Today’s workforce consists of a diverse blend of generations whose distinct values, experiences and skills bring both challenges and opportunities to organizations. After all, research consistently shows that diverse teams outperform their counterparts.
In this episode of The Business of Learning, brought to you by Wisetail, we spoke with Ryan Jenkins, a Wall Street Journal best-selling author and thought leader on working and leading across generations, about navigating the multigenerational workplace.
Listen now to hear Ryan’s thoughts on:
- Why generations are “clues” not “absolutes.”
- How to leverage each generation’s strengths.
- Leading multigenerational teams.
Listen Now:
Additional Resources:
- Article — Tips for Training and Engaging a Multigenerational Workforce: Part 1
- Article: Tips for Training and Engaging a Multigenerational Workforce: Part 2
- Article: 6 Must-Have Mobile Learning Elements to Train the Next Generation
- [E-Book]: Learning and the Employee Experience
Learn more about how to train and engage the modern workforce by downloading a preview of Training Industry’s e-book, “Learning and the Employee Experience.”
The transcript for this episode follows:
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Speaker 1:
Welcome to The Business of Learning, the learning leader’s podcast from Training Industry.
Sarah Gallo:
Hi, welcome back to The Business of Learning. I’m Sarah Gallo, senior editor at Training Industry, here with my co-host, Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, editor in chief.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz:
Welcome. Today we’re discussing a topic that continues to gain buzz in both the training space and in the business world, more broadly, the multigenerational workplace. Today’s workforce is comprised of more generations than ever with Gen Z employees working alongside baby boomers and people from every generation in between. But unfortunately, there’s many misconceptions about different generations that can hold organizations back from realizing the full potential of their diverse workforce. So today we’re excited to speak with Ryan Jenkins, a leading voice on working and leading across generations, and a Wall Street Journal best-selling author to learn more about how to help a multi-generational workforce thrive. Ryan, welcome to the podcast.
Ryan Jenkins:
Thanks for having me. Looking forward to this conversation.
Sarah Gallo:
Yes, welcome, Ryan. Well, as Michelle mentioned, today’s workforce is really more multigenerational than we’ve ever seen. Can you kick things off by walking us through the challenges and also opportunities that this presents for both employers and employees?
Ryan Jenkins:
One of the favorite clips I show in a lot of my presentations that I do with live audiences is this clip that starts off by saying grandkids equal free tech support. And there’s these two young Gen Zers that approach their house and their grandparents come out of the house and they’re all excited. They’re like, it’s great to see you. Thanks for coming over for dinner. And then instead of hugging their grandkids and welcoming to the house, they just hand them over their laptops and iPhones and iPads and say, “None of this works. Can you fix it?” And it’s a wonderful clip that gets a good laughter whenever I show it because there’s so much truth to it. It’s really easy to, at a macro just breeze over that or laugh that clip off. But really the heart of that clip is really the crux of the generational friction that we’re all experiencing today. And really what’s happening for the first time ever is we have an emerging generation that has skills and knowledge that previous generations don’t have. So think about that. So in the whole lifespan of humanity, we’ve always passed down knowledge and skills from one generation to the next. But now because we live in a connected world, we have this emerging generation that again, has skills and knowledge that previous generations don’t have. So that’s causing a lot of friction, a lot of tension because there’s a lot of unknowns, right? Established generations in the workforce or thinking, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know how to do that.” And they seem to do that with great ease and there’s change involved in that, and there’s a lot of ego that’s involved in that. But back to your question, that’s the challenge. But the opportunity is there’s gold in those differences if we’re willing to put on our hard hat and go mind for those differences because each generation brings unique strengths and experiences and perspective to the workforce. And if we’re able to tap into those and understand those, we can leverage those in a real unique way. So that’s kind of the groundwork and hopefully a good foundational picture as we start our conversation here.
Sarah Gallo:
Yeah, it’s exciting that opportunity to kind of uncover the gold, like you said there. Well, I know we all know that there are plenty of these sort of misconceptions and stereotypes that can kind of hold us back from working together effectively when it comes to different generations. How can training and development really help combat those differences in stereotypes and the real biases that they can lead to as well?
