Suresh Sambandam is the CEO of Kissflow, the first unified digital workplace platform for organizations to manage all of their work.
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The modern workforce now comprises over four different generations of employees, each with different expectations and challenges.
Today’s multigenerational workforce offers great benefits to organizations in terms of diverse experiences and skills. But at the same time, it can also be a struggle to introduce tools that can accommodate the requirements of every generation.
To successfully engage and retain employees, organizations need to understand the expectations of every demographic and provide them with tools to help them handle their work and collaborate effectively.
Let’s take a closer look at each generation and its preferences, based on my own experience with and research on these generations.
1. Generation Z
Born between 1997 and 2012, members of Generation Z are digital natives who view smartphones, laptops and tablets as essential devices. Employees from this demographic often use social media and the internet in order to search for their potential employers. Gen Z employees readily prioritize job benefits over salary.
Members of Generation Z also prefer:
• Cutting-edge technology and active engagement at work.
• More flexibility from employers to accomplish tasks and add their own input.
• Flexible work hours and remote opportunities.
• A work environment that focuses on diversity and social responsibility.
• Participation in highly collaborative work relationships.
• Opportunities to grow with mentoring and coaching by senior staff members.
2. Millennials
Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, form the largest part of the workforce right now. They’ve witnessed one of the worst recessions of the current century, which has impacted their careers immensely, and they’ve also lived to see the internet quite literally change our lives. This, in turn, has made the millennial generation more adaptable to technological changes than any other generation.
Millennial employees prefer:
• Technology-driven business processes and organizations that offer BYOD policies.
• Skills development, leadership training and career development programs.
• Remote working opportunities if their work can be managed from outside the office.
• Focusing more on results than their working hours.
• A better work-life balance.
• Digital communication instead of face-to-face meetings.
3. Generation X
Born between 1965 and 1980, Generation X is the generation that lived through the evolution of personal computers, and they’re sometimes considered to be more educated than their previous generations. They’re, in my experience, often hardworking, self-reliant, and fiscally responsible. While Generation Xers are comfortable with using technology often, they’re just as comfortable with face-to-face interactions with colleagues.
Generation X prefers:
• A work environment that focuses on more individual effort.
• Flexibility to manage their workload in a better way.
• A better psychological and physical space to focus on work.
• Greater autonomy and less supervision when handling job responsibilities.
• A healthy work-life balance, since most members of this generation have now settled into family life.
4. Baby Boomers
Baby boomers, born right after the Second World War, are considered to be goal-centric and have a strong work ethic. They value face-to-face interactions with their coworkers. Even though they didn’t grow up with computers and aren’t as tech-savvy as the other younger generations, they’ve gotten comfortable with using technology in their jobs. This generation is an incredible source of industry knowledge, and they also appreciate the chance to share their expertise with their younger counterparts.
At work, baby boomers prefer:
• Comparatively more structured and formalized environments than other generations.
• Recognition for their achievements through public ceremonies and awards.
• Healthcare and retirement benefits.
• More face-to-face interactions.
• Using technologies and tools that are easy to use and understand.
Bridging The Gap
As the workplace becomes more diverse, it can be challenging for organizations to choose the right technologies and tools that can accommodate the diverse requirements of all workforce demographics. Moreover, each generation has a different way of working and a different preferred communication method, which can, in turn, make collaboration difficult.
The steady digital transformation of the workspace has created a rift between generations. While the younger employees have adapted well to new technological tools, even though they lack the experience at work, the older and more experienced employees find it difficult to adapt to these new changes. Many of the older employees also think that it’s unnecessary to digitize workplaces and fix something that isn’t even broken, as it would only lead to more wasted investment, effort and time.
Therefore, it’s crucial for organizations to not just find the right digital tools that can combine the disparate workforce, but also make employees understand the importance of introducing these digital tools. This can help improve efficiency and productivity in the long run.
A digital workplace platform, whether developed in-house or bought from a third party, can help organizations overcome these challenges by providing a simplified and centralized platform for different generations. It offers access to all work data, tools and applications through a single dashboard, which flattens the learning curve and makes it easier for older employees to adapt to the platform easily.
A centralized place to store all organizational information also makes knowledge-sharing and skill-sharing more seamless within the company. There’s so much expertise and information that older generations of employees possess, which eventually leaves with them if it isn’t assimilated and retained properly. A digital workplace helps digitize the knowledge of the older employees and makes it easier for younger employees to search, locate and use all of that knowledge effectively.
Uniting The Workforce
Employees will be the focus of successful digital workplaces in the future. The tools that organizations introduce should align with the requirements of different workforce demographics and help them manage their work effectively.
Moving forward, organizations will only be able to retain older employees and attract newer generations if they have the right technology and digital workplaces to provide an optimum employee experience. While managing up to four different generations of employees can seem a big challenge, with the right tools and the right policies in place, it’s possible to successfully retain and engage all employees.
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