Bridging the Workforce Gap, From Baby Boomers to Gen Z
CHICAGO — For a modern workforce, in which up to four different age brackets may be working together, employers, managers and employees must overcome generational judgements to move forward with effective teamwork and leadership.
Although Gen Xers (aged 45-59) currently make up the majority of executive roles, about 20% of employees are still baby boomers (aged 60-78). And while millennials (aged 28-44) now make up the overall majority of the workforce, the oldest members of Gen Z (aged 12-27) have been in the working world for a couple of years now, with more entering every day.
With that large of a spread in age, it can be easy for different generations to start talking past one another. Cam Marston, president of Mobile, Ala.-based Generational Insights and host of the "What's Working with Cam Marston" radio show, spoke about the ways companies can navigate these divides in a recent webinar presented by Convenience Store News and Altria Group Distribution Co.
[Read more: Building a Path to Future Success]
The webinar, titled "A Generational Guide to Today's Workplace," was offered as part of CSNews' Top Women in Convenience (TWIC) program and The Convenience Inclusion Initiative, a CSNews platform that champions a modern-day convenience store industry where current and emerging leaders foster an inclusive work culture that celebrates differences, allows team members to bring their whole selves to work, and enables companies to benefit from diversity of thought and background.
Marston pointed out that, broadly, much of each generation's worldview could well pre-date their entry into employment, going all the way back to childhood.
"An expression that children began to hear a good while back is, 'you're special and unique and different from everyone else,'" he said. "Gen Xers heard it a little bit, but millennials heard it a lot, and Gen Z today hears it a lot."
Different approaches to childhood popularized by advocates such as Dr. Benjamin Spock meant that boomers began to shift the way they raised their own kids, primarily those within the millennial generation. This means that Gen Xers, a group characterized by the phenomena of "latch key" kids, more often heard very different messaging from their own parents, even if it was inadvertent.
"Xers were often raised mostly alone when they came of age," Marston said. "This was an economic necessity at a time when both parents worked, and the Xers had to figure a lot of things out on their own."
With this cohort now making up the majority of company leadership, that "figure it out" attitude can spill over into the workplace. A Gen X leader may perceive this as being helpful, letting their team members work through a problem on their own without guidance and only stepping in after the fact. However, their younger staff, raised in the age of helicopter parenting, may perceive it differently.
"When you say figure it out, [millennials and Gen Zers] hear, he doesn't like me," Marston said. "And then they think, if he doesn't like me, I'm not so sure I'm happy here. If he doesn't like me, I'm not so sure I can succeed here."
Later Milestones
Beyond different approaches to parenting, life milestones also have changed over the last few decades. In times of economic downturn, there was often a spike in children over the age of 18 living with their parents for extended periods before the trend reversed. Beginning in 2007, though, millennial young adults were far more likely to continue living with their parents even after the economy started to right itself, with this pattern continuing through to Gen Z.
The side effect of this delay in independent living may mean that the "adulthood" timeline of earlier generations — buying a house, getting married, having kids, etc. — no longer applies.
"The life stages that make people more similar to people older than them and therefore easier and more predictable [from a leadership perspective] to work with are happening in older ages," Marston explained. "People grow up later and a lot of the skills that you look for in a gainful hire as an employee, such as conflict resolution or the ability to network, are not present at earlier ages. They now come later."
The COVID-19 pandemic also continues to cast a long shadow, with the oldest members of Gen Z less likely to prioritize a social life over a working life — experiencing more isolation that can again delay adult milestones. According to Marston, there has been some movement among this youngest cohort back toward a preference for in-person office work, but it's still too early to judge if that will be a permanent shift.
Whether in person or working from home, a Gen Xer or a Gen Zer, communication remains key, even if it means adjusting the ways in which you approach a conversation.
"When I'm 'selling' to a boomer, I'm telling a story," Marston said. "But for Xers, millennials and Gen Z, I'm talking about their future, how things will affect their lives and how things will make them distinct."
A friend of Marston's put it even more succinctly when he talked about his own efforts to better manage his millennial employees and create greater investment in a project: "My bias has historically been to say, 'well, here's what's happened.' Now, I've learned to say, 'here's what will happen.'"
For more information about Cam Marston, visit his website at CamMarston.com or his LinkedIn page at linkedin.com/in/cammarston.
A replay of "TWIC Talk: A Generational Guide to Today’s Workplace" is available here.
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