Linda Barrington of The Conference Board notes that these numbers do not bode well for the multi-generational dynamics of the labor force. Only 46% of the Baby Boom generation express satisfaction with their jobs. Barrington worries that their growing dissatisfaction will negatively affect multi-generational knowledge transfer—an  increasingly important task in today’s competitive economy—not to mention the potential loss of discontented, young talent.

Workplace malaise aside, the hope in organizations has always been that the more experienced employee would mentor the less experienced. That usually meant that older, experienced workers would be training younger, less experienced workers in what seemed to be ‘the natural order.’ Increasingly today the mentoring process is being reversed. Those under-25 Gen Y workers, who practically teethed on computers and cell phones at the same time that they allegedly learned to expect the words “Good job” as their just due, are frequently the mentors to their older colleagues on all things technical

How both parties handle this changing role reversal and what it means going forward in their relationships will be important to future collaboration and knowledge transfer. What’s required on both sides is a willingness to learn as well as respect for the other’s experience and vulnerabilities. In other words this can be touchy.

Is there an answer to this long-standing issue of generational misunderstanding? The obvious one is the old bromide of improved communication. In short, learn to explore and appreciate one another’s values and life experience. Above all, don’t patronize or dismiss.

As a young man in my first corporate job, I found myself working under an entire generation of World War II veterans, who had tended to bring their military experience and its autocratic leadership styles back to the workplace. While it would be dishonest to say that I learned to appreciate ‘because I said so’ as the end of a discussion, in time I did learn to respect and even to feel some affection for many of my old bosses. The ultimate answer was to understand their battles and demons with compassion and understanding.  In return and over time, many of them eventually reciprocated my respect with a greater tolerance for dissent and questioning.

So if there’s an answer to the problem of inter-generational mentoring and knowledge transfer, I believe that it lies with this simple one of mutual respect, patience, tolerance for difference and the golden opportunity to learn from each other.

The book had been fermenting in my mind and soul for some time—partly as a result of the vast amount of change the workforce had endured since my last book, “Communicating for Change,” was published in 1996, and partly because I believed that our profession has taken a wrong turn and preoccupied itself with technology and ‘conversations’ as the cure for today’s daunting internal communication challenges.

Those challenges loom larger than ever as the workplace undergoes revolutionary transformation, with more and more insecurity and greater reliance imposed on individual’s resources and responsibility for their economic well-being. An estimated 40% of company work will soon be done by outside contractors, according to Time Magazine. Free agency will more and more be the fate of today’s worker, a not altogether negative trend if people are prepared for that kind of independence and self-reliance.

In a recent webinar, I outlined my personal view of these developments and what I believe they mean for our profession. I invite you to take some time to watch the webinar replay and to reflect on its message. We at ROI Communication would be equally interested in your views of the coming challenges. How about giving us your online comments in response to this blog?

“I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it A) extremely comforting that we’re so close, and B) like Chinese water torture that we’re so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection… I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people.”

SixDegrees.com was an early social networking site based on this concept. Now, with the advent of newer social media and networking tools like LinkedIn and Facebook, it’s possible for everyone to see and track these connections. I’ve been a member of LinkedIn since 2004, and find it to be an invaluable tool for keeping in touch with colleagues and friends— especially in Silicon Valley, where people tend to switch jobs often. The intelligent features of these tools also show you who you might know based on your past positions, education and contacts. Facebook has also been a great way to find people I haven’t seen since graduating from high school in the 80s (gulp!), and finding out, if somewhat vicariously, what people are up to.

Why should we care?
So why should we, as communication professionals, care? After attending the Ragan Summit on Social Media in Chicago last month, I’m even more convinced that we really don’t have the option not to care – social media is the future of communication, whether we like it or not! For “Gen Y,” the largest generation entering the workforce since the Baby Boomers, social media is not just a fun diversion. It’s a productive way to collaborate and keep in contact with people that eliminates the need for email.

One of the biggest roadblocks against using social media technology within a company is that it’s hard to demonstrate a quantitative business case. Things like information overload and productivity loss are hard to measure, but when you look at tools such as wikis, which enable people to store, edit and access documents in real time without the need for email, you understand the impact these tools could have if implemented on an enterprise level. Through the research of ROI Communication, and after hearing the opinions and observations of social media experts such as Steve Crescenzo and Shel Holz, I’d like to share some of the top reasons communication professionals should pay attention to and embrace Social Media:

Ten good reasons to care about social media (in no particular order)