Ryan Jenkins:
Yeah, I think a good place to start anytime we’re talking about generations is to keep this in mind that generations are clues; they’re not absolutes. I’ll say that one more time. Generations are clues. They’re not absolutes, but in my opinion, that’s someone that’s been studying generations for over 12 years. Very big clues on how you lead, communicate, sell, [and] deliver learning and development. So again, the better understand we have of each generation, the better equipped we are to do all those things in today’s multigenerational marketplace. But it’s really important to keep that in mind moving forward, that they’re clues, not absolutes, and some of the assumptions, they’ve done research on this, that humans, we make two incorrect assumptions when it comes to generations. So at a macro, there’s a generational perception gap. So the perception gap is between the characteristics of today’s emerging generation and the perceived performance of kids in my day. And so the two incorrect assumptions we’re making is number one, human tendency is to notice the faults in others, specifically in the areas where we are most competent. So that makes sense, right? As we age, as we are on the receiving end of wonderful learning and development, and we’re growing and we’re becoming more and more competent, becomes more and more easy for us to look back at emerging generations and spot all of their incompetence based off all of the competencies we’ve been developing over the decades that we’ve been involved in the workforce. So that’s the first misconception or incorrect assumption we need to keep in mind. The second one is this, and it’s a little word salad, but hang with me here. Established generations tend to compare themselves as they are today to the emerging generations rather than who they were in the past. So most established generations struggle to actually remember themselves as young people. And this is, listen to any true crime podcast, talk to any judge or any lawyer, and they’ll tell you that the memory of humans, it is terribly unreliable, highly unreliable. We have very poor memories, and too often what we do is we tend to color our past favorably. So again, this is at the crux of our generational differences is because we’re looking back at the emerging generations thinking they don’t have it together. This industry, this country, this world is going to hell in a hand basket because of this generation, but we got to keep in mind these misconceptions. So this fallacy leads us to believe that younger people today are further behind in development and maturity than they actually are. Hopefully that answered the question. We’re talking about stereotypes. If we’re talking about stereotypes, we really need to keep some of this clear research in mind and how we approach this. And again, if we understand this, if we have some awareness around this, it can kind of shift how we approach each generation in a more mindful way.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz:
I love that. Thank you for breaking that down. I love what you said there that generations are clues. They’re not absolutes because there’s just so much truth in that we oftentimes don’t put ourselves in the shoes of the younger generation. We’re thinking through the lens of where we are now. So those are some good points to keep in mind there. So research shows that today’s employees are really prioritizing learning and development, and they want to work for organizations that invest in their people. I’d love to hear through your experience, have you found any differences among generations when it comes to their approach to career development?
Ryan Jenkins:
Yes, there are some very pronounced differences, and I’ll start to answer your question by just a quick story. It was a few years ago when I was speaking to a group and we were talking about this very topic around how to lead and work across generations, and it was a group of about 500 folks, and I was doing a cute live q and a on stage, and there was a gentleman in the front row that asked a great question, and I did the best I could to respond to this person’s question. And I ended my response by stating, because if not your next gen employee, they’re going to use LinkedIn to find a new job by lunch. And I was trying to be a little bit overdramatic to try to nudge this person into some action, but I kid you not, there was a young professional in the back of the room, a young Gen Z or she stood up and she shouted out across 500 people. When I said that comment, she shouted out, why wait until lunch? And the whole group erupted, and it was like a generational shockwave that went through that room because you had the established generations that were audibly gasping, like, how dare you treat your career like that and treat your employer like that. And then you had the other side of the room, the emerging generations that were basically “woo hooing” and amening that comment from that Gen-Zer, how they approached their career. And so again, it was a really good distinction on how the much of a generational gap there is between established generations and emerging generations. But when it comes to career development, that’s so much of what we see is that for established generations, how they thought about their career was, Hey, let me stick with a specific employer or a specific industry and let me learn about it and develop, and I just, I’ll ride my whole career out in that way. That is no longer the case for the emerging generations. Instead, they’re thinking much more from a free agent perspective. And if you think about it, think about specifically Gen Z, which is the youngest generation entering the workforce, they’re going to have the longest generation or longest career of any generation in human history. And so there is no way that they’re thinking about tying their career to an employer in an industry, but they’re thinking about how do I acquire skill sets? How do I develop myself to become very valuable no matter where this market goes, because again, I’m going to be in it for a long time. I need to be highly flexible and adaptive. And so yeah, we see a big emphasis on Gen Z turning towards their leaders and managers and their employers to provide this learning and development so that they can become more valuable in today and in the future marketplace. And there’s some specific data points I think would be helpful to share with listeners here. Recently, LinkedIn, just in February of 2024, they surveyed over 14,000 workers and they found really distinct difference between the generation. So younger workers actually care more about advancement and upskilling than other generations. And then also they found that compensation work-life balance and flexibility, all top factors across every generation, but specifically for the emerging generation, the number two, the item that they weigh when choosing an employer is learning and development for all the reasons we just talked about. So the number two thing Gen Z is looking for in an employer’s learning and development opportunities. The number one thing they’re looking for is work-life balance. But right there, right behind it is learning development opportunities. So hopefully that’s really encouraging for your listeners that it’s such a pivotal and instrumental and important part of an organization. And specifically as more and more of these young generation come in the workforce, it’s going to become that much more important.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz:
Definitely, learning and development is such a big driver for attracting and retaining that talent. So thank you for pointing that out there. And also to circle back to what you were touching on around skills and how generations are now focusing more on skills rather than a career path through a specific employer industry. And we are really seeing that investment in skills in both employees and organizations, developing learning programs more personalized toward skills. And so we are seeing that investment in skills as well. I’d like to switch gears here and touch on the leadership aspect here. What tips do you have for leading a multi-generational team?
