Embracing generational differences

Today’s organization is a blend of workforce from divergent generation. Mastering over the manoeuvre to tackle this multi generational workforce is a gritty task. Organizations have a pool of fresh young talented faces, middle age people holding most of the management roles and senior executives holding top positions and have 30-40 years of experience  in their profession.These multi-generational workforce are bound to give rise to conflicts and friction within the organization. 

Managing a multi-generational workforce effectively presents many potential advantages and opportunities for the individual and organization. Each generation brings to the table different approaches to work, from the way it prefers to interact with others, to how it views business strategies.

A major challenge for today’s traditional workforce is to figure out how to develop younger workers into tomorrow’s managers under a new business environment. A pivotal question for managers is, “Do we want our legacy to be of mentoring and empowering the next generations, or of fighting them tooth and nail?” Organizations that embrace generational differences in values, ways of getting things done, and ways of communicating will thrive.

Deeksha Kaura
PGDM 2014-16

Defining Multi generational workforce

A generation is  defined as a group of people born and living around the same time. They are fed with similar kind of inputs about right , wrong, good , bad, fashion, style etc. They share a common set of events and trends related to society , economy, culture, movies, heroes, music, parenting and education system. And as a result they share a camaraderie in decision making, risk taking , business acumen, team spirit, trust , leadership and other such collaborative styles.

Literature in Indian context focuses very less on multigenerational workforce. Lot had been discussed about gender and other diversity issues which in itself is less substantial. Organisations of future need to balance strength of multiple generations to create a place that fosters collaboration, efficiency, openness, creativity and trust.

Present day organisations can’t ignore the differences in competencies, attitude, individual and shared values and general outlook of the people across generations. On one hand these differences can create synergy through openness, exchange of ideas, new concepts, alternative thought processes; they can also lead to chaos, frustration ,conflict, heartburn and delayed decision making  if not handled properly. The organisation can experience disgruntled, disengaged, dissatisfied, burdened workforce and  higher employee turnover.

Organisations in western countries such as  USA , UK  and Canada have done intensive research on multigenerational diversity. And they have adopted categorisation of generations using a widely accepted model based on birth years and significant events in the history of world. The categories so defined are Traditionalists or Veterans (1922-1945); Baby Boomers (1946-1964); Generation X ( 1965-1984); Generation Y or Millenials (1981-1994); Generation Z (1995-Present).

Till date we have blindly accepted and adopted this categorisation . But  understanding the context and historical events in India, can we apply it in Indian settings ? In a  widely diverse country like India,  every individual at the workplace brings with him deeply rooted rich cultural values based on  region, state, religion, gender, belief, ethics and  social norms. Cognizance of such differences may  lead to better understanding of individuals at workplace and can help in  designing appropriate interventions.

Isn’t it  good that we deeply analyse the Indians in diverse contexts and define our own set of generation  and study these cohorts for greater good ?

Dr Pratima Daipuria