I attended a session today on understanding our own generational biases and in turn being able to better relate to working and integrating with other generations. Here are some of the notes I took today.
There are often 5-6 different generations working in any given environment. By the time many of us (30s-40s years old) retire there will be 7 generations.
You can never change your generation, but understanding yours can help you to communicate with the others.
Boomers came to be 9mths after WW2, some say a year after.
– changed health care
– maternity wards needed to be created
– then school systems were changed to cope with the number of children
– universities were created when they were ready to go to grad school
– jobs were created when they were ready to work
– RRSPs are being restructured for when they want to retire
* everything has always been there for them waiting so they expect the world to unfold for them
1 person turns 60 every 7 seconds
Trailing boomers came after wards (got mostly nothing)
Gen X & Y as big as Boomers group
Gen I or Z as big if not bigger than Boomers
2 largest issues always in politics – health care and education
now environmental is eclipsing as top issue because of Gen X, Nexus
185,000 Centenarians in the world – most women
by 2020 there will be 2.2 million – 1/3 will be men – W.H.O stats
Soviet Union has a stat holiday called Conception Day to improve fertility rates – but we are only 7 months out from this initiative
Some see 20 somethings as cocky and arrogant, this is often because they have been a generation that is over praised by parents
Each generation thinks it is the best and knows more than the previous. They also assume the next generation will want to be just like them.
Deloitte is marketing for Gen I’s using the new “txt language”, ie: Dbriefs U – new tax course at university – making it fun and exciting,
-even marketing to younger generations by having pre-college outreach programs to grades 6 and 7
Most US research is say that Boombers are staying in the work force longer to pay for incurred health care costs or expected costs.
Canada’s average age to retire 58-63.
People who use their bodies constantly more like 55-58.
Women are retiring in huge numbers and earlier then men. Many women Boomers are married to men 3 years older. As the man retires at 63, the women is retiring at 60.
Women tend to work longer because it took longer to get their careers started. They also often took 10 years off for raising children and now need to earn back pension money.
30 years and under we need to take great care of because they are the ones to replace our Boomers.
40s are over worked, over looked, ignored, stretched thin and disgruntle.
They continue to work because they were taught “hard work gets you ahead, don’t get ahead, work harder, still don’t get ahead, work longer”.
Generations can be grouped together by those things that bond them, parenting styles, historic moments, pop culture, mass media, and technological advances.
50s+ think younger generations have not respect, not on time, argue, talk back
30s- think they get no respect, bosses don’t think they have a life outside of work, think you need to earn your title every day, you don’t get respect just because you have a title
US Canada Age
Traditionalists Traditionalists 60s
Boomers Boomers 50s
Trailing Boomers 40s
X Nexus, X 30s
Y, Millennials Y, Millennials, Net, Velos 20s
Z I 10 – late teens
? Wee under 10
X’s are adaptive to change and have had to be. They have grown up with 50% their families ending in divorce. They saw that no work was gender specific (laundry, lawn cutting). They lived through co-parenting. Were often the Latch-Key kids. One consistent was always friends. They spent lots of time communicating with their friends by phone because they were latch-key kids (come home, use key, get dinner ready, have no friends over, wait for parent to come home). They are often more comfortable communicating by phone or email (not face to face). We then tried to through them into work environments full of team work and they have grown up more being alone then in groups.
Boomers often came home and then were sent out to play until dark came. They learned to negotiate with one another, life isn’t fair, we settle our own differences, more self-sufficient.
Y – some times refer ed to as “why” because people stereotype that they ask this.
Feel they are all unique, all individuals, fast, adaptive, smart.
Velos – they grew up in classes with many different ethnicity in them and often take the best word from many different languages to come up with the word that suits them best. This comes from Velocity.
Y, I, Wee are all working after school on skill development. After school programs (music, sports, etc), then dinner, then internet. We have told them to “use their words”, “tell us how you feel”, “don’t hit”. Can you imagine a Gen Y asking a Traditionalist CEO how they feel?
To understand the generations we need to understand:
-demographics (not the same N. America, S. America, to Europe)
-social, political (abundance vs scarcity)
-social and historical perspectives
-human development
(where you fit in a family of 5 siblings may determine where in a generation you feel you fall)
To understand adults we need to examine their childhoods, specifically at age 10 when our minds our at their pique.
-shared significant experiences
-parenting styles
-key messages
–cultural norms and behaviours
-trends and fads
-social values, structures
-roles, responsibilities
At 10 we:
-create filing systems for our thoughts and memories
-what you want to be develops
-more independent (wash, feed, dress your self, can have full conversations)
-important state for them to combing observations with abstract thoughts
Generation X will quit when not being treated fairly.
Generation Y will quite when friends, family, clients, vendors are not treated fairly. Often work in groups and if one quits they all will.
Phrases to Sum up:
in the…..
50s – save now, pay cash
60s – buy now, pay later
70s – spend cautiously, save for retirement
80s – buy now, pay much later, recycle, reduce, reuse
90s – spend fast, spend lots
2000s – first to see stress management introduced in schools (kindergarten deep breathing exercises), info overload, global knowledge, “war against everything” – don’t‘ think this will have big impact though, will be more tolerant of difference (culturally)
Gen I – won’t trust big companies, only buy local, eat local (ie: because of toxins in foreign goods, toys, etc.) Will be large germaphobes.
notes taken during a presentation by worklifeharmony.ca