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Four Generations at Work Create

‘Life-Giving’ Dynamic for Employees

By Mitchell Beer

May 23, 2024 8:45 am EDT

For this morning’s main stage presenter, Kim Lear of Inlay Insights, the Find Your People theme at TUG Connects 2024 is precisely the right lens for thinking about the four generations in the workplace and how they can help each other succeed.

The experience of an older workforce retiring and younger generations moving up in their organizations “is inherently about change, what great leadership looks like today, what’s the same about that from 20 years ago, and what’s different,” Lear explains. Today’s circumstances dictate a focus on “the different levers that can be pulled to get more discretionary effort out of people, how people in different generations articulate their goals for a successful life, and where each of us fits into that story.”

After nearly a decade working as a researcher, writer, speaker, and self-described trend-spotter, Lear says she still remembers what drew her into a specialty on generational change. “The question was: What if I were born into a different time? How would I see this differently?” she recalls. “It’s an elegant question, and one that can help with any form of diversity: if I were born a different color, a different a nationality, a different ethnicity, how might I see things differently?”

The question is crucial to keep today’s workplace productive, and as predictable as possible in turbulent circumstances.

“The more that leaders can approach this with a spirit of curiosity rather than judgement, the better people are at predicting change when it’s time to move forward, the less likely they are to hold on with white knuckles to what was and be open to what can make the future better for everyone.”

Regardless of generation, in the workplace people want transparent communication, a sense of belonging, a chance to contribute meaningfully, and to be compensated fairly. But it’s worth noting that what one generation may consider transparent communication, another would consider sugar coated. And what one generation may consider to be fair compensation, another will find exploitative. This is where generational insight can be fascinating and helpful.

Meanwhile, some of the changes that new generations have already brought into their organizations are beginning to morph and evolve. The authenticity movement of the early 2000s had some unintended consequences, Lear says, and now the Millennials who created it “are the ones who are course correcting a bit. We’re now in this moment of trying to differentiate between bringing our whole selves to work and bringing our best selves, and how that shapes leadership.”

Lear says the powerful potential for intergenerational mentoring is one of the “most optimistic” workplace dynamics she’s ever studied. “These mentors who have the ability to spot and nurture potential, who really have the ability to see something in someone that they don’t see in themselves—those relationships are so profound,” she says. Lear has found that young people with the most successful mentor relationships are the ones who “sit in the driver’s seat” of that relationship. Mentees who understand that mentorship is an act of generosity from the mentor are able to get more out of those relationships.

“There’s something so life-giving about those relationships that gives both people a real sense of vitality, but also helps them see a different perspective,” she says. “Probably one of the greatest opportunities about having four generations in the workplace is that you have that deep wisdom, combined with some of the innovative spirit that comes with the degree of naïveté that you need to think differently.”

Those younger workers have also typically been the ones who could help their older colleagues get comfortable with successive waves new technology—now including artificial intelligence.