It’s no secret that baby boomers, Generation X and Y, have different perceptions of work and life. So it comes as no surprise that all three generations also view the current economic crisis differently.

According to Accenture talent and organisation performance director Low Choy Huat, baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) are naturally worried about job security in this downturn since they are nearer to retirement age. However, they would try and leverage their experiences of previous economic crises to weather the current one.

Gen X-ers (those born between 1965 and 1977) would also be concerned with job security as they have young families to raise and elderly parents to take care of, Low said. But due to their belief that they are future leaders, they see the current situation as a learning experience and position themselves for a recovery in the economy.

Gen Y-ers (those born between 1978 and 1997), currently the youngest in the workforce, would continue to look for opportunities while being less choosy.

With such differing attitudes among their staff, managers need to effectively manage all three generations to focus on a common goal — how to weather the economic storm.

“This is a golden opportunity for managers to step up as leaders making a difference in tough times. For example, in the oil and gas industry where the generation gap in the technical workforce is wide, many players in Malaysia continue to invest in capability-building so that effective and efficient practices/knowledge are documented and shared despite tough times,” Low said in a recent email interview.

“One of the challenges is motivating senior engineers to impart their years of accumulated experience to young engineers in a very open and transparent manner. This is not easy as it changes the fundamental way of driving speed to competency, that is, how long it takes to be competent in a job or task, and value creation like never before,” he added.

Having good people management skills is critical in managing a multi-generational workforce, said Low. Listening, empathising, team-building, providing constructive performance feedback and effective two-way communication skills go a long way to help drive more collaboration across the three generations.

In this respect, knowing the type of communication preferred by each generation would help. “Baby boomers tend to like more face-to-face meetings, whereas a Gen Y can’t wait to ‘ping’ a friend to get quick results,” he said.

“Managers should be versatile when interacting with the different generations. The boss who understands that a Gen Y worker appreciates direct and immediate feedback should not wait till the annual performance appraisal cycle at the end of the year to provide feedback. It might be too late.”

Technology also plays a significant role in managing across generations, says Low. Through interaction and collaborative environments, different generations can overcome their prejudices and work towards a common goal.

“The common goal could be knowing common friends ‘online’ or even a technology gadget where common conversations can happen more freely. For example, a baby boomer or Gen X manager could join the Gen Y virtual communities by getting into Facebook or even registering for an instant messenger account,” he explained.

“This way, the generation gaps can be reduced. Many companies have started to use Facebook, a social networking tool, for recruitment purposes through leveraging technology to bring the different generations closer together.”

Many high-performing companies have adapted their workforce-learning strategies and technologies based on their understanding of each generation.

“Training sessions are becoming more dynamic and bite-sized, that is, a 30-minute webcast on how to execute a task, rather than a three-hour computer-based training or a three-day workshop to teach the A to Z’s of a subject,” Low elaborated.
A company’s organisational culture also plays an important role in bringing the three generations together, he said. “A company with a more open, diverse, tech-savvy and global culture will likely be more successful in managing the different generations. The ‘common language’ that unifies a company will likely act as a glue to promote more awareness of work styles and generation demands.”

Some companies provide multi-generational workforce training to employees to enhance their understanding so as to build a more cohesive culture, which in turn supports the company’s core values, Low said.

Others even build their HR policies around the different workforce generations. Low said a 2007 article on US work website CareerBuilder.com, “Generation Y: Too demanding at work?”, showed that 15% of employers modified their policies based on the different generations. Among those employers who made changes, 57% implemented more flexible work schedules and 33% created new recognition programmes.

This article appeared in Manager@Work, the monthly management pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 756, May 25-31,2009.