PAYSTUBMAKR.COM team keeps publishing articles about diversity in the workplace. This time it is going to about generational diversity. We will review the term and the benefits of employing different generations. We will discuss some practical tips that can help overcome some of the challenges that it takes to get the diversity of ages and avoid ageism.
If your workforce of a whole range of ages, you have some young people that were just graduated, other that are already having kids, and some that can be parents grandparents of your younger employees, you have a generational diversity of your workforce. If you have no generational diversity and have the interest to see the old people experiences together with the young employee’s energy and update skills, keep reading this article.
Balancing the Generations
The ideal age diversity in your company should be parallel to the composition of your country or region. You see in the U.S. Census Bureau the distribution of the different ages in the U.S.
In this chart, you can see that in the 20s and 50s there is little higher birthrate, in the 60s it goes lower. You can look for the same proportion of ages brackets in your business.
There are a few categories of age brackets:
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The Silent Generation, born before 1945, are retired already.
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Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964)
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Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964)
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Generation X (born 1965 to 1980)
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Millennials (born after 1980
People describe the characters of the generations as:
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Baby Boomer’s value loyalty.
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Gen X values work-life balance.
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Millennials value innovation and change.
The idea is to equal the number of each generation. It is not easy in small business or some high-tech companies. Start-ups would have a very young workforce, and traditional business may have more old generation staff, especially at the high level.
Ageism and Age Discrimination Laws
In the recent time, we can see that laws against age discrimination were introduced. In the U.S. it is the Department of labor The need for law and regulation indicates that ageism is a real issue in the workplace.
When we talk about ageism, we mostly refer to old ages. Ageism works both ways; it is discrimination because of age young or old. The law covers it all. You need to consider this fact when you hire or not someone to work for you. Breaking the bill because of ageism can cost you some good money in fines and the benefits of having the generation present in your company. The next section will show us some of the advantages.
Problem-solving and Better Innovation
“Two heads are better than one.” Ain old saying when you make it that one is old and the other is young you have a better team of two people that
the young can be better in innovation and technology and the old one has a mature personality and experience in deciding for years can give the business both advantages and better solutions.
Two heads are better, and two different age heads are even better. Different ideas, different perspectives, different life and work experience, make a powerful tool for the business. You can read what the Northwestern University found in the research Better Decisions Through Diversity
In this era of vertiginous progress in technology, people find it hard to keep being updated. Older generation finds it even harder than the youngest generation. There is a lot of advantage in having a team that has some young Internet and computer boys together with those that were born into the world of a landline telephone, Paper books and typewriters. The older people will need some orientation from the young ones about the internet and computer new world and the young buys will enjoy to hear and learn about making a decision and standing under pressure of economic crisis or any other bad times that the older teammate has passed in their long life.
How age diversity Reflects Your – Customers
Talking about your customers means talking about your sales team. A diverse sales team have a full spectrum of ages for the spectrum of clientele that is coming to your business. The young salesperson can find a common language with the same age clients creating more confidence and better sales.
A startup for an app for people that are in their fifties or older employees trying to make something for teenagers or those less young that are at their twenties. People like to deal with their type, respond to the terms or slang of the same generations.
Provide Learning Opportunities
An excellent way to achieve better performance of your staff with age diversity is a mentoring relationship. You can assign the more experienced to guide a younger employee.
Read Dose mentoring matters? And how mentoring helps those that were mentored to have better success with their carrier. Mentoring works both sides, the mentor gains more satisfaction and management skills through mentoring.
Having younger and older employees create a perfect opportunity for having in-house mentors that are closer to the young employees and can help with the day to day problems of your young workforce. Being close will make of your team a unified group that will do a better and better job.
Protect Yourself
The ugly part of diversity is the age-discrimination cases that reach the courts. You better take diversity seriously, accept young and old applicants unless they are absolutely not the kind of people you need and you can prove it by the terms of your job adds, tests and certificates or missing education.
The benefits from having diversity workforce cross between generational diversity and other dimensions, so come back to read more articles about diversity in the workplace.
Part 2 will be published in the next few days
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