Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Ground

Research

The results we present here are based on responses to open-ended

questions about retention, career challenges, and conflict with peo-

ple of other generations. We didn’t ask specific questions about

change, so the results discussed in this chapter come from com-

ments volunteered (unprompted) about change. What this means

is that we don’t know what the whole sample thinks about change;

we know only what those who commented think about it. Having

given that disclaimer, we add that discussions we have had with

people about the results indicate that these results are consistent

with what most people think when they move beyond generaliza-

tions and stereotypes.

Do older people actually resist change?

Do younger people actually embrace it?

The short answer to both questions is no. Older people don’t have

a knee-jerk reaction against change any more than younger peo-

ple say “Right on, dude” every time a change is proposed.

In general, people from all generations are uncomfortable with

change. Almost no one who participated in the study (only 12 peo-

ple out of 2,500) said they actually liked change. Most said they

were concerned, annoyed, scared, and agitated by change in the

workplace.

What you can face is working with people who have

been in the organization for a long time and do not like to

see changes in the workplace. This can be any age.

—Silent

Older generations (Silents, Early Boomers, and Late Boomers)

were significantly more likely than younger generations (Early

Xers, Late Xers) to bring up change as an issue in their own ca-

reers, though they didn’t necessarily say they were resistant to

change.

Overall, respondents from all generations are typically not

pleased about changes in their workplace. Although it is true that

older people are concerned about change, they are not signifi-

cantly more concerned than younger people are. Further, older

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people aren’t concerned about change because it is different from

what happened in the “good old days”; they’re concerned about

change for the same reasons younger people are. People of all gen-

erations are apprehensive that organizational changes

Will increase their workload

Will decrease their authority and power

Will decrease their resources (both budgetary and human)

People also often believe that changes are often

Unnecessary

Not communicated effectively

Disorganized

People of all generations are concerned about how organiza-

tional changes are going to affect them. Overall, the topics of re-

spondents’ comments fell into these five categories:

1. Doing the same work with fewer resources

2. Changes in both the internal and external environment

3. Technology changes

4. Change that is disorganized, unnecessary, or both

5. Resistance to change

Doing the Same Work with Fewer Resources. A key issue for all genera-

tions was “managing with less and trying to do as good of a job with

less staff,” as an Early Boomer said. All generations talked about

how difficult it was to keep getting the work done with diminish-

ing funding and resources. There were many comments that they

sometimes felt as if management thought they should be able to

do the same amount of work—or sometimes more!—with fewer

people to do the job. Generally the feeling was that the idea that

the same amount of work could be done at the same level of qual-

ity with fewer people was an example of management deluding

themselves—or listening too closely to consultants who were vali-

dating management’s delusions. People said that if the “strategic

reduction” in staff also came with a similar “strategic reduction” in

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