1. Social media is the way that Gen Y communicates – companies are at risk of losing this critical segment of the workforce if they do not adopt social media technology and allow its use by employees
2. Social media enables greater collaboration of global teams by creating shared workspaces that are accessible 24/7 from anywhere in the world
3. Many social media tools are low-cost/no-cost and web-based – this means they can be used by everyone and do not require downloading or paying for applications
4. The ability to easily collaborate and communicate virtually at no cost can also reduce the need to spend money on travel and communicating via long-distance phone calls – this can result in companies saving a nice chunk of change
5. Social media democratizes content and gives everyone the chance to participate – the old “top down” communication model no longer works to engage employees, and it’s more about a conversation than pushing down “corporate speak”
6. Social media helps meet the need for human connection in an increasingly virtual world – it enables people to collaborate based on interests and can lead to greater creativity and productivity by connecting larger groups of people and their ideas
7. Web 2.0 has raised the expectations of our employee audiences – they’re used to seeing different types of media, including video, audio, blogs, polling and comments on the web, and we must meet their expectations to keep them engaged
8. The wisdom of the crowds. One of the largest examples of Social Media/Web 2.0 is Wikipedia, which taps the collective knowledge of thousands of experts. This technology is already being used within leading companies to create rich knowledge bases that enable employees to quickly find information on virtually anything
9. Enabling people to choose the way they “pull” the information that’s important to them, and providing it in a variety of social media channels, reduces information overload and increases engagement
10. Engagement is the top driver of employee loyalty according to research by Hewitt – Social media and Web 2.0 change communication from a one-way message to an engaging, two-way conversation

Just do it!
There are many, many other reasons why social media makes sense. The one thing I can recommend to my fellow communication professionals is to get out there and try it! Start small by joining a social media site like LinkedIn or Facebook, and see where it takes you. Download Skype,buy a $20 webcam and start holding video meetings with your colleagues. Once you start using it and see how easy it is, you’ll begin to see how social media can really work within a corporate setting to provide a richer and more engaging way to communicate with employees, and for employees to communicate with each other.

Additional Resources
ROI Communication will be facilitating a three-hour workshop on social media and Web 2.0 technology at the upcoming “Social Media for Internal Communications” conference Nov. 17-20 in San Francisco, CA. As a contact of ROI Communication, you can enjoy a $200 discount on registration fees by mentioning the email code “SPK” when registering. For more information, or to register, please visit the Advanced Learning Institute Web site.

The people that were engaged in the online dialogue are all veteran communication pros with years of experience in the trenches. The dialogue was triggered by an innocent query from another participant who asked if and how electronic kiosks made sense in a decentralized manufacturing environment. One of the first responses said that the issue was not electronic kiosks; that the question should be whether and how kiosks might improve the company’s performance at that facility. He went on to say that the real need was to look at the barriers to performance in that organization and to address those barriers with appropriate strategy. His position was that essentially all that matters is serving the needs of the customers and the shareholders of that company for quality products and services. He asked pointedly whether kiosks truly serve that overriding need and whether the absence of kiosks was truly affecting company performance.

His position soon motivated a very different response from an equally passionate participant, who said—in effect—that people don’t live by bread alone. Here’s his verbatim question: “Does the whole worth of employee communication consist in solving specific business problems?…I’m troubled by the implication that if you…haven’t got your whole program focused on troubleshooting performance issues, you are functioning at some primitive level of the craft. Let’s not forget that just plugging away at the creation and maintenance of an essential climate for success can be pretty darned strategic, if you’re good at it.”

A third participant chimed in with his view that after years of studying the issue of role, he had concluded that there were at least five roles that a communication professional could play. These were: communicator; educator; change agent; small c consultant; strategist. He added, “The first corresponds with an infrastructure/channels/vehicles/content aggregation/dissemination role. The second is the training/coaching role, making others good communicators (CEOs; supervisors). The third refers to the role we play with corporate strategy execution, in particular with resulting change management programs and required large-scale culture/climate/behavioral change. The fourth is what I would call small c communication change built around specific operational process improvements. Finally the fifth, which I have labeled as strategist, focuses on being a player in the organization’s overarching strategic management process…”

Aside from the quality of this discussion is the largely ignored debate that underlies it and that needs to be engaged by more than these three veteran communication pros. What I read mostly these days about our profession is related to technology and the need to introduce more social media into our organizations. In my opinion that conversation badly misses the mark. Worse, it’s a distraction from the really important questions facing our profession and the need to debate what would constitute our value-added role in organizations in the midst of chaotic and revolutionary change. That’s a monumental question that begs to be answered in these bewildering times if we are truly going to help our organizations succeed.

I have been working on a new book entitled “The Credible Company: Communicating with Today’s Skeptical Workforce.” It’s scheduled for publication by Jossey-Bass Publishers in October of this year. After outlining what I believe is a proper communication prescription for today’s skeptical audience, I conclude that ours is a profession at a crossroads. We can sink deeper into craft, continuing the tendency to apply newer and newer technology as an end in itself with slight regard to human needs in the workplace—in the process making ourselves more and more irrelevant to our leaderships and our audiences. Or we can wake up to the complexities of getting through to a skeptical workforce with a sound strategy that addresses their needs and views.

It’s high time we began to look seriously at this issue and to put aside the narrow view that is now clouding our collective vision of the proper role of communication in the workplace.