Generations and Work

E. Bolland, C. Lopez, Kenneth A. Loparo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137348227
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Based on an extensive national survey of workers and four separate industry-specific surveys, Generations and Work will examine and provide answers to the most common issues and problems of multi generational work by assessing differences and commonalities between and among generations.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction and Plan of the Book

The idea that different generations are marked by different historical experiences and have grown up in periods of different cultural and social changes and have become distinct from one another is very prevalent. The distinction has been seen as something portending trouble. Book titles such as Generations Inc: From Boomers to Linksters—Managing the Friction between Generations at Work; The Conflict of Generations; When Generations Collide; Generation iY: Our Last Chance to Save Their Future; The Next America: Boomers; Millennials and the Looming Generational Showdown; and Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters in Your Workplace carry messages of difficulties from multigeneration worker mixes. Mass media images reinforce generational differences. Visually, we see images of hoodie-clad, iPad-toting young people either literally or figuratively running into calculator-clutching, suit-wearing older workers. It is not just the physical aspects of age that are apparent; it is also by dress and style that generation differences are displayed.

But is it true and does it matter at work? In many instances, differences are assumed to be consequential, but that has not been established by research. Much has been written about how Baby Boomers and Gen Y approach work with different attitudes and perform with different behaviors. These generations have been broadly characterized as Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1960) who are considered to be hard working and devoted, and Gen Y members (born between 1980 and 2000) who seek work as a means, not an end. Gen Y workers are also said to be less loyal as employees. Many other differences between generations have been asserted.

The depictions of general characteristics of generations are incomplete because they deal only with measures of central tendency, not variations within the population. Sound statistical analysis requires looking at both these factors. Very importantly, many conclusions about differences have thus far been based on deliberate searches for differences or assumed differences, not commonalities. A truer look at generations would examine both differences and commonalities. Then, by accounting for both commonalities and differences, a more accurate depiction of generations at work can be accomplished. There may be important sociocultural factors that mitigate or even override the differences that generation membership imparts. A more complete answer to the impact of generations at work happens if both sources for cohesion and separation are examined. This book will do that.

Time, Age, and Generation

Time is of the essence here—not in the sense that there is a need to act quickly but in the sense that time is the essence of what is causing this study. Time not only separates us in the continuum of being, but it also permanently marks us with a permanent tattoo. We use age as a measure of eligibility for social privilege. We use it to rank people we encounter and make attributions about them before we even know them. One is young, middle aged, and old. Everything else falls into place. We use time to make distinctions but also to prescribe commonalities. An infant is not a youth. An older person is not middle aged. The passage of time shapes everything about us, so we quite properly use time as an identifier. We celebrate time, but also fear it.

What people want to know about us is who we are. Gender is mostly evident. Age is somewhat evident. But we are reluctant to ask about age and to reveal it. The reason is that we seem to think people who ask for our age may be passing judgment on us because of our age. We may be judged “too young” or “too old” for the position we hold.

Age is about the only thing that we cannot change. Appearance, education, physical mobility, and even gender and some prenatal birth defects can be changed. We are captives of our birth dates as is everyone else born at the same time. That means, in anthropological terms, also being captured by evolution. Race may produce some differences but these are only temporary in the scheme of things. All of us are caught lockstep in a stage of evolutionary development. That is certainly something we cannot alter.

We are marching together as cohorts of many millions in time but not in step. Our paths have many different directions. The simultaneity of birth becomes the divergence of maturation. With different societies, different cultures, and different environments, the single cohesion point of the same year of birth is progressively irrelevant. That is at least the way it would seem. In the course of our inquiry, we expect to clarify this matter.

Why Generations at Work Is Important

In very early societies, mainly two and occasionally three generations toiled together. Now it is not uncommon to have three and in some cases four generations at work. The economic recession of 2008 prolonged the necessity of work for Baby Boomers. Veterans or the Silent Generation, those born before 1945, have also been subjected to the decline of net worth as a result of the recession, and many have chosen to remain employed in firms. At the same time, new work entrants have joined the working population. The mix of these generations makes the subject of an age-diversified working population even more important. This is the first of six reasons why the topic is important.

Second, work itself has become increasingly complex with interdependencies among work groups. Moves to decentralize tasks and to build self-directed work groups with empowered employees has meant a shift away from more authoritarian work environments. People at work in these situations are not directed from above on what work to do and instead are expected to rely on their own devices, one of which is a method to cooperatively work with intergenerational membership. This is a related facet of modern work.

The third reason rests in the increasing number of US places of employment in which there is a mix of generations at work. The Statistical Abstract of the United States (2013) reported a growth in the number of establishments from 6.2 million in 1990 to 7.4 million in 2009. Growth in the number of business establishments has been long standing and is expected to continue. Accordingly, an increasing number of people, with their attendant age differences, will be found in establishments of work. Because of growth in the number of firms has been pronounced for many years, a definite trend has happened with employee diversity being a major feature of the economy. With that diversity comes greater interactions between generations.

The fourth reason is the inadequacy of prior studies on this subject. The prior studies, with few exceptions, are insufficient to wholly understand the topic of generations in the workplace. Generally, these efforts are devoid of systematic examination. This point will be developed shortly as some of the literature on generations at work is reviewed.

The fifth reason is the gap between theory and research on this matter. Overall, there is an abundance of theory and a dearth of research about generations in the workforce. To really understand the nature of generational work and to draw out implications for practical action, it is necessary to fit theory and research together. This book will put together theory and research in a new model of age-based work interactions.

