Introduction
Managing and understanding diversity in workplace is normally responsible for the generation of a wide range of issues such as those related to race, gender, disability and ethnicity. In the recent past generation diversity has become more popular within the discipline of business management. Scholars have realized the importance of adopting effective approaches towards a successful generational diversity management (Richard, 2000). With the exit of the past generations and the entry of new generation, which is composed of people from different political, social, demographical and economic backgrounds, an exciting phase of organizational growth has emerged. This presents new opportunities for business growth and other transformations in the business world. Similarly, such generational changes contribute to massive challenges due to different values, needs perspectives, priorities and work ethics among the diverse generations.
As the world is ushering into a more globalized state, teams within the organizational workforces are becoming more diverse, increasing their awareness of the experiential, cultural, communication and skill-set differences between various generational groups (Richard, 2000). Even if managing and understanding generational differences within the organizational workplace is not an easy task, it is highly essential, especially while trying to provide lasting solutions to the current challenges that most organizations are facing in the contemporary business world. This paper evaluates and explores the concept of generational diversity, pointing out some of the positive and negative impacts it has on organizational workplaces.
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What is generational diversity?
Understanding generational diversity is the initial step any organization should take before learning how to manage it (Wey Smola & Sutton, 2002). One cannot manage something he/she does not understand well. Generational diversity has been defined differently by different scholars. However, within the workplace setting, it is referred to as the extent to which any workforce population is influenced, or represents people from different age groups present within the generational workforce. In most cases each generation of workers share similar views and experiences while growing up through their social views, experiences and influences from their generation. Such values then define how they approach the world as a group in terms of loyalty, authority, work-life balance, employer and other important issues all of which impact the overall operation of the organizational workforce (Wey Smola & Sutton, 2002). In this case, managing every generation well plays a crucial role in ensuring the overall success of an organization in terms of productivity and performance.
In order to succeed in maximizing the variety of values, needs, experiences, and other approaches based on the differences in generations as well as in developing effective strategies to enhance growth, the best thing to do first is to understand various generational differences.
Table 1: a summary of the common generations in workplaces
|
Silent generation (1922-1945) |
Generation of Baby boomers (1946-1960) |
Generation X (1961-1980) |
Generation Y (1980-2000) |
|
| Moments definition |
Labor union uprising Stable families Movies on silver screen Rural life radio |
Television Increased political assassinations Suburban, prosperity lifestyles Women right advocating Concern about the minority and immigrants’ rights |
Poverty inclement Stagnation of economies Working mothers and divorce AIDS MTV Ethnic and racial diversity Rise of Computer generation |
Talk shows in TV Multiculturalism Unprecedented and internet mobility Economic prosperity among the individuals and the society |
| Values |
Sacrifice and dedication Adherences to various corporation and government rules Conformity and patience Hard work Maintaining law and order Rewards were delayed |
Team orientation and optimism Social involvement and personal growth Health and wellness Personal gratification |
Simplicity and common sense Balance in lifestyle Increased techno literature Pragmatism and self-reliance Increased cynicm, fun and informality |
Achievement Civic duty Sociability Optimism morality |
| Style of Interaction | At individual level | By teams | At entrepreneurial | At participative level |
| work preference | As an obligation | As an adventure | As a challenging case | As a fulfillment |
| Reward by… | Level of performance in terms of job well done | A title | Freedom to work independent | Job that is meaningful |
| Family and work | Are separate | Are unbalanced | Are balanced | Are balanced |
| Work and time | Working hours are 5-9 | Face-to-face time with the senior management | Work must be done regardless of the time used | Technological application for challenging the traditional time frame |
| They are loyal to. | The organization | Self and the organization | People in general | Professional advocate and self |
Source: (Kelly Services, 2017)
Positive effects of generational diversity in the workplace
There are numerous benefits of generational diversity within the workplace. As per different studies organization that intends to attain a sustainable growth and market dominance must learn how to capitalize and leverage the values of generational diversity within their workplaces to achieve number positive results (Wey Smola & Sutton, 2002; Lyons & Kuron, 2014).
Improved retention, attraction and engagement
With the increase of scope and speed of globalization, creating more age diverse and understanding generational diversity will help the organization to attract and retain diverse talents that will be responsible of innovative and quality production (Lyons & Kuron, 2014). This therefore is likely to enhance competitive advantage thus market dominance, which are the main goals of an organization. Diverse skills from the diverse workforce help the organization to solve the numerous challenges within the contemporary business world thus preventing any losses or downturns.
Taking the case where the Baby Boomers start to retire, the modern strategies employed to recruit and retain employees to refill the positions left might not be as effective as before. The new employees may not have the necessary experience and knowledge in management to fill the positions left. In that case, the best thing to do is to focus on the important learning through teamwork that is cross-generational (Bowen & Blackmon, 2003). Additionally, the organizations must learn how to attract and retain the highly talented Gen Y employees who value the opportunity to work within a diverse team for the benefit of the organization. Even though there are several challenges in attracting and retaining generational diverse employees such as misunderstanding between the workforce members, the approach has proved to be more effective in increasing the workforce productivity.
Increases competitive advantage that ensures customer loyalty
The strategy of leveraging workplace diversity is becoming more important within the concept of organizational management, especially based on the fact that it helps in creating competitive advantage (Lyons & Kuron, 2014). Beside the fact that some differences arise within the workplace, it is more crucial to consider them as source of synergy. By identifying the unique strengths of each generation and determining how such strengths can be used to improve the performance within the workplace, organizations may be able to motivate individual workers within the diverse workplace to give their best for organizational and self-benefits (Parry & Urwin, 2011). This therefore improves the company’s competitive advantage thus better performance within the highly competitive market.
Increased competitive advantage is normally associated with quality production that satisfies the customers within the market. In most cases, when customers are satisfied, they become more loyal to the organization, which is an added advantage. Studies have noted that customer base, similar to workforce, is becoming more diverse in terms of personality, gender, culture and age together with other differences (Parry & Urwin, 2011). In that case, the organizations that have adopted better and effective generational diversity management approaches are also able to address the diverse needs of the multinational clients thus gaining their loyalty.
Enhances productivity of the workforce
Generational perspectives that are termed diverse can lead to a more adaptable and robust working environment when they are integrated valued and nurtured appropriately (Parry & Urwin, 2011). Such working environments enhance employees’ motivation thus heightened productivity or the workforce.
Assists in strengthening the leadership bench and expanding view of succession planning
For any organization to retain its market position and competitive advantage it requires an effect succession plan, which is able to create a more flexible and diverse management team. Such a succession plan plays a crucial role in ensuring that leaders within the organization, who act, think and behave differently from different perspectives play a crucial role in ensuring market dominance and better business performance (Wey Smola & Sutton, 2002). In that case, with an effective generational diversity management strategy, an organization is able to ensure that, in a progressive way, all generations in leadership have diverse views and ways of doing things in order to promote creativity and innovation, which are essential in creating competitive advantage within the market.
As per the study by Parry & Urwin (2011) the leadership face is changing drastically within the contemporary business world. The number of female organizational leaders is increasing even in countries like India where women have been left behind in leadership. Such a development calls for more robust leadership approach for the generational diversity to enhance effective transition from the previous generation to the new ones.
Benefit of structure and review of compensation
The organizations that initially followed the ‘ ’one size fits all’’ rewarding approaches, when they shift to a more diverse approach following the increased diversity within the workforce, they manage to motivate the employees to work tirelessly towards the attainment of the organizational goals (Kelly Services, 2017). Employees from different generations view non-monitory and money incentives differently. Bearing that in mind, in order to satisfy and motivate them, organizational management must come up with a more diverse way of rewarding according to the employees’ unique expectations. That way, they are able to raise the overall productivity of the workforce thus profit maximization and competitive advantage of the organization (Bowen & Blackmon, 2003). Asian Pacific employees prefer the traditional promotions and bonus over the non-monitory incentives, such as day/time offs. Gen X‘s and Gen Y’s employees, on the other hand, favors traditional rewards than Baby Boomers. To manage a workforce comprised of employees from all these generations requires more diverse approaches where more than one rewarding approaches is used to ensure total satisfaction of all employees. This will therefore increase collaboration and performance.
Negative effects of generational diversity in workplace
It leads to intergenerational conflicts within the workplaces
Despite the fact that organizations increasingly understand the generational differences within their workplaces, a number of employees in most areas within the world have indicated that there is still a high level of serious conflicts due to intergenerational differences (Wey Smola & Sutton, 2002). With employees from different generations having different values, ways of thinking and acting and leadership styles, it is hard for the organizations to attain a hundred percent integration and positive collaboration. In most cases, conflicts of interest normally emerge thus leading to serious. Such conflicts may affect productivity and performance negatively thus undermining the overall business operations of an organization.
It has led to emergence of different reward expectations among employees from different generations
For any organizations to succeed within the highly competitive business world, they must come up with employees’ management strategies that ensure their total satisfaction thus motivating them to work hard towards the attainment of the overall organizational goals (Wey Smola & Sutton, 2002). This has become a challenging task within the concept of generational diversity management, especially when some employees from one generation are not comfortable for the rewards they receive. Rewarding the employees differently has raised much dissatisfaction among some groups of employees thus demotivating them to continue giving their best (Bowen & Blackmon, 2003).
It leads to hierarchical and organizational barriers
Despite the contributions and strengths of generational members towards an organization, some organizations’ hierarchical structures act as major hindrance to diverse flexibility (Lyons & Kuron, 2014). The organizations structured in societies that are hierarchical normally struggle with the idea of adopting the new diverse corporate structure from the traditional corporate ladder thus affecting their efforts to manage their generational diverse workplace.
Conclusion
Leveraging and managing generational diversity within the organization’s workplace is not a sole duty of senior and human resources management; it involves the effort of all stakeholders within the organization. Even though such senior management plays a crucial role in supporting, designing and deploying strategies that support multi-generational workforce, the manner at which the rest of stakeholders adopt the concept and how they are willing to implement it play a crucial role towards its success.
Generational diversity like other forms of diversity impacts the organizational workplace in different ways. Positively, it: enhance attraction, retention and engagement of talented employees; increase competitive advantage of an organization; increase the workforce productivity; expands the views of succession planning and strengthens the leadership bench. Negatively generational diversity: increases the conflict within the workplaces; and increases organizational and hierarchical barriers. Generationally, even though it has some challenges, generational diversity promotes interaction between the employees from different backgrounds thus enhancing their overall productivity.
References
Bowen, F., & Blackmon, K. (2003). Spirals of silence: The dynamic effects of diversity on organizational voice. Journal of management Studies , 40 (6), 1393-1417.
Kelly Services. (2017). Understanding and leveraging generational diversity for organizational success . International journal of management reviews , 13 (1), 34-40.
Lyons, S., & Kuron, L. (2014). Generational differences in the workplace: A review of the evidence and directions for future research. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 35 (S1).
Parry, E., & Urwin, P. (2011). Generational differences in work values: A review of theory and evidence. International journal of management reviews , 13 (1), 79-96.
Richard, O. C. (2000). Racial diversity, business strategy, and firm performance: A resource-based view. Academy of management journal , 43 (2), 164-177.
Wey Smola, K., & Sutton, C. D. (2002). Generational differences: Revisiting generational work values for the new millennium. Journal of organizational behavior , 23 (4), 363-382.
