5.2 The influence of generational traits on communication

Traditionalists

Traditionalists are known for their strong work ethic, they appreciate job security and are more accustomed to formal attitudes in work environments rather than relaxed, flexible work environments.

Baby boomers

Baby boomers enjoy face-to-face communication and printed information. They are loyal to their job and treat it as a priority in their life, focusing on career progression. They are willing to take risks at work to achieve success. They expect respect for their job title. Many of them are now at traditional retirement age, and the pandemic is thought to have accelerated retirement rates.

Generation X

Gen X shook up the traditional workplace with their independence and entrepreneurial spirit – they are the ‘start-up’ generation, valuing autonomy and innovation. They want respect for their ideas and are focused on results. They are also credited with introducing the concept of work–life balance and they lean towards ‘working to live’ rather than ‘living to work’. They tend to communicate at work via email or instant messaging, and favour soft copy documents over hard copy.

Generation Y/Millennials

Millennials are the fastest-growing segment of the workforce. They are focused on skills, especially creativity, and they value meaningful work in a relaxed environment. They expect their employers to have proactive and positive attitudes to sustainability, equity, diversity and inclusion. They are comfortable using technology to acquire just-in-time knowledge. They prioritise friendship and involvement.

A commonly discussed characteristic of ‘millennials’ is their desire for more feedback than previous generations. This can be very positive, but does require a different approach to communication from other generations.

Generation Z

As the newest generation to the workforce, the workplace characteristics of Generation Z are less well researched and defined than the other groups. However, one thing is certain, they have only ever known a digital world. The COVID-19 pandemic came at a critical developmental stage for Gen Z – normally this would have been the time when they would be making new connections and transitioning into adult life, but that was dramatically affected by lockdowns and other restrictions. They are disproportionately employed in industries such as hospitality and retail so many of them lost their jobs during the pandemic. They value authenticity, transparency, innovation and personal growth.

What this means for your communication approach

Generational characteristics can lead to various challenges in the workplace. Adapting your communication style and content to the needs of your audience is an important consideration in this context.

In the video below, contributors share their insights to working across generations and how you can build more inclusive workplaces.

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GEMMA HALLETT:

There's so many opportunities through degree apprenticeships, apprenticeships, online learning, bite-sized courses, micro-credentials, boot camps, academies. Back when I was leaving school, the options were limited. The options are massive now. And what we need is the world of work to start to see, actually, we can get them in early. We can train them up the way we want. We can train them in-house. We can train them through different providers.

But for young people, it's getting to work early, earning that skill, learning and earning. In this economy, it's a difference between leaving with debt or leaving with a degree and no debt. There are so many options.

And I've met young people in the valleys that are upskilling through various micro-credential courses that are running side hustles, self-taught through YouTube. There's incredible opportunities out there now. University is one route. [LAUGHS] Sorry, but there's so many more.

I have learned so much from young people. I've been studying Gen Z. But before that, I was working in education. So I was constantly learning about what helps my young people, helps them learn better. And what I've seen is this acceleration of this bite-size, on-demand generation. It's not just about what they consume, but it's how they engage. And it's their behaviour and how they learn.

So it's about taking that constant on, constantly available to learn. And YouTube is the second largest search engine for a reason because its bite-size. It's instant.

And what I'm learning from Generation Z is these young people telling me they want to constantly learn. Learning is not this kind of historic, linear, one academic year in one kind of subject. It's actually, I want to do a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And I'll pick it up as I go along, and I'll drop it because I have access to all of it.

We have people in industry making decisions. And we're still coming from the hierarchical kind of perspective. It's, OK, we've always done it this way, so we'll continue doing it this way. And we're coming up against barriers and blockages. But all you've got to do is speak to young people, or speak to the people you're employing, speak to the people you're working with. What works best for you? And I think that takes away the barriers.

So what we've got to understand from young people, if I take you on a bit of a journey, we've got Gen Alpha now who are entering primary school who are used to trying to turn TV over with a swipe. They are the swipe generation, the touch generation.

One of the things I'm really excited about in the future of work is not necessarily the work itself but the environment. So we've got Gen Z who have grown up on their devices and the next generation of employees are coming in bite-sized, ready to learn, wanting to learn, wanting to pick up new skills, actively doing that in their own time. I think that's such a crucial kind of mindset that we can really embrace and get out of their way and allow them to continue to do that in the world of work.

