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Mentoring in a Multi-Generational Workplace
By rdaprix | February 26, 2010
A recent survey from The Conference Board shows that Americans of all ages and income brackets are increasingly unhappy at work. Only 45 percent claim to be satisfied with their jobs, down from 61.1 percent in 1987. Worse, the youngest cohort of employees—those under age 25—express the highest level of dissatisfaction ever recorded for that age group with only 25.7 percent satisfied.
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.
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