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With regard to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, the subject of age is often left by the wayside. Quite simply, there isn't much of a conversation when it comes to building a workforce that spans generations.
What many may not realize, though, is that there can be great benefits to having a multi-generational team. People of different ages bring diverse viewpoints, skills, and opportunities for learning.
Despite that, however, managing a successful multigenerational workforce comes with its own set of challenges. Building a remote team that, for instance, includes decades-long employees and relative newcomers with less than three years under their belt requires tailored strategies. You must be able to address your team's unique needs and leverage their strengths.
To that end, consider the following information a detailed guide to developing a multigenerational workforce and overcoming the potential challenges it may present.
How do multigenerational teams benefit organizations?
Embracing generational differences in the workplace can offer your business the following benefits:
- Cognitive Diversity: Older generations tend to bring deep industry knowledge and experience, and younger employees are well-versed in emerging technologies
- Learning and Mentorship: Long-time employees can share knowledge and provide professional development opportunities for younger co-workers, but newer or younger employees can share a unique worldview that can benefit tenured staff members too
- Innovation: Diverse perspectives can often lead to creativity and an ability for teams to think outside the box, reaching a wider variety of potential customers more effectively
- Talent Attraction and Retention: Roughly 40% of employees report that they would leave an organization that couldn't fulfill its DEI goals, and 56% wouldn't recommend it as a place to work; by supporting team members from various generations effectively, you can improve your retention rates and attract higher quality candidates for future roles
In these ways, building a successful multigenerational workforce can boost performance, and in the long run, it can help companies gain and maintain their competitive edge.
The unique challenges of a multi-generational team
A diverse workforce can certainly be a good thing, but multigenerational workforce challenges abound. Some of the issues your company may face in bringing younger and more experienced employees together include the following:
- Different Communication Styles: When these clash between workers of different ages, they can cause intergenerational conflict
- Generational Stereotypes: These can stop employees from developing respect for every member of the team
- Diverse Expectations: When these differ on things like work-life balance and workplace norms, it can be hard to manage everyone's needs
- Resistance to Change: A distrust or anger toward change can make it challenging to manage how quickly your business can adopt new technologies
Your baby boomer workers might want to talk face-to-face; your Generation X-ers may prefer phone calls or emails, and your Generation Z employees likely appreciate quick texts and other digital messages.
With these types of generational differences in mind, setting clear expectations for workplace practices is essential. Whether this is as simple as setting office hours in which team members are available for meetings or calls (even for remote teams) or establishing a timeline of 1 business day for responses to emails, you can smooth out some of the obstacles that come with a multigenerational team.
Workplace generational differences like these can certainly present unique difficulties, but it is learning how to bring the various age groups of your business together that will help you create an effective multigenerational workforce.
What different generations of your workforce really need
Today's workplaces may include members of as many as five generations all working toward the same objectives. Effective multigenerational workforce management, therefore, requires knowing what each group needs to thrive.
From the Silent Generation to Gen Z, here are a few of the ways that you can leverage everyone's strengths and unite them around shared workplace values:
Long-tenured employees (20+ years) 🧑 💻
To support the needs of long-tenured employees, there are several practices you can implement. These include:
Leverage institutional knowledge
Employees who have been around a long time likely know a thing or two about how to do their jobs well. This means that a long-term employee could be an asset throughout the hiring process. Consider having these experienced employees join your HR team for interviews or application reviews. Once hiring decisions are made, long-term employees may also be able to mentor new hires to help bring them up to speed and decrease their time to productivity.
You may also wish to have your long-running employees available to consult with during onboarding processes. That will ensure efficient knowledge transfer and the passing on of cultural values, all while helping workers build relationships with members of other generations.
Adapt technology comfortably
Older employees may have a different experience than those who have come after them. In many cases, employees from older generations are more familiar with in-office work during specific hours. Face-to-face meetings are their norm.
Consequently, remote work may require some getting used to, especially when it comes to handling new tools and technologies, such as video-conferencing or instant messaging platforms. Don't assume that employees from any generation are familiar with particular tools; instead, make sure you have clear, easy-to-understand instructions about any required platforms.
If employees do express frustration with new tools, workflows, or processes, listen with empathy and ask specific questions to understand their pain points. In response, consider offering additional tech support and training to reduce any frustration and increase their confidence.
Acknowledge loyalty
Research has proven that proper employee recognition can increase engagement and reduce turnover, particularly when appreciation becomes highly embedded in your organizational culture.
For older employees, consider how you can recognize their long-term commitment. First, come up with tailored benefits, such as additional time off or additional perks, to remind these employees that they matter to you. Adding these types of benefits for long-term employees not only encourages them, but it can also serve as a motivation for newer employees to stick around.
Apart from benefits and perks, take the time to spotlight their contributions during team meetings and virtual events, and perhaps via a shoutout in company newsletters or social media posts.
Promote flexibility
Older employees can sometimes feel disoriented when their communication preferences are upended. Remote-first policies are a prime example of that kind of upending.
As you begin to prioritize flexible work, involve your more tenured employees in shaping remote-first policies. Doing so can help ease the transition, assure them of their continued job security, and ensure that their voices are heard.