The sixth reason has to do with the consequences of generational conflict. If generational conflict is substantial, it could lead to an economic strain between generations, which might occur as younger workers do not want to have their Social Security taxes used to support retirees. The dependency ratio (numbers of employed supporting numbers of dependents) has already increased on the dependent side. Economic disparity is a cause of social resentment. A house divided against itself cannot stand, as Lincoln said of the economic sectioning of the United States during the Civil War. A more recent account of a long-standing social division was reported by the Kerner Commission following the race riots of 1967 and 1968. The commission said the nation was moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal. It is possible that a country can divide because of generation too. Even though there has been progress in race relations since 1968, there are many other areas where conflict can happen. If generations do not cooperate, a serious fissure between the young and the old generations is possible. That could go as far as social segregation. So, because the consequences of generational conflict are not fantasies but plausible events, it is all the more reason to deal with generations at work. It is easy to find ways to divide us as a social body and work at cross-purposes. If the bases for division are real and sustained, that is one reason, but if they rest on shallow premises, they need to be challenged. Our book addresses this matter very directly.

Work as a Process

These are the six reasons for this exploration, any one of which is sufficient to justify out topic so we will plunge ahead. We’ll next look at the process of work as it is connected to the generations who do it. The way people come into work and leave work is a continuous process roughly similar to our human life cycle of birth, maturation, and death. At work though, there is more discontinuity in the process. People come in but quit, are fired, or die (which is the only biological outcome of the life cycle at work). They come in at different phases of their own lives and these factors are not the same as the biological cycle. They may come and go as well, spending some time at the job, leave and then come back. Nonetheless, like life, it is cyclic and incremental at work. People are hired in mainly singly or a few at a time and retire or otherwise depart as individuals. In our nonwork lives, infants are born and old people die. In both of these activities, it can be described as a continuous process. In that, there is a problem when considering generations. When we think of generations, we set time boundaries on what is really a continuous process. Normally, this is a 20-year period that we call a “generation.” The constantly moving factory line of human work gets cut off in 20-year chunks. This duration aspect is very consequential in understanding generations at work. It is another aspect that will be explored in the book. When and why was the initial launch point for generations established? Is that still relevant? These questions are answered in the course of the book. They are important to raise now because of the need to have a sound framework for researching the matter of generations at work.

Cooperation and Conflict

A major recurring theme for us is cooperation and conflict between generations as they work. Most of what has been written focuses on conflicts between generations and not cooperation. That is because conflict tends to be more arresting and seizes our interest, while cooperation is often a quiet, undistinguished harmony within a cohesive choir. Little wonder why conflict is paid more attention.

Cooperation and conflict is much clearer in a family context than a work context. Simple observation makes it evident in a family as parents help children with school work or siblings snipe at one another or territory or transgressions. At work, spoken and unspoken rules mute the conflicts and smooth instances of cooperation. Competition between and among employees is tolerated, even celebrated in some corporate cultures. Even so, the essential character of both cooperation and conflict can be found. And these are important because they shape how work is done.

Cooperation has been described in different ways. It can be depicted as what one generation of workers owes to another at the specific work establishment. It can also be a sharing of tasks. It might be a mentor-mentee relationship. The last of these best suits the classic notion of intergeneration cooperation as the elder with the skills teaches the younger apprentice.

Cooperation can unbind society as a whole from the bondage of time. Instead of having to discover everything anew, cooperation allows for the transference of knowledge efficiently and in formalized ways. Adaptation to new work environments is faster through cooperation. This is important because work environments change rapidly and there are competitive advantages to being faster with adaptations. The influence of work environments of the intergenerational composition of work will be developed in the model offered in the last chapter.

Conflict should be defined in a work setting. A working definition of conflict is: Conflict between generations is when there is no agreement on how to do things and a member or members of one generation are at odds with members of another generation over some action or activity that needs to be done. Conflict can take many forms, however, some overt and some covert, but the intention of any form is to win.

The necessity of intergeneration cooperation is apparent in considering the way the world is evolving. One way is the growing population densities in cities where as many as five different generations may be living near each other. Another factor is an aging population in Western countries where social resources are directed to older adults. Younger age cohorts may resent this resource allocation when they cannot participate in the benefits of social and health systems right away as can Medicare recipients. Much of this is found in the debate on younger people’s participation in the Affordable Health Care Act. The act will work if younger people contribute premiums even when they do not utilize health care as much as they will when they are older.

Intergenerational cooperation can be based on social contract theory or utilitarianism. Under contract theory, the social contract is a persons’ moral and/or political obligations that are dependent on a contract or agreement among them to form their society. The contract can be an immediate exchange where one worker contributes something as another provides something else at the same point in time. Or it could be an exchange that starts at one point but is concluded much later with several start and stop points. That is more in the nature of an investment contract and may be accomplished by saying, “Plant this sapling now so your children will enjoy the shade of a mature tree later.”

The Social Contract and Utilitarian Bases for Generational Cooperation

Thinking about what generations might owe to one another has an origin in classic philosophy.

As conceived by Rousseau and Locke, the social contract supersedes obligations to monarchy. People can make agreements among themselves to live the lives of free people.

If then, we set aside what is not the essence of the social contract, we shall find it is reducible to the following terms: Each of us puts in common his person and his whole power under the supreme direction of the general will and in return we receive every member as an indivisible part of the whole . . . this act of association produces a moral and collective body, which is composed of as many members as the assembly has voices, and which receives from this same act its unity, its common self, its life and its will. (Rosseau, 1967, The Social Contract, pp. 18–19).

Rouseau further argues that

the social pact, far from destroying natural equality, substitutes, on the contrary, a moral and lawful equal...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Introduction and Plan of the Book
• 2 The Concept of Generations
• 3 Age-based Job Motivators and Generational Conflict
• 4 Generation Issues in Different Industries
• 5 How Generations Impact Businesses
• 6 Does Generation Matter?
• 7 Diagnosing and Solving Age Issues
• 8 Conclusions and a New Model for Age and Work
• Index