Atlantic Canada’s Top Employers 2013

When it comes to intergenerational offices, age is much more than just a number. Baby Boomers came up in a very different workplace than generations X, Y and the Millennials. Keeping good relationships between new workers in their 20s and senior staff in their 60s is an important challenge.

Eddie LeMoine of eddie LeMoine Consulting (pictured above) speaks across Canada and around the world on how to avoid multi-generational workplace conflict and maximize cohesion.

“I think the single biggest conflict that’s happening across generations now is communication conflict,” the Halifax-based workplace expert says. “each generation has a unique way of speaking, a unique language, and a unique style of delivering a message.”

He says a 55-year-old talking to a 25-yearold at work can resemble “a dog trying to talk to a squirrel.” the mutual incomprehension can result from obvious things like cultural references, but it goes much deeper into values, beliefs and ideas about technology.

For example, younger workers often find email too slow and prefer reaching colleagues and clients via texting, instant messaging or even Facebook. this contrasts with Boomers, who remember actually using carbon copies, not just CC’ing people, and see texting and social media as time wasters.

Boomers have succeeded in workplaces that value putting in long hours and may expect younger workers to “do their time,” but younger workers often put more emphasis on productivity. “they look for output—give me a task to do and I’ll do it. I might do it sitting in Starbucks or at home,” LeMoine says.

Older workers generally look for promotion, salary and bonuses as rewards for hard work, while the next generation often values flexible time as a sign of success. Flex-time is an area fraught with conflict, says LeMoine. Many companies praise it on paper, but balk when it comes to actually trusting employees to work from home. “It’s okay to let your employees take work home with them, but it’s not okay to let them work at home during normal hours? Isn’t that weird?” he says.

Kelly Morrisey-taylor, spokeswoman for Dalhousie university, says it introduced a “telework” policy in 2011 to let workers do their job wherever they choose. It’s appealing to many workers, but especially younger ones.

“Teleworking not only improves employee productivity and motivation, but also reduces office space requirements and traffic congestion,” she says.

LeMoine says another area ripe for miscommunication is hierarchy. While older workers are accustomed to “need-to-know” policies and don’t expect to be kept in the loop on every company decision, younger workers often expect a real open-door policy and access to the top brass.

Younger workers are in very different life situations, too. Whereas most older workers likely had a family and a mortgage to go with their first job, younger workers are more likely to be single and living at home or renting. that means walking away from a job is a lot easier, and retaining workers rests more with making the job appealing.

LeMoine says the solution to intergenerational conflict lies not in erasing these differences, but in understanding them and respecting that different approaches aren’t necessarily better or worse—they’re just different.

By Jon Tattrie