Training & Development
How to motivate multiple generations
in the workplace Part One - The Five Generations
Grounds Training Tutor Frank Newberry looks at the challenge of getting the best out of people from multiple generations in the workplace. In Part 1, Frank looks at how each generation has been categorised in recent times and, in Part 2, he will look at what might be done to motivate them
One of my brightest clients recently asked me: ‘How do I motivate millennials at work?’ Millennials are regarded as people born between 1980 and the mid-1990s.
He had learned the hard way that, although millennials are the best educated people to ever be in the workplace, they are not the easiest to engage or to motivate.
Categorising people by their age group
But let’s go back a bit and look at why we have all been given names like ‘millennials’, ‘baby boomers’ etc. In recent times, a few clever university professors, management consultants and historians started categorising working people, their aspirations, expectations and behaviour at work ‐ by their age group and their place in history.
Presumably, this was in the belief that, if people can be understood better, it could lead to them being able to perform better and them being happier in their work.
This approach has not been of much help to me because I find (1) people are so diverse and (2) they can behave quite differently on a seminar than they do at work. Where it does help is that it can give us:
1. A frame of reference in discussions about people at work
2. Some cool sounding descriptions that other people may know about ‐ or we can tell them about
3. An idea of what any supervisory training needs to cover, e.g. how to supervise young people at work, getting the best from older team members and so on
Five generations in one workplace?
Here then are the five generations that could be in your workplace:
• Silents or Traditionalists (Born between 1925 and 1946)
140 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018
• Baby Boomers (Born between 1946 and 1964)
• Generation X (Born between 1965 and 1980)
• Generation Y or Millennials (born between 1980 and the mid‐1990s)
• Generation Z (Born between the mid‐ 1990s and 2001)
There are scientists that say each of the five groups has its own distinct features, values, and attitudes. Why? Because each generation has had quite different life experiences.
Silents
Given that the youngest Silents are going to be 72 this year, there are not so many of them at work these days. However, many are working hard as contractors, and many
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more are serving as volunteers on committees and Boards and, as such, have a lot of influence on others in the workplace. Does this sound familiar?
Silents are amongst the most loyal workers. They are very dedicated, but somewhat averse to taking risks. Does this also sound familiar? Their values were shaped by world events like the Great Depression in the 1930s, World War II and the post‐war years of rationing and looking for the elusive ‘steady’ job.
Silents believe in teamwork, collaboration and good communication. Taking a historical perspective, Silents may well now be the most prosperous elderly population in history.
Generation X people are keen on professional development, they welcome meaningful challenges and have adapted better to the trials of job insecurity than previous generations
Many of them work because they want to ‐ not because they need to work. Work for many Silents is the most meaningful part of their lives and they do not want to give it up. I regularly meet Silents who are working without pay. The most common reaction to me asking why they work without pay? They say work ‘keeps me alive’.
Baby Boomers
My wife and I are in this category and we are members of perhaps the first generation to give work life a higher priority than personal life. This works for both of us because we eventually got ourselves jobs that brought meaning and fulfilment to our daily efforts.
Baby Boomers are more optimistic and open to change than Silents, but we are also part of what one of my millennial sons calls the ‘Golden Generation’ ‐ with our final salary pensions, nice homes that we own and our multiple holidays abroad each year. He has a point, and I agree with the view that Baby Boomers have a high sense of entitlement in later life as in, for example, ‘I pay my taxes – I expect a better service!’
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