Taking The Longer Look at Multi-Gen Workforces

Demographic changes in society will have an impact on all of us at work. What do the changes mean for you?

One in six of us will be over 60 in 2030 and the impact of falling birth rates and ageing populations on skills will be felt in advanced economies until 2050. That’s the message of a new report by EY supported by 55/Redefined.

It cites 55/Redefined forecasts that the European workforce of 15-64 year olds will have shrunk by 25% as the continent ages. That means that employers need to do more to attract and retain an age-diverse workforce, whether that is personalising their benefits and rewards packages, being more transparent and creating intentional multi-generational teams where two-way mentoring is enabled.

The report, How will your decisions today shape the future for generations to come?, looks at the impact of demographic change on the workforce. It highlights other areas of concern, such as the slow progress of women into senior roles and rising global mobility, with some areas of the world having high youth populations and others experiencing falling birth rates. Globally, just 6% of chief executives are women.

The report calls for a longer-term perspective and says that, while later retirement across the workforce can be a short-term fix to stop up a talent gap, it also threatens to lead to stasis in keeping a status quo in place at the expense of younger cohorts. Upskilling older workers is vital, it says, but so too is promoting knowledge transfer to younger employees.

Generation Z

It also looks at the varied experiences and drivers of the different generations in today’s workplace. It says Generation Z, who will account for nearly a quarter of workers by 2030, are characterised by a greater homogeneity of experience worldwide due to their access to the internet, the affordability of smartphones and data sharing.

They experience greater financial insecurity, low trust in public institutions and greater job mobility and tend to be motivated by a desire for work life balance, self expression, personalised experiences, a sense of purpose, a love of travel and a desire for authenticity, says the report. They value authenticity and actions that match words and don’t necessarily see older workers as experts. Transparency is therefore a gateway to trust.

Multigenerational teams and their members need to understand the different characteristics and concerns of different generations. Doing so aids communication between the generations, avoids misunderstandings and reduces tensions. Rebecca Robins, author of Five Generations at Work, is quoted as saying: “We have greater generational diversity at work, and with it the responsibility to better understand that human difference and turn it to the problems and opportunities that we need to solve for.”

The report makes several recommendations, including the need for employers to personalise their Employee Value Proposition, to be more transparent and to promote self-directed training as a constant expectation of all generations.

It calls for the creation of intentional multi-generational teams or workstreams that cut across vertical hierarchies, where two-way mentoring is enabled and collaboration is encouraged.

Employees can help by putting themselves forward for mentoring schemes or joining age-related employee resource groups.

Read the full report here.