Did you know that today’s workplace is now made up of four generations?

Today’s workplaces have people that are working longer than their predecessors. While this age diversity is definitely something to celebrate, for employers it may feel like a real challenge to keep everyone happy. And for guys on site, the ability to understand and effectively communicate across this diversity to get the best out of everyone can be a bit confusing. The age groups are defined as:

·        Baby Boomers (aged 55+)

·        Gen X (aged 35-54)

·        Millenials (aged 25-34); and

·        Gen Z (aged 16-24)

One of the main concerns for employers is that it’s hard to manage a team that ranges from the ages of 16-65+. Everyone is at such different stages in their life and career and this means they’ll all have different wants and needs when it comes to work.

That said, age diversity is key to a successful business. The research shows that 85% of professionals globally believe that an age-diverse team helps them come up with innovative ideas and solutions and is mutually beneficial to all team members.

With this in mind, it’s important to ensure that you’re promoting age diversity and engaging with different generations in your workplace. To help you out, we’ve put together a guide that outlines the importance of this in the workplace and how to engage with a range of age groups.

Career Priorities of different generations

Each age group puts a different emphasis and priorities on factors of their career, such as such as progression, workplace friendships and company culture. The research reveals:

Baby Boomers:

A good salary:                                 48%

Friendly colleagues:                       47%

Great company culture:                48%

Room for progression:                  28%

Learning new skills:                        34%

Gen X:

A good salary:                                 59%

Friendly colleagues:                       49%

Great company culture:                42%

Room for progression:                  37%

Learning new skills:                        28%

Millenials:

A good salary:                                 60%

Friendly colleagues:                       44%

Great company culture:                34%

Room for progression:                  49%

Learning new skills:                        32%

Gen X:

A good salary:                                 55%

Friendly colleagues:                       69%

Great company culture:                27%

Room for progression:                  22%

Learning new skills:                        35%

With this in mind, how can you make sure you appeal to everyone? We discuss this in more detail below.

How to engage different age groups

Now you have a better understanding of what certain age groups want from work, you can begin to think about how you can facilitate this in your workplace.

Below are three key areas you need to consider:

1.      Partnering different age groups

Yes, we’re talking old bull, new bull stuff here. It’s a nice idea to encourage mentoring in your business. Whether this is setting up a buddy system, or ensuring that all staff support one another. This will not only bring teams closer together, but different age groups can learn from each other. After all, everyone brings their own unique style and skill set to the table. In very broad strokes, older workers will have more refined skills. They have been around to see the traps, have learnt how to avoid them and how to same time and effort by refining processes or skills. In general for the younger generation, they will have more energy and often more strength so they can do tasks faster, but have not yet learnt the traps and will make more mistakes. If you can partner an older worker with a newer worker, you will be able to achieve the absolute of both from both and this will be a powerful team.

2.      A Balanced Package

Pay and benefits are massively important to employees, but you can see from the research that there are different priorities; so, it’s important that you’re offering competitive packages and that these are fair. The worst you can do is to underpay someone or make them feel underappreciated. Remember, great workplace perks don’t have to be expensive! They just need to suit all ages. You could even ask your workers or conduct a survey amongst your workforce to see what’s important to them. Once inexpensive idea is flexible working. After all, helping your employees to balance their personal life around work can be extremely beneficial. Plus, this is something all ages can get on board with.

3.      Communications

A huge part of promoting positive age diversity is ensuring you’re communicating well with your workforce. Whether that’s in the form of weekly catch-ups, monthly newsletters or quarterly presentations; it will boost morale and bring the team closer together – no matter what the age gap. You might also want to consider organising social events that appeal to all ages. Whether that’s events after work, or your annual Christmas party, and choose locations and activities that are easily accessible to all. This will keep your diverse workforce happy and give them a chance to socialise with one another away from the working environment.

4.      Company Culture

Encourage a good work-life balance for all. This is important in any business. So be sure to create an environment where staff don’t feel like they have to stay late or start early. This includes encouraging them to switch off after work or while they’re on annual leave. No-one should have to answer work emails or calls outside of office hours. By creating this positive company culture, you’ll find morale is higher and staff are friendlier towards one another, helping to keep all generations engaged.

5.      Progression, training and development

Career progression and learning new skills is another area that is diverse amongst the age groups. So, you need to make sure you’re offering plenty of opportunities for progression and to learn new skills and take the next step up when ready. It could also be beneficial to offer training around age discrimination in the workplace. This can help to build a more inclusive workforce, ensuring your employees know how to behave professionally and aren’t discriminatory towards one another. You also need to be careful that you’re offering the same opportunities to all employees. Everyone should have the right to take on new responsibilities and undergo training when they’re ready.

By following the steps above, you’ll be able to maximise your age diverse workforce and create great working environment. Not only this, but you’ll begin to understand the importance of age diversity when hiring, helping to make your future workforce even stronger.

Remember, when you’re recruiting, you need to appeal to professionals of all generations. So, ensure than any unconscious bias isn’t damaging your recruitment process. Embracing age diversity in the workplace and shouting about your inclusive company culture can really help to boost your employer brand.

In turn, this will then help to attract a wider range of talented individuals; ones who will fit in well with the culture and only serve to strengthen your workforce – it’s a win-win!

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