Ryan Jenkins:
Yeah, I think one thing to consider here is our generation or our age is a signal to how we should show up and what role we play amongst our teams. So they’ve found that at the age of 40, that’s kind of the cutoff point. So if you’re younger than 40, you have what’s called, excuse me, you have what’s called fluid intelligence. So younger than 40, you have what’s called fluid intelligence. So you have stronger working memory, innovative capacity, ability to focus. And in this stage you’re, you’re thinking you can solve any problem, right? Any money that’s younger than 40 or those that Fs that once were younger than 40, we can all relate to that, right? We felt like we could solve any problem. When you’re older than 40, you have what’s called crystallized intelligence. Now, I didn’t come up with these terms, so if you have some issues with some of these terms, take it up with the researchers, but crystallize intelligence. And so in that category, we have better pattern recognition, judgment, wisdom, and in that category, we know which problem to solve. So again, younger than 40, we feel like we can solve any problem older than 40, we know which problem to solve. Do you see how important those two things are to work in lockstep in order to really thrive in a turbulent future that’s coming at us? And so think of it this way, if you’re running a startup, your head of startup, you want someone that has that fluid intelligence to be the CEO, who can problem solve, innovate, hustle, and then someone that’s over the 40 that has that crystallized intelligence, you want that person to be the investor. So we were talking about leadership, and so often when we see very friction filled cross-generational teams, it’s because folks aren’t necessarily leaning into their generational intelligence structures. And those that are younger than 40 are trying to coach and encourage and inspire, and those that are over than 40 are working harder, learning, growing, and there seems to be a lot of conflict there. That’s something to really keep in mind as you’re thinking about how to interact across generations. But I’ll give you one other specific tip here as it relates to leadership, we found that the leadership style that resonates best across generations is coaching. It’s coaching, and this works really well if you’re a younger person that’s leading up or leading older generations and also works great if you’re an older generation leading younger generations. So the essence of coaching is that you’re being that guide on the side, right? You don’t have all the answers. So again, that works if you’re younger or older leading in those different capacities. And so the essence of coaching is simply this. You would resist advice giving and you ask more questions. That’s it. You resist advice giving and you ask more questions. And the reason that coaching is becoming much more and more and more important in today’s work world is that information has become decentralized. So in the past when information was centralized in a building or a person or a book, then we would go to that central source and learn that information and diffuse it. That’s what organizations were structured, right? The people in the leadership positions had all the information, so everyone was looking up toward them to get all the information. That’s no longer the case. We all have are armed with 24 7 news cycles and these incredible devices where we can get any type of information. So now, instead of this hierarchy approach that a lot of organizations are structured, now we’re seeing the leadership approach and organizations structured more like a network. So if you’re leading people, they’re actually going to find information not in a central source, but all over the place, and they’re bringing that information to aid them in their career, to aid them in their role. And it’s the new responsibility of a leader to come up alongside that individual and coach them through what they’re learning and to be able to guide them through what’s the best path moving forward, considering all this new information flow that we’re all taking in. So as a quick recap, the best cross-generational leadership style is coaching, and the essence of coaching is resist advice giving and ask more questions.
