As far back as Aristotle in the fourth century BC, people were bemoaning the annoyance of young people. As he put it: “[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances… They think they know everything and are always quite sure about it.”

While this has been an issue throughout history, the challenges it poses are put into stark relief now when, for the first time, five generations are in the workforce at the same time.

Those five generations are Silent (people born between 1928 and 1945), Baby Boomers (1946-64), Generation X (1965-80), millennials (1981-96) and Generation Z (1997-2012). They each have their own nuances, advantages and limitations, which can make having them all in the same workforce a challenge.

But actually, the problems all too often appear when there’s an overcorrection of management. When what began as a well-intentioned project or initiative results in divisive generational silos and stereotypes.

A new book, Five Generations at Work: How we win together, for good, is out to help leaders get the most out of their multigenerational workforce and to explain why doing so is simply just good business. The book is co-authored by Rebecca Robins and Patrick Dunne and is the culmination of six years of research.

Robins’ background is in brand and business consultancy, which gave her a wide-ranging look into a variety of sectors across the globe. So, where is the first place to start in a conversation about managing a multi-generational workforce? Robins says mindset.

“We have seen negative generational discourse for years,” she says. “Today, we still see headlines for surveys around [Gen Z being] the ‘laziest generation in the workplace’. That is, frankly, certifiably insane. Especially when we have bigger problems to solve and better business to do.

“We are living for longer. We will want and need to work for longer. Therefore, that generational diversity is going to continue to extend. Let’s look to lean into what we can do with greater generational diversity. That was evidenced in the book, countless examples of people working across generations and how they’re learning from and with each other.”

Why collaboration is key to intergenerational workplaces

The one thread that is consistent when it comes to this is collaboration. Robins continues: “How many businesses have collaboration (or a synonym of it) in their organisational values? But also, how would we rate ourselves as an organisation in terms of collaboration on a scale of one to 10? Often, there is too much going on in organisations for the space to build that collaborative muscle.”

The fundamental incentive to make changes is very simple: it’s just better for business. Robins says: “With a lot of organisations I’m working and consulting with, it’s interesting to hear how many times they say that their consumer base is changing and it’s not reflected in their workplace. I think there should be a desire to better connect employee experience with consumer experience.”

Robins gives the example of Gucci circa-2015. It was on a seven-year trajectory that ended up being one of the most successful in its history, but it started with the CEO and creative director saying that the company was going to focus on its employees to become more relevant to the next generation of consumer.

They said explicitly that they would be investing in a culture of purpose that would set the trajectory of travel for current and future employees. This was done to gain a better understanding of the next generation of consumers, a group it needed to build relevance with.

One of the commitments the company made was to set up what it called a “shadow committee”. It was made up of young millennials because that was the target consumer the company wanted to attract. That committee would meet regularly with the CEO and leadership team almost as what Robins calls a “sparring partner”.

Other companies have used shadow boards – also known as a horizon board or next generation board – to similar effect. Examples include Virgin Media 02, Sir Lewis Hamilton’s Mission 44 foundation and the Financial Times.

Another initiative is BMW’s senior experts programme, which involves active skills transfer. It sees retired workers returning to the company part-time to share their expertise with younger colleagues. The aim, as it says in the book, is to “preserve critical capabilities and re-energise it through the business.”

Getting buy-in for organisational change

The key to making sure this strategy works is to get buy-in from the wider team. The best way of achieving this is to engage them about the change they’d like to see. Robins and Dunne mention a stakeholder analysis tool pioneered at Cranfield University by professors Andy Neely, Chris Adams and Mike Kennerley.

What is so useful about this technique is its clarity and practicality, and the agility with which you can develop a robust and adaptable strategy for maximising the shared value between stakeholders:

• Start by being clear about what you mean by a stakeholder. A good definition is Edward Freeman’s “Anyone who affects or is affected by the organisation”.
• Decide who your most important five or six stakeholder groups are. For example, customers, staff, suppliers, beneficiaries, funders, etc.
• Work out and state in one summary sentence what each stakeholder group wants and needs from you (The SWANS: Stakeholder Wants and Needs).
• Do the same for what the organisation wants from each and needs from each stakeholder group (The OWANS: Our Wants and Needs)
• Get the metrics and data in place to measure whether stakeholders are getting what they want and need, and whether you are getting what you want and need from them.
• It is usually clear then what the strategy for each stakeholder group should be, and as importantly what an integrated strategy should be, which balances our needs and theirs as well as the needs and wants of different groups.

It is a straightforward, but powerful approach to take when devising an intergenerational strategy – working out what each generational group wants and needs from the organisation, as well as what the organisation wants and needs of them. The strategy should naturally flow and evolve as you figure out ways to maximise and to balance the various needs and wants of different generations.

These ideas are a great starting point, but you must ensure that any initiatives have a wide-ranging purpose the company can commit to. “I’ve had quite a few conversations with people since the book’s release,” says Robins. “They say that they are getting more and more pressure from their leadership team or CEO around the things that they need to be doing. A lot of that is out of good intent but it’s constantly being framed and labelled.”

Why you need to ‘de-noise’ your business

Robins points to this being linked to a bigger theme that they found while doing research for the book. With so many internal projects, initiatives and focuses within teams – either from different managers, employee resource groups or within the organisation as a whole – there is evidence in the research that organisations need to focus on “de-noising” an organisation in order to make space for collaboration.

To do that, she recommends reevaluating the groups and approaches you have, cutting those that aren’t working and optimising those that are. At its core, Robins is championing doing fewer things well.

“The level of noise in our day-to-day has accelerated and amplified,” she says. “There are a lot of organisations whose intention is to do good things, but I think not all of them are landing. Cutting them out is not easy work but it’s not rocket science either. A lot of it is just deciding what is right for you and your organisation. Do fewer things well, see them through, and the influence and impact will come.”

As the pair write in their book: “A defining factor of our research and so many of the collectives that we talk with is the breaking of types, the challenging of so-called norms and an approach to measurement that is inherently more balanced and linked more to collective outcomes.”

Essentially, the sign of a good initiative or approach is that it’s just better for business.