Dr. Candace Steele Flippin, Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at Acuity Brands and a multigenerational workplace expert, sat down with Alignment Strategies CEO Dr. Vanessa Weaver to discuss the generational differences that exist in the workplace and how to navigate them. The following is an edited excerpt of their conversation.
Dr. Vanessa Weaver: At Alignment Strategies, we do a lot of work trying to help teams be high-performing teams and leverage the diversity that the teams present—whether that’s gender diversity, or ethnic diversity, or sexual orientation. But one of the challenging areas that we’re working with is this whole multigenerational divide. What is this multigenerational workplace?
Dr. Candace Steele Flippin: One of the questions that I always receive is, “Are generational differences real?” And the answer I like to say, backed by research, is “Yes.” Generation theory tells us that when and where you were born shaped what’s important to you and your value system and we bring those values into work.
One of the ways I like to talk about it is, if you were born at a time, let’s say during The Great Depression, where there was a scarcity of resources, you might come to value, during your formative years, not being wasteful. Similarly, if you were born after 1996, and you’re in Generation Z, where everything was technologically available to you, you might value things that were efficient, and speed and transparency because information abounds.
Weaver: What do you think creates the clash of values?
Steele Flippin: There’s a perceived disconnect in what people value, based on how you were brought into the workplace. If you are a Traditionalist or a Baby Boomer, most likely when you started your career, you were in what’s known as a command-and-control environment. You were given a set of instructions, and you followed them with little question. And then when you came of age, you trained Gen X, that’s my generation, and we accepted that. But then somewhere in the mid to late ’80s, ’90s, technology started to emerge and then that became this really incredible way for people to reset how they thought about work, particularly as you think about how you get and send information.
What I’ve found in my research is then Baby Boomers became frustrated. Now you have this group of workers, Millennials, who grew up with social media and exchanging information and what that meant is they started asking questions. They were reared to have a voice by their mainly Gen X parents, and they took those values to work. When I started my career, if I was given a set of instructions, by most likely a Baby Boomer, I took those instructions, and I went to figure things out. The Internet wasn’t available to me. I had to look at things a little bit differently, and things took time. Whereas a Millennial, if they needed something, that was just a Google way. If they asked a question, they were wanting an answer, and that wasn’t always the case.
What I started to notice was this clash in values, and people not stepping back to understand where they came from. They just wanted people to be compliant. That wasn’t effective for the Millennial worker, and they started to question a lot of things, and now here we are.
Weaver: When we do our exit surveys, we find that Millennials are leaving because they feel not valued, that they don’t have a voice, that the ideas that they bring, because they have the comfort with technology and it’s second nature for them, are often discounted. And that there are politics and rules that really just get in the way of them being able to contribute. And so many of them say, “You know what? I’m going to go somewhere else.” Is that what you’re finding in your research, and in your discussions that you’re having?
Steele Flippin: One of the most interesting nuggets that I found early in my research was this perception that Millennials were not as hardworking. They weren’t as tenacious and really willing to put in the work. I found that wasn’t true. It was really more of a perception around time. These workers grew up at a time when gaming was really prevalent. If it took you one time or 10 times to achieve something, the minute you mastered it, you went on to the next level. That set an expectation that mastery was task-based, as opposed to time-based.
Baby Boomers and many Gen Xers came up when you had to do something repeatedly to demonstrate mastery. All of these socializations that older workers have been accustomed to just don’t resonate with younger workers.
Weaver: I wanted to tee up this notion of intersectionality, which speaks to, not only these differences based on age and generation, but also how does race and gender affect that?
Steele Flippin: Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been conducting pulse surveys of groups of around 300 individuals, and I was wondering how these issues around race, and social injustice, and COVID, and the economy were impacting how people felt about their careers. I found that Millennials and Gen Z by far, almost 70%, now want to do more purpose-driven work. And nearly 50% are rethinking their long-term career goals because of all the things that happened last year, in 2020, around social injustice and race and the economy and COVID-19.
Weaver: What is some advice you would share with the different generations around how to get more out of the investment they’re making in their careers and in their workplaces?
Steele Flippin: First, let people who work within your organization or on your teams understand the value of what they are doing and what your organization or company is bringing to society as a greater good.
The second is really think about mental health. The world has been under this global stress period for an extended period of time, and it has taken its toll. I’m so pleased that we’re seeing a lot more positive conversations around wellness and mental health, in particular. Whether or not you currently have mental health benefits and resources, take some time to make sure you’re taking those steps. Some of them are very practical, in terms of giving people air to breathe and have conversations about how they’re doing. Some studies show that over 90% of younger workers are really struggling with the remote-work environment and the lack of socialization and social isolation. Mental health issues are going to be something you want to pay attention to.
The third one is the extension of a phrase we’ve heard: “We are all in this together.” What I really love is to see the increase in the number of employee resource groups, particularly around generation, and generational intersection, where you can have those dialogues, and share information to bring us all together.
