Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Boomers, Gen Xers, and Gen Yers in the Workplace - Softcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

CLAIRE RAINES is a nationally recognized expert on generational issues and the author of Connecting Generations.

BOB FILIPCZAK is a social media coordinator and an experienced writer and editor. CLAIRE RAINES is a nationally recognized expert on generational issues and the author of Connecting Generations.

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“Learning about differences may be fun, but learning about cooperation is useful. And it’s here that Generations at Work becomes a valuable tool.”

— Fast Company (review of the first edition)

Annoyed with your workmates and flustered with your staff? Don’t understand how they think, act, and communicate—especially the twentysomethings who ask questions all the time and want confirmation that they’re doing great?

All these difficult people may be nothing more than diverse demographics. Friction among Traditionalists, Boomers, Xers, and Millennials has spiked, as four distinct generations are tossed side by side, cubicle by cubicle—and nobody speaks the same language.

Generations at Work offers a refreshing way to root out the causes of workplace clashes and bridge the generational gaps. Now updated to include the Millennial newcomers to the workplace, the book serves as both a sweeping overview of generational differences and a solutions-based managerial guide to molding each group into loyal employees who work effectively with everyone, from tech-savvy, high-needs young people to conformist, hardworking seniors.

Packed with original research and eye-opening insights, you’ll find explanations of what makes each generation tick, key phrases and tactics for motivating each, best practices from companies with generations-friendly cultures, in-depth interviews highlighting problems and solutions, a field guide for mentoring Millennials—and many more valuable tools for turning today’s multigenerational workforce into an organizational asset.

Ron Zemke was the author of the bestselling Knock Your Socks Off series and founder of Performance Research Associates, a consultancy specializing in organizational effectiveness.

Claire Raines is a nationally recognized expert on generational issues, and the author of Connecting Generations. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Bob Filipczak is a social media coordinator and an experienced writer and editor. He lives in Minneapolis.

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Introduction

The New Economic Reality and the

Cross-Generational Workplace

It’s been more than ten years since the first edition of Generations at

Work. The world has changed profoundly and so have our personal

circumstances. In 2004, we lost Ron Zemke, one of our original coauthors.

He was the driving force that led to the first book. Ron was a brilliant

writer, an even more brilliant presenter, and a great mind and mentor.

We still can’t stand in front of an audience without thinking of him

and, every time we get a laugh from the group, it’s because we are channeling

Ron’s spirit. In updating this book, there are phrases and paragraphs

and whole pages of the original that are pure Ron, and it hurts to

revise them. Just the act of deleting the words seems sacrilegious.

Fortunately Ron was nothing if not irreverent, so the idea that we would

attach religious potency to his writing would have him chasing us from

his office with heavy projectiles—as we fled for the elevator on the eighteenth

floor of Minneapolis’ Foshay Tower.

Suffice it to say, the world we live in has changed. In some ways, it

seems as if the earth has shifted on its axis. We find ourselves near the

end—we use that phrase with great hope and determination—of a dramatic

economic decline that has affected the entire world economy.

Recent years have seen a sharp increase in oil and food prices, a precipitous

drop in international trade, and low consumer confidence. The

European Union (EU) is stretched to its limits as it decides whether to

bail out the failing economies of Greece and Spain. Growth has slowed

in the formerly booming economies of China and India. In the United

States, the number of foreclosures and personal bankruptcies has skyrocketed.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are unemployed.

The poor economy has even affected birthrates; according to Demographic

Intelligence, a company that produces quarterly birth forecasts,

birthrates in the United States are at their lowest in 25 years, “in large

part because unemployment and economic fear remain high” among

twentysomethings.

The first edition of this book focused on generational issues in the

United States where, in 2000, we were experiencing our ninth year of

economic expansion. For nine years running, the United States had

added more than two million workers a year to its payrolls. The unemployment

rate hovered around four percent. So it makes sense that our

first edition emphasized recruitment and retention, labor shortages, and

meeting the demands of workers who knew they were sorely needed.

Those workers knew that, if their current positions didn’t suit them to a

tee, they could get a job just across the street.

Today, employees from every generation are going back to the basics

and lowering their workplace expectations. Elizabeth Milligan, a recent

college graduate, describes the shift: “I think the current economic crisis

has changed things. I would have said a few years ago, ‘We’re really skilled.

We’re going to get jobs and we’re going to do something interesting.’ But

we recognize that the economy is bad. If we can get a paycheck, we’re

pretty lucky. Today we’re saying, ‘We just need jobs.’”2

The shifting sands of the economy are playing havoc with the generational

mix in virtually every organization. The Boomers—and even

some members of the generation before them—aren’t retiring as soon as

everyone thought. As a result, Generation X is feeling as if it has been

sentenced to an extended parole in middle management without much

room for movement. And some Millennials will spend their early “working

years” underemployed or even unemployed because the organizational

pipes are clogged with more experienced Boomers and Xers.

Even though the current economic climate might make compromise

on the part of employees and job seekers unavoidable, let’s not be

tempted to assume all those nagging differences among us will simply

evaporate. While employees of all ages are surely less confident and emboldened

than they were in 2000, history tells us that our tough economic

times will be temporary. Job seekers might acknowledge that today

they have to settle for less, and current employees might stay in their

jobs a little longer, but that doesn’t mean we will all perform at the highest

levels—unless and until we create a workplace environment that respects

and rewards workers of all ages. The cost to a business of replacing

a disgruntled employee who is fortunate enough to find a greener

pasture is approximately 2.5 times his or her annual salary. Now, more

than ever, that’s a cost few companies can afford.

In the first edition of Generations at Work, we made a case for a new

crisis in the workplace that could be solved, or partially solved, by recognizing

generational diversity. The work world was then at the beginning

of an awakening about generational issues, and our primary objective was

to convince readers that some common workplace complaints—lack of

respect and inability to work as a team, for example—could, in many cases,

be attributed to generational differences. We smiled to ourselves when

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