And we know that hybrid working, remote working was coming anyway. The pandemic has just accelerated that. So it benefits Gen Z, and it's something they've always kind of aspired to do. Not everybody. I don't want to generalise. But the Gen Z I speak to, young people I speak to, are quite excited at the possibility of being remote, not having a 9 to 5. It suits their bite-size, on-demand kind of lifestyle.

JESSICA LEIGH JONES:

So within my organisation at iungo, we found that younger people coming into our organisation, digital natives, whilst they were very familiar with using collaboration tools, they couldn't actually use Excel particularly well. So as part of our onboarded process, we had to provide specific training around using Excel and developing Excel formulas.

For our more mature individuals within the workforce, it was actually those collaboration tools that they struggled with. So I can think of a specific example where somebody would only upload their work when it was completely finished, and that was a real frustration for the digital leaders who were saying, well, you need to create the file from within Google Workspace. And everybody needs to be able to see it, and everybody needs to be able to kind of contribute to it.

And that was a real culture shock for this particular individual because they were concerned about being criticised for not producing a finished product. So we came to a compromise with that, where this person would develop the documentation from within the drive but would put a PDF version in once it was completed. And so I think that really helped to bridge that generational gap within the organisation and to respect the cultural clash, if you like, of the digital natives and the more mature workers that we've got.

It's quite straightforward to teach people how to use digital tools, but using them effectively for collaboration is sometimes a little bit more challenging. So I think it's really important to educate people around digital workflows and moving away from single-siloed roles within an organisation where a person is responsible for a particular function.

And that's what they do and not doing anything else, to actually move into a model where we've got more of a fluid organism-type structure where we are using the brain power of different people within our organisation to contribute to building something better than any one of us could do individually. And that's really the power of digital and the power of digital collaboration tools.

JONATHAN MORGAN:

The skills and digital transformation coming from the next generation are already amazing. The next generation already teaches us about how to use social media, how to embrace new technologies and use them without going on-- it might have been a six month training course. Now, it's download an app and start using it and make amazing things happen.

Digital transformation at that level is great. But what we would also like to see from people coming into an employment situation is that the tools that are used, the office tools, the document tools, the spreadsheet tools, the collaboration tools, that the time is taken by the new employees to really dig into those and learn them really well. Because they're key on a day-to-day basis for productivity.

So maybe the new generation, they have this amazing ability to take on new things and learn cool gadgets really quickly for the benefit of the company. But there's an underlying level of detail on day-to-day tools that shouldn't be forgotten, and it's hard work to learn them.

ELISE LOCKYER:

So the different demographics that you've got within the organisation are always going to be present. And whichever generation that you are focusing on, there are theories that different people bring different "ways of working." But they really group all of these people. Millennials act in a certain way. Gen Z act in a certain way.

And I think the reality is that it comes, for me, back to your values and behaviours as an organisation and what you're trying to achieve. It comes back to the purpose of the business. And if you're really clear on the purpose of the business and who you are and your values and your behaviors, they should be adaptable to whichever generation that's entering the workforce.

Now, I guess the challenge that you do have with hybrid and remote working is different people at different times in their lives may be either more or less comfortable with technology. So it's making sure that you're understanding and having the conversations on the way in with those individuals about those skills and understanding what we can do to support the development of those skills through training and onboarding processes.

For those that are coming in to their career for the first time, the challenge is that they would be sat at their home, potentially, on their first day. They won't have people surrounding them. They won't have a clear list of to-dos, or training, or guidance, which they might have done had they been in the office. And they don't pick up on the anecdotal conversations and learning that you just absorb when you are in an office environment.

So some of the things that we've had to do is be really, really clear around how we have started documenting all of our processes, procedures, how-to in little nuggets, little break-down aspects of information where people can pull on that as and when they need it.

And so you've got a directory of information where people can obtain what they need when they need to obtain it via a technology system to enable that they've got the skills, the needs, the requirements to do their role, but of course, that they can always call on people in and around them through a buddy scheme or through kind of their people team if they need someone to call on just to ask any additional questions over and above what's documented.

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