Intergenerational collaboration key to building engaging workplaces for all
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Workplaces can improve employee engagement by encouraging collaboration between people of different ages.
- Collaboration may include work projects as well as recreational and social activities.
HOUSTON —Workplaces must embrace the differences between employees from different generations and find ways to bring people together to cultivate an engaging workplace, according to a speaker.
During a keynote talk at the Association of Diabetes Care & Education Specialists annual meeting, Sarah Sladek, CEO and founder of XYZ University, a management consultant firm that provides services for businesses to help bridge generational gaps in their workforce, discussed the differences between the generations ranging from the baby boomers to generation Z and explained how those differences have led to fewer people being engaged at their job. Sladek said diabetes providers can improve engagement at their own workplaces by encouraging collaboration between employees of different generations.
“Collaboration, breaking down barriers, getting out of comfort zones, having conversations, building relationships — that is the solution,” Sladek said. “When we are collaborating and communicating, collectively working together to solve a problem, our fear of change subsides, because we’re in it as a team, we’re in this together.”
Sladek said the four generations that have been born since the end of World War II — baby boomers, Generation X, Generation Y/Millennials and Generation Z — have grown up in different worlds. These generational differences have led to differences in how older generations interpret work compared with younger generations.
Sladek said baby boomers and Generation X tend to value results and professionalism in the workplace, whereas Generations Y and Z tend to gravitate toward potential and ambition. Sladek said older generations were raised to respect authority, whereas younger generations were raised to question authority. The older generations are more likely to learn by experience, whereas younger generations prefer to learn by doing, according to Sladek.
“Each generation has learned to work differently,” Sladek said. “This has contributed to gaps in our workplace.”
However, the questions of how, where and when work is done have led to generational conflict in the workplace, according to Sladek. Sladek cited Gallup poll data that highlight between 15% and 20% of Americans have felt actively disengaged at work in every year since 2000 because their workplace needs aren’t being met.
The key to overcoming generational differences is for workplaces to bring people of different ages together through collaboration. Sladek said when people of different backgrounds are brought together to collaborate, they build empathy and trust with one another. That empathy and trust then leads to a sense of belonging, which allows employees to feel engaged about their work.
“We all have something to learn and something to teach,” Sladek said. “When we bring people of different ages together to work side by side, we experience something amazing —and that’s cognitive diversity. We’re gleaning different backgrounds, skillsets, experiences; we’re co-creating and innovating. The entire team feels a greater sense of belonging and accomplishment.”
Sladek said there are many ways that workplaces can bring people of different ages together, including through strategic planning; joining classes and clubs inside or outside of work; participating in games or recreation together; performing service projects; sharing thoughts and ideas through social channels; and creating a buddy system where a diverse group of employees spends time together.
Sladek said the workplace as it has been structured for many years is at “the end of an era.” Sladek said it is up to people from all generations to determine how workplaces are structured moving forward and through intergenerational collaboration, and she believes workplaces can change for the better.
“It is time for a change,” Sladek said. “Change is possible, but you have to want it. Change is possible, but you have to lead it. We want to get to a place where’s it not about ‘us vs. them,’ but it’s just about us.”
Collapse
Sladek S. GS02. Presented at: ADCES23; Aug. 4-7, 2023; Houston.
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts