GENERATION GAPS
IN THE WORKPLACE
Learning to understand others’ values and viewpoints
By JUDI CRAIG
Just about any place you work
these days, you’ll hear about a
common challenge: conflict
between the “older” versus
the “younger” employees. But the
problem isn’t really that simple.
Actually, there currently are four generations
in the workplace — each with
its own background, values, beliefs
and characteristics.
THE RADIO BABIES
Born between 1930 and 1945, this
generation gets its name from the fact
that they grew up with the radio as the
most common form of home entertainment.
They mowed the lawn with a push
mower, listened to Ricky Nelson on the
radio, knew how to entertain themselves
without a television and remember the
first TVs as being black and white.
They had heroes to admire; many
fought in World War II. Communism
was the enemy. They tend to be fiscally
prudent, conservative and very loyal to
their employers and employees. They
survived the Great Depression of the
early 1930s, making it easy to understand
their emphasis on job security as
well as the fact that job-hopping is not
a concept they embrace. If they use a
computer, their biggest fear is that
they’ll break it.
THE BABY BOOMERS
This generation was born between
1946 and 1964. They knew Elvis before
he wore sequins, used a typewriter to
write their term papers, watched Leave It
to Beaver on television, remember
Woodstock, listened to the Beatles and
watched man’s first trip to the moon.
Boomers have witnessed several revolutions
in America — from the advent of
the sexual revolution, with women gaining
access to “the pill,” to the blossoming
of the civil rights movement. Many
fought in — or protested — the Vietnam
War. They were told by their parents that
they could have anything they dreamed
of and that getting a college education
was the vehicle to a better lifestyle. They
are often stereotyped as aging flower
children from the ‘60s who sold out to
become the “suits” of the ‘80s, becoming
ambitious and materialistic. They
believe heartily in the American Dream
and maintain (at least some of the time)
that they can “have it all.”
GENERATION X
Born between 1965 and 1976, this
generation rode backwards in a station
wagon on family trips, know who shot
J.R. on television, used a rotary phone,
actually played records and recall the
advent of Atari, ET and the first Star Wars
movie. They’ve seen technology emerge
and grow from records to eight-track
tapes, cassettes, CDs, MP3s, and, of
course, computers.
They’ve watched the Internet take off
and witnessed the dawn of voice mail,
Walkmans, beepers, cell phones, PDAs,
Blackberries and laptops. Most own one
computer, some two or three. They were
the original “latchkey” kids and watched
their parents get “let go” from the corporations
they had been so loyal to.
They learned that politics never solved
anything (and often made things worse),
and grew up scared because of the
threat of nuclear war, terrorist attacks,
AIDS and Watergate. They see no point
in “paying dues” to get ahead and reject
the notion that people should sacrifice
their lives to their work.
GENERATION Y
People born between 1977 and 1991,
Generation Y is often referred to as “Generation X on steroids.” Three times
more numerous than the Gen Xers, they
grew up with similar circumstances to
Generation X (dual-income parents, day
care, divorce) but were subjected to different
parenting styles. For discipline, spankings
were viewed as child abuse, and timeouts
were in. Parents sought to protect
their children from the world’s pitfalls.
This generation has at least thought
about piercing something besides their
ears, has always known about cable TV
and remote controls, used a computer
about the time they learned to read,
grown up on video games and has
always made popcorn in a microwave.
They are very conscious of preserving our
environment, are committed to social
causes, are very accepting of every form
of diversity (racial, ethnic, sexual orientation,
gender, etc.) and express themselves
creatively in their appearance
(body jewelry, brightly colored hair, etc.)
They tend to be much more against alcohol,
drugs and premarital sex than either
Boomers or Gen Xers. Their No. 1 concern
is personal safety (think school
shootings and terrorism).
With such variety of life experiences,
is it any wonder that the generations
have difficulty understanding one another — at work or anywhere else?
There are books written about what
each generation needs to understand
about the others (my favorite is Bridging
the Generation Gap by Gravett and
Throckmorton), but the starting place for
resolving generation-inspired conflict is
to understand that each one of us is a
product to some extent of how we were
parented and, even more importantly, of
what was going on in the world while
we were growing up.
Considering these factors can give us
a starting place to understand one
another’s values and viewpoints without
making anyone “wrong.”
Judi Craig, Ph.D., MCC, is an executive
coach in San Antonio. She is president
of COACH SQUARED, Inc.
(www.coachsquared.com) and a senior
practice advisor with Atticus, Inc.
