Generational Differences in the Workplace?: Let's Ask the Managers!

Introduction

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the management of different generations in the workplace, especially among human resource management (HRM) practitioners. The popularity of the topic is reflected by a growing body of publications. The prevailing belief is “that important inter-generational differences exist among workers and that these differences provide challenges to managers in effectively managing their workforce” (Benson & Brown, 2011, p. 1843). According to the literature, generational differences in work attitudes, values, and behaviors affect all fields of HRM, including recruitment and retention, training, rewards, career development, working arrangements, and management style (Parry & Urwin, 2017). As a result, an increasing number of publications encourage managers to lead, motivate, and reward their employees differently depending on the generation the workers belong to (Kupperschmidt, 2000).

It is surprising that “despite the popularity of this topic, however, there has been relatively little academic work either to confirm or refute popular generational stereotypes” (Lyons, Duxbury, & Higgins, 2007, p. 339). In addition to the scarce academic literature, the field of generational research lacks in consistency, as findings of existing empirical studies are mixed and somewhat contradictory. While several scholars found support for the purported generational differences in various variables, including work values (e.g., Campbell, Twenge, & Campbell, 2017; Smith, Halinski, Gover, & Duxbury, 2018), leadership expectations and behaviors (e.g., Sessa, Kabacoff, Deal, & Brown, 2007), and personality traits (e.g., Twenge & Campbell, 2008), others identified only few, if any, differences between distinct generations of workers (e.g., Costanza & Finkelstein, 2015; Zabel, Biermeier-Hanson, Baltes, Early, & Shepard, 2017), challenging the existence of real generational differences in the workplace. Giancola (2006) suggests that the popular notion of a generational gap in today’s workforce is “more myth than reality” (p. 32) and basing management practices on such myths could lead to adverse effects (Becton, Walker, & Jones-Farmer, 2014). Generational interaction can be seen as positive or negative (Arsenault, 2004). On the one hand, it can lead to new ideas and increased innovation, while on the other hand, it may also provoke unnecessary conflicts due to misunderstandings between employees of different generations. Therefore, more multigenerational research is needed to provide further empirical evidence that is required to either support or refute the popular generational stereotypes.

The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the limited empirical research on generational differences in the workplace by providing further insights into how employees of distinct generations differ in their work attitudes, especially regarding work-life balance, motivation, leadership, career patterns, and teamwork. It also contributes in its approach. In contrast to the majority of previous studies, the present research examines the topic of generational differences in the workplace from an organizational perspective and aims at exploring how organizations perceive the effects of potential generational differences and how they manage them. Hence, instead of utilizing data from different generations of workers, data was gathered through in-depth interviews with twelve human resource (HR) managers in three European countries. A better understanding of the phenomenon of generational differences at work will allow organizations to minimize potential negative implications of such dissimilarities and to exploit the full potential of a multigenerational workforce.