Managing Generational Diversity in the Company

For the first time, four generations are living together in the workplace at the same time and therefore the topic of generational diversity is of great importance within companies. Istat data on the Italian population confirm that in recent years there has been an ageing of the population due to falling birth rates and increasing life expectancy, as well as legislation on social policies that has led to a later exit from the world of work. Analysis by the Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) confirms that the labour force is made up of 27% Generation Y, 37% Generation X, 32% Baby Boomers and 4% Veterans.

Each of these generations has a different impact on business processes and it is therefore necessary to consider diversity as a resource and to implement strategies to improve their interaction so as not to compromise business effectiveness in order to achieve increasingly ambitious goals. The results of this study should be an incentive to redistribute activities and responsibilities, taking into account the peculiarities of generational values.

“The scales are in balance if there are two equal and opposite weights”.
Let us imagine that the weights are the values, experiences, needs and peculiarities of each generation, and the scales are the business and personal success, the balance being everything they have in common.
Jennifer J. Deal, a researcher and scientist at the Centre for Creative Leadership in San Diego, conducted a study aimed at identifying the most important values for each generation.

The result is surprising in that the greatest deviations do not affect different generations, but within the same generation.

In spite of the fact that every day we hear phrases such as ‘how slow they are’, ‘they are stubborn’, ‘they do not want to listen to us’ or ‘they are not willing to make sacrifices’, ‘they want everything and now’, ‘they think they already know everything’, and so on.

These assertions are the fruit of generations that have never talked to each other!

The characteristics of the different generations are a reflection of the era in which the ‘group’ was formed, the historical events, cultural trends, social changes, value systems and lifestyles that characterised the reference period.
Jennifer Deal’s study states that these different generations have much more in common than one might imagine, although they differ in some aspects.

Some of the most significant differences are represented by:

CHANGE.
Veterans (65+) are focused on stability and rules, in contrast to the Baby Boomers (50-65), the ’68 generation that promoted major socio-cultural revolutions, fought for their rights and imprinted their view of reality.
Generation X (30-49) is more flexible, having lived their adolescence in a decade, that of the 1980s, characterised by sudden and radical technological evolutions.
Generation Y (30 and under) grew up in the era of economic recession but also in the era of the internet and social networks, is focused on the ‘here and now’ and wants to take back the future and make the changes necessary to improve the world.

The GERARCHY
The Veterans, born during the Second World War, are disciplined respecters of law and order. They love and believe in institutions, respect hierarchies because they value consistency and standardised approaches.
The Baby Boomers, proponents of the great protests of the 1970s, struggled to overcome hierarchical logics, but today they value job position and status-symbols.
Subsequent Generations (X and Y) are sceptical of institutions because they have experienced precariousness and flexibility, they dislike formalism and hierarchies but favour transparent communication and the sharing of information.

THE SENSE OF DUTY
Veterans and Baby Boomers have a strong sense of duty, they have fought and struggled for work, but they attach a different meaning to it. The former, tireless workers, have a ‘Fordist’ conception of work, the latter place more emphasis on personal growth and involvement.
This value diminishes in Generations X and Y, who are independent, irreverent and individualistic, are less willing to bow to corporate logic and like to draw a clear line between personal life and work. They can rely on their supportive family and are unwilling to fall short of their expectations.

FIDELITY
Among the generations, the one that shows the greatest attachment to the company is the Veteran generation, which is most respectful of the organisation’s norms and values.
The Baby Boomers put work at the centre of their lives and therefore focus on the development of the company and believe in the loyalty of colleagues.
Unlike the latter, Generation X is easy to recruit but difficult to retain; they are realistic, individualistic and not very team-oriented, as they are aware of the highly competitive labour market.
Generation Y is the least interested in a long-term perspective because it is afraid of precariousness and therefore likes to live in the present.

The challenge for companies is to create a dialogue between the different generations that can bring the added value needed by organisations that want to manage market competitiveness.

It is for this reason that human resources departments pay attention to strategies aimed at building teams in order to enhance their peculiarities and ensure their integration.

Socialisation tactics can be a valuable tool to bridge this gap, to achieve integration and interdependence between different professions and dialogue between generations. Formative or side-by-side moments between groups of different generations create cultural and knowledge interchanges, awareness of different identities and generate new skills for the end result.

Other modalities considered such as mentoring and tandem facilitate integration and maximise the effectiveness of collaboration.
Mentoring consists of the structuring of an ad hoc training plan between two selected senior and junior staff members to activate people-to-people comparisons and maximise growth.
Tandem consists in the pairing of senior and junior collaborators, similar in terms of functional area and professional aspirations, who collaborate in synergy on the same project, safeguarding autonomy and values.

The unstable and innovative system throws up continuous new challenges that companies must be able to face in order to be competitive and ensure effective coexistence between the different generations within their organisation.

On the horizon then is a new group ready to enter the working world, the Millennium generation, born from 1995 onwards.

One wonders: will they be able to combine the different faces of the prism of diversity?