CROSSING THE GENERATIONAL DIVIDE:


Unlocking the Power of Generations to Grow Your Business By Matt Beaudreau


Te landscape of leadership in the workplace has never been this daunting. With five distinctly different generations working side-by-side, the challenges of communicating with and motivating each of your employees can seem insurmountable.


Te reality, however, is that having multiple generations in your workforce can be an incredible advantage to your company. What matters most for the leader are his or her perspective, strengths, and willingness to adapt to the changing landscape of leadership.


Successfully leading a multi-generational workforce requires being aware of each generation’s differences in how they communicate; how they view themselves; and their attitude toward their careers. Te focus of Te Center for Generational Kinetics, as the leader in generational research and solutions, is to help unravel that for you.


While millennials and Gen-Z employees are notably different in their professional preferences and attitudes than their Gen X and Baby Boomer and Silent Generation predecessors, they do bring valuable skills to the table. Te key to avoiding workplace conflicts and disconnects is to invest the time to understand each generation, including your own, and work to unlock the talent and energy of each generation in alignment with your organization’s vision.


Who Are These People? Te Center defines a generation as a segment of a geographically linked population that experienced similar social and cultural events at roughly the same time in their maturation. Members of the same generation tend to share similar beliefs, priorities, preferences, buying patterns, communication habits and workplace styles.


Te Silent Generation refers to those born prior to 1946, now age 72 and up. Most have worked hard all their lives. Many of this generation remain active in the workforce; some are the owners, presidents or CEOs of the business.


Te Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964, putting their age range from 53 to 71. Until recently, they were the greatest percentage of the workforce; the largest purchasing block and the primary trend influencers.


TPI Turf News May/June 2017 ZM X B S


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22-40


41-52


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Generation X encompasses those born from 1965 to 1976, now ages 41 to 52. Tey’re the transitional generation, with strong baby boomer tendencies combined with glimmers of the millennial generation that follows them.


Generation Y, more widely known as the Millennials, are those born between 1977 and 1995, now ages 22 to 40. Tey make up the greatest percentage of today’s workforce. Tey’ve been around a long time and are entirely more influential than you realize. Tey are the generation now driving every major trend.


Te Centennials, more often called Gen Z, were born from 1996 to the present. Tey’re now age 21 and under. Gen Z is coming into the workforce and will become the wave of the future.


The Generational Divide With five distinct generations in the workplace any issue can encounter five different ideas; anything communicated can be taken five different ways. As an industry, turfgrass producers can stick with business as usual, or get on board now and have another amazing 50 years.


We all have a lot of things we think we understand about the generations—but many of those things aren’t true.


Te number one factor in determining generational behavior is parenting. Millennials are baby boomers’ kids. You boomers developed a distinct parenting philosophy that has unified you and come back to haunt you.


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