The complexities and challenges that punctuate any cross-generational relationship are not new. Whether in the workplace or home, communicating, relating to and respecting one another despite vast age differences requires life skills such as patience, compromise, communication, trust and commitment.
“The workplace is a microcosm of the society we live in. Here we are forced into each other’s space and expected to work together to achieve common goals, often without thought and guidance on how to bridge the generational
gap,” says Kay Vittee, CEO of Quest Staffing Solutions, Africa’s leading staffing solutions company in the white collar recruitment industry.
Vittee recommends job shadowing and reverse mentoring as ideal ways to meet this challenge. She explains that job shadowing enables the new staff member to experience the workplace and positional responsibilities hereby
observing and learning, asking questions as he or she go about his or her day.
It is also an opportunity for him or her to get a sense of the values and atmosphere of the working environment while developing valuable relationships with existing staff.
It also provides older staff an opportunity to use their vast knowledge and experience in a way that keeps them relevant and engaged in the workplace. Blending tradition and the tried-and-tested way of doing things with the innovation
and new thinking that new staff injects into an organization.
‘Reverse mentoring’ was first popularised by chief executive of General Electric, Jack Welch. More than a decade ago, Welch instructed his top executives to identify a younger employee below them in order to teach them how to
use the Internet. Welch, himself, partnered with a young woman in her twenties.
Although today the Internet is not as new and intimidating as it was in 1999, there is plenty of new technology that is. Technology that is second nature to the younger generations such as Generation Y & Z to whom social media
platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, mobile applications and cloud computing are the norm.
“Knowing how to identify and utilise the unique strengths of each generation in your workforce in a way that benefits the business as a whole is critical in today’s competitive ever-changing business landscape. Not only to ensure
effective seamless internal relationships that power teams and in turn make a positive impact on your business performance, but also to understand your customer base better and in so doing know how to service them,” says Vittee.
In a recent Ernst & Young survey conducted in America, which asked professionals from the three ‘working’ generations what their perceptions were of the other generations they worked with, some interesting and notable differences
were discovered. In summary these are:
* Baby boomers (people born between mid-1940s and mid-1960s) were found to be the most cost-effective and hardworking, yet the least entrepreneurial.
* Generation X (people born between mid-1960s and early 1980s) were found to be great team players with strong entrepreneurial and problem solving skills but poorly represented at executive level.
* Generation Y (people born between early 1980’s and mid-1990s) were found to be the most tech-savvy but the most difficult to work with.
Although the results may be perceived to show unfavourably to the youngest generation in light of traditional business thinking, it is important to note that their very unique attitude and preferred way of work is not yet accommodated
for in most businesses.
Generation Y prioritises work/life balance, flexibility and transparency, ideas that contradict the workplace norm that Baby Boomers, for example are accustomed to. This then further explains the global concern that Generation Yers
‘job-hop’ making training investment risky.
The reality is that Generation Y are our future workforce and leadership, it is unlikely that they will change to the current norms, but rather redefine them. Businesses needs to keep the values of the previous generations alive by
instilling their hard-working loyal culture in the younger generation through mentorship and coaching programmes and keep the business future-focused, agile and relevant through the use of reverse mentoring.
This is of particular importance when one considers that Generation Z are now coming of working age and whilst not much is known of their working behaviour as yet, all signs suggest that they will be even more technologically
sophisticated and Internet savvy than their Generation Y forerunners.
“Successfully bridging the generation gap will no doubt have positive effect on performance and productivity,” concludes Vittee.
