Engagement in a 5 generation teams… Do we need it? Is it possible?
Employee engagement is the strongest driver for a great performance. Engaged employees is the main company asset and the basis for being competitive and successful in any market. It is up to leaders to build a good working atmosphere, include and empower their teams, offer recognition, build a culture of feedback, and give a purpose and sense of belonging to the employees. This certainly is a challenge…. And let’s not forget, nowadays we are working with multigenerational teams where there are 5 generations in the working place.
Research and education, social position and perception of family, wars and political movements, technological development, and transformations, moving to a virtual environment and having automation everywhere, all of these have a strong impact on how the different generations view the world, each other, and the workplace.
So not only there are specificities because one belongs to a certain generation, but every employee also brings her or his own specific skills, interests, priorities, views, and expectations.
No doubt that generational diversity forces employers to take a new approach to talent management, embracing both the unique opportunities, and the unique challenges of a multigenerational workforce. The different generations need different approaches during all phases of the employee lifecycle. Yet employers must ensure that employees feel valued at work, can contribute, and feel rewarded and recognized for those contributions.
Ensuring employees from all different generations are engaged is a top priority for many organisations – Deloitte[1] found the employee experience is a top concern to nearly 80% of business executives – but it is not simple to appeal to workers from five different age groups and by no means it is a straight and easy path to follow.
To engage five different generations of employees at the same time and same place is not an easy task, and in this case technology and ICT is an excellent support, but a sincere and authentic company culture and purpose are the main pillars together with empathetic leaders supported by well trained and experienced HR managers.
The Inspirer project consortium wants to contribute in this respect and provide support to both line and HR managers by offering them 3 project outputs: Online course on multigenerational workplace culture, 360-degree assessment tool for multigenerational workplace culture, and Model of Cross-generational / reverse-age mentorship.
Does all this seem interesting to you? Contact us and join our pilots!
[1] https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/human-capital-trends/2017/improving-the-employee-experience-culture-engagement.html