Sarah Gallo:
I love that, listening and especially active listening, right, is such an important and really understated leadership skill for sure. We’ll be right back after a brief message from our sponsor.
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Sarah Gallo:
We’ve established that leading a multi-generational team isn’t easy, and I love Ryan, what you shared about really leaning into each generation’s, I think you called it generational intelligence structures and making the most out of those. I think that’s super important. Can you also dive deeper into the specific skills that leaders need to lead a multi-generational team effectively?
Ryan Jenkins:
Yes. Leaders need to be connectable. They need to be ready and willing to connect with those in which they lead. And so let me back up and give you a little context on why this is so important. So before the pandemic, I wrote a book called the Gen Z Guide, which was all about the emerging generation. And so many of my audiences and clients were asking more and more about who is Gen Z and how do we best attract and retain and lead this generation? So I wrote that book, and while I was writing that book, I discovered that Gen Z is also the most isolated, disconnected, lonely generation we’ve ever encountered. And now as of today, they’re actually twice as likely to experience loneliness than our elderly population. We’ve never had that imbalance before. So alarm bells were going off as I was writing that book. So that led me to begin researching human connection at work because I thought, gosh, with all this emerging generation, Gen Z, becoming the fastest growing generation in the workforce, we need to help leaders and organizations be more connectable and create cultures of connection so that we can be healthier individuals, but ultimately increase performance inside our organizations and strengthen our teams, become more resilient and all these things. And so while the genesis of all that research and ultimately the book we wrote that was called Connectable, the genesis was Gen Z. Turns out every generation’s experiencing more disconnection than ever before. It’s still most acute amongst Gen Z because 79% of Gen Z report sometimes or always feeling disconnected, but all of us are experiencing it more. So if we want to win as leaders in the future, we have to be more connectable. So here’s a quick and easy tip to think about as it relates to connection. Because people think now they’re like, whether you’re in person, hybrid or you’re fully remote, doesn’t matter what your team looks like. We all fall into the trap thinking that we’re more connected than ever. We have all these wonderful tools and technology and social media, we feel like we’re more connected, but that is false. That is a hundred percent false because there’s a big, big, big difference between communication and connection. Those two things are not the same thing. So communication is the exchanging of information, and we process that in the front part of our brain, whereas connection is the ease of communication between two people and the sense of feeling seen and heard and valued in a conversation. And we actually process that in the back part of our brain. So a good way to think about it. If any of our listeners, if you’ve ever texted I love you to a significant other, that’s wonderful. I mean, we should continue to do that. We should perhaps all be doing more of that than we currently are. But just know when you text that to somebody, that’s just communication. It doesn’t become connection until they hear the tone in your voice, they see your body language, they feel your embrace. That’s when it moves from communication to connection. So a good way to think about this is communication is dealt, but connection is felt. And if we want to create strong teams after studying this for five years now, connection is now the most valuable team currency. And if we want to again, increase performance and retention and create more resilient teams, we have to cultivate more connection. And so we have to find ways to trade communication for more connection. So that text message for a phone call or trade, that virtual meeting for an in-person meeting, trade a statement for a question. I know, Sarah, you just mentioned active listening. That’s really important too. So it doesn’t take a lot of time to move from communication to connection, but it’s very important, especially as it relates to the gap that is always apparent across generations when we’re trying to work and lead. So back to the question at hand, which is, what can we do as leaders, be more connectable and find ways to trade communication for connection?
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz:
I love that how you pointed out communication and connection are not the same thing. Completely agree. One, considering from the employee side here, when employees are working with other generations, what challenges might employees face and how can they overcome them?
Ryan Jenkins:
Yeah, I think back to the two incorrect assumptions we talked about, and that’s always a good place to kind of think about. So if someone is being disrespectful or giving off vibes of, well, that’s not how we’ve done it in my day, or just know that we’re all making these incorrect assumptions because we’re humans and these are some of the tendencies we fall into. So I think it, it’s helpful to start there and not take it personal and just understand there’s other dynamics that are at play here. But I think that the macro concept to keep in mind for any of us, no matter your generation, no matter if you’re in a leadership role or not, is this idea that this is always how we’ve done it. Mindset is a slippery slope to irrelevance. I’ll say that one more time. This is always how we’ve done it. Mindset is a slippery slope to irrelevance. I get the pleasure of working in all kinds of different industries all around the world. And that statement is never not