When you establish new policies, provide timelines for implementation so everyone can be on the same page when it comes to expectations for communication. For example, if team members need to collaborate with others in a different time zone, communicate standardized timelines for responses via different channels. An urgent request might require a text or phone call and a response time of 2 business hours. A less urgent need might call for an email with an expected response time of 1 business day.
Failing to set up clear policies can lead to frustration between team members. By taking the time to consider the ways that individual employees prefer to communicate and setting appropriate boundaries to support flexible work, you can reduce friction amongst your staff.
Newer employees (under 3 years) 🐣
For employees who are either new to the workforce or just joining your team, there are a few ways you can encourage rapid integration into existing teams while supporting their growth.
Accelerate integration
Many new employees feel frustration due to a lack of direction, and that can contribute to quick turnover; in fact, research shows that a company has just 44 days to convince its new hires to stay.
Structured onboarding programs are crucial to retention, and they should include frequent check-ins to ensure your remote teams understand culture and expectations. In addition to well-prepared documentation that newer employees can refer to, designating a point person for questions and concerns can be a helpful way to bring new team members up to speed with confidence.
Partnering newer employees with experienced team members can help to promote a better sense of community and collaboration, providing pathways to stronger, more effective teams.
As you choose individual employees to pair up, consider learning styles, experience with tools and technologies the new employee will need to use, and how the employees prefer to communicate. By taking the time to consider these factors upfront, you can align personalities and build better chances of long-term success.
Foster connections
Organize virtual team-building activities, perhaps through the use of buddy systems or networking opportunities, to help employees build relationships. Doing so will undoubtedly take a lot of conscious work and effort, but a platform like Confetti offers opportunities to have someone do the heavy lifting for you.
To encourage true engagement with your workforce, you can opt for fun and creative exercises, such as cooking classes, or more structured learning opportunities, such as mindful leadership workshops. Opportunities like these can be essential to building lasting memories and a sense of community within your staff teams.
In either case, the goal is to help everyone get to know each other and build skills that can help them on their journey within your organization.
Offer growth opportunities
A sizable 87% of Gen Z employees say that learning and development are important to their career success. Highlighting career development paths is, therefore, critical to talent attraction.
To future-proof your workforce, make sure that you regularly provide upskilling opportunities. Investing in these types of programs helps your organization stay innovative and reassures younger employees that you care about their professional future.
To get started with these kinds of programs, consider whether there are skills gaps that you hope to address with newer team members so that they can continue to advance within your organization. By doing so, you can show younger or newer team members clear pathways to advanced positions within your organization.
You can also consider the individual interests of your employees. Survey team members to discover areas in which they hope to grow, whether it's training in a specific tool, management training, or learning from another employee who does a specific task well. Then, provide meaningful ways to discover new skills and practice them in a structured way.
Celebrate fresh perspectives
Though older employees have no shortage of knowledge and experience to share, it's essential that you don't discount the perspectives of your younger generation workers. Encouraging their input when it comes to shaping remote policies keeps them engaged and on board. Recognize that their adaptability and modern perspectives can bring innovative ideas to the table.
When a newer team member expresses an idea that could add value to your organization, stop and take time to appreciate their contributions, both personally and in front of others. This clearly communicates to your entire staff that you value thoughtful contributions from team members, whether they are new or tenured.
Additionally, you may consider setting up reverse mentoring opportunities. Newer employees can help tenured ones adapt to unfamiliar technologies and show them how to incorporate new platforms into their workflow. Altogether, that can lead to professional growth among both age groups as they learn to provide and accept feedback.
Bridging the gap 🤝
Even in the most supportive environments, it can take time and intention to forge strong connections between team members from different generations. To help your multigenerational team work even more effectively together, use the following strategies:
Create cross-tenure collaboration
Letting tenured and newer employees work together on projects and tasks can promote knowledge sharing. After all, nothing brings a team together quite like working hard toward the same goal.
While this can take place in the form of regular work tasks, you can also encourage cross-generational teamwork with team-building activities and events. By making regular collaboration a part of your company culture, you increase the chances of building a unified workforce while reducing friction between teams that have different perspectives and experiences.
Unified communication
Communicate your remote-first policies clearly, and make sure you communicate through various avenues to ensure everyone gets the message.
Take a look at your workflows and training procedures to ensure they aren't oriented toward one specific generation at the expense of others. Consider how your teams learn best. Implement tools and support systems that can encourage success and skill-building for team members with different expectations, experiences, and learning styles.
Tailored support
Conducting surveys and virtual town halls with your team can help you get a sense of each generation's unique needs and perspectives. From there, you can use their feedback to shape policy decisions, guaranteeing that everyone feels heard and has what they need to stay productive.
Confetti can help you bring employees of all ages together
Ultimately, the key to bridging the age gap within your business lies in your ability to ensure everyone is aligned. Communication styles and work expectations may differ, but you can bring different generations together with intentional team-building and collaboration.
Confetti has a wide array of options to make that happen. Our virtual team-building experiences can help you onboard new employees with ease. We can also provide opportunities for different generations to learn together. Whatever your goals for your workforce, our team has a solution to help you build the skills to meet them.
