Expectations of younger colleagues
According to HR Director, generally the expectations of young and older colleagues differ in many ways. Graduates and younger workers seek above all opportunities for development and education; they tend to be more aggressive and want to get ahead. Thus you should primarily offer opportunities for development and growth to younger workers.
Expectations of older colleagues
Older colleagues usually do not demand too much development. They want work that is meaningful to them, where they can use their experience. They are sensitive to injustice, they value fair treatment and often have an unfortunately justifiable fear of losing their job, which is a bigger problem to them than it would be losing it at a younger age. Older employees are often more conservative (though not less creative) and more sceptical towards insufficiently considered changes.
Removing prejudices
The above-mentioned specifics of both age groups are general and by no means applicable to all individuals. Overall the specifics of the various generations must be taken into account by managers, but they must also keep in mind the requests and specifics of individual employees. It is very bad if a manager has prejudices and, for instance, does not grant older workers scope for creative work or does not focus on training of young employees regarding new technologies because they expect every young person to embrace new technologies easily.
Cooperation
The aim of leading a multi-generation team is to use the potential of all team members in order to achieve the best possible results. Managers of such teams should therefore above all support cooperation of the individual components of the team. People of various ages should be engaged in individual projects, so that every person can work on the final goal and any barriers between employees of various age groups are removed.
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