Managing Five Generations in the Workplace

Young people entering the job market today are likely to change jobs seven or eight times during their career. Baby boomers, on the other hand, identify with the company where they have often worked for their entire adult lives. With five generations now in the workplace due to longer careers, engaging these different age groups is a challenge for companies as they seek to recruit, motivate and retain staff.

In the paper "How can we keep five generations of employees engaged through the employee lifecycle in the digital era?" a four-person team at SDA Bocconi School of Management's Knowledge Group Leadership, Organization and HR carried out qualitative research on how the concept of engagement has changed to reflect the new workplace, and how different generations frame their work experience and make sense of it.

Any discussion of engagement across generations has to start with a look at how careers have changed. Careers are no longer linear, and advancement will more likely come from judicious job-hopping rather than climbing the ladder inside a large company. That means Millennials and Generation Z are looking for training and the opportunity to extend their networks rather than job security.

"Engagement is the glue that keeps people committed to high performance within companies knowing that their working experience might end tomorrow," said Gabriella Bagnato, Senior Professor at SDA Bocconi. "Engaging people across different generations means personalizing the employee experience."

Baby boomers are motivated by advancement opportunities within a company, while younger workers want to identify with a purpose or learn new skills. The study found that "companies are starting to use technology to cluster their employees to differentiate them in terms of their expectations," she said. Companies are also investing more in communicating their purpose, in an effort to engage Millennials and Generation Z.

What did they find out? "First, that engagement matters a lot," said Bagnato. "Secondly, it depends on how effectively the organization can communicate its purpose and to translate its values into leadership style – how much it 'walks the talk.'"

The research is still in progress and paper will be published Spring 2021. The four authors are Gabriella Bagnato, Laura Baruffaldi, Hans Brechbühl (Associate Professor), and Paola Casati (Junior Research Fellow).