Generational Differences in the Workplace

“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it” - George Orwell

Any organization today cannot function effectively without managers understanding their employees and vice versa. Motivational factors vary from employee to employee. What are employees looking for at work? What kind of values do they have? What modes of communications do they prefer? All these are interesting issues to be investigated to get the most out of a person (or employee).

A number of approaches to understanding workers have been investigated and used historically. Some involve analyzing workers by birth-sign, graphology, birth order, psychological tests etc. Ranging from science to pseudoscience. They have provided varying degrees of success. It is surprising how many organizations still follow some of these methods which have never been proven scientifically.

However one very effective way of understanding employees in the context of the American workplace is to look at the age of an employee and understand the influences of the environment in which he grew up. The workers of each generation faced unique challenges, grew up in various economical climates, family systems, cultures etc. All of these help shape the worker in his future life.

There has been a lot of research on this topic. Various names have been coined for people of each generation. Here is a generally accepted list of generations used in America.

Traditionalists born 1922 - 1943
Baby Boomers born 1946-1964
Generation X born 1964- 1979
Cold Generation Y born 1981 - 1984
Millennials born 1980 - 2000

Each generation of people have interesting unique characteristics. Understanding the characteristics of each generation of workers helps the manager work more effectively with them. They grew up in different family structures. Attitudes towards money, authority, institutions, personal beliefs were different. All of these and many more factors shape the person. The views, expectations of their job, of their world is hence vastly different. What are the unique issues with each generation? What are their expectations from a job? What motivates them ?

The following series of posts attempts to answer those questions. Studying the characteristics of each generation goes a long way at resolving and avoiding conflicts, getting the best out of your people, managers and workers alike.