Generational diversity: a reality and an opportunity for businesses
An article by Mamta Bhatt and Jacob Vakkayil.
01/23/2025
4 min
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In today’s workplace, generational diversity is not only a reality but also an opportunity. Interestingly, much of the ‘conversation’ around having older workers at the workplace often centers around intergenerational conflict, biases against older workers, difference in working styles, challenges of training multi-generational workforce, etc. However, it is also important to acknowledge the many opportunities and advantages that an intergenerational workforce provides.
First, organizations should recognize that older workers have experience and expertise that may be beneficial at different levels. They have gathered, over time, knowledge and skills about their industry, economic systems and market conditions, through which they can deal with a variety of potential situations.
Moreover, they have an understanding about the organization’s past, its strategies and practices that have worked well, but also those that did not. These experiences can help them evaluate situations and make sound decisions. Further, clients and external stakeholders often rely on longstanding relationships and some may find it easier to establish trust with older employees given their experiences. Finally, older workers can play a key role in in helping to preserve and transmit the values and culture of the organization. This is especially important when an organization is going through change or is facing turbulent times as an organization’s identity and culture is a glue that binds people together.
On the other hand, of course, younger workers also contribute in multiple ways to the organization and their coworkers. They can bring fresh ideas and perspectives into the organization. Their openness to new ideas is particularly beneficial when organization is going through change, e.g., implementing new technology and processes, expanding to new markets, adopting sustainability goals, etc
Moreover, many young people are characterized by a high degree of passion, especially for global problems such as sustainability. They are also comparatively quick to adopt new behaviors that are necessitated by changes in the business environment (for example digital transformations), changes in societal attitudes and values and new tools and technologies. This makes them particularly useful in capturing emerging market opportunities associated with these changes.
Different backgrounds and experiences
Numerous studies on diversity have underlined how organizations can benefit from having people with different backgrounds and experiences. Therefore, teams with both older and younger workers can benefit from the rich exchanges of opinions, varied experiences and perspectives. This can eventually facilitate good decisions. Furthermore, older and younger workers can help each other in a number of different ways.
With their exposure and diverse experiences, older workers can play a key role in mentoring younger workers while the latter can also accompany older workers in specific domains (reverse mentoring).
This mentoring can take a variety of forms. First, a lot of knowledge transfer in organizations happens tacitly when people learn from observing how others perform. In that sense, by working with older workers, younger workers can learn how to communicate, make decisions, solve organizational issues, and see the big picture instead of just focusing on the immediate task. Next, older workers can also provide career guidance to the younger ones. For instance, they can share insights from their own journey and also what worked and what did not as they navigated their career paths as well as provide organization specific guidance about career progression.
Finally, older workers can facilitate personal growth of younger workers by providing them with constructive feedback which can not only help them develop but also instill confidence in their abilities. Through their personal stories of success and failures, they can emphasize the values of perseverance and resilience; these may encourage younger workers to develop these attributes.
Similarly, younger workers also have an enormous amount to offer to older workers. For example, those who are adept with technology, they can share their insights about software and social media and how these tools can be used effectively and efficiently to enhance work with those who are less proficient. Thus, they can reverse mentor older workers on aspects related to technology. Older workers can also gain from learning about younger employees’ perspectives – for example, about trends and preferences of young consumers.
Further, younger workers are more attuned to flexible work practices that have developed rapidly in recent years. For older workers too, such practices may facilitate better work life balance and can help them work for a longer time. Younger workers can facilitate older employees’ adjustment in the flexible work environment by helping with the use of virtual collaboration platforms. They can also share the best practices and routines related to remote work that can ensure productivity and well-being.
Meaningful intergenerational interactions
While intergenerational diversity offers several advantages, to leverage these promises, it is important that there are opportunities for meaningful intergenerational interactions. For this, organizations must ensure that appropriate policies and procedures are in place to enable exchanges between across the generational spectrum.
For example, older employees with long years of service could be involved in a structured manner in the socialization and integration of younger employees. On the other hand, younger employees with specialized capabilities in emerging domains can be involved in reskilling older employees. Further, while forming teams to address transversal issues across the organization, intergenerational diversity must be considered in addition to other dimensions such as nationalities or gender.
In conclusion, there are important synergies that can result from having employees with different age groups. To leverage the promises of this dimension of diversity, organizations need to encourage and facilitate productive intergenerational interactions.
