learning to be equitable across multiple generations, you need to take a nuanced approach that takes into account the learner’s specific stage of life and career, and their lived experience.”
Employers who want to make the most of their workers’ skills – no matter what generation they fit into – need to be open to the different working styles within their teams, says Mr. Rosen at Colliers.
“Maybe it’s more of a Boomer thing to print a document and red-line it with a pen instead of doing that on a screen like a Gen X or Millennial would do,” he says. “As a company, you have to have room in the tent for different styles, as long as they work, then maybe you can start to subtly move people towards more modern and efficient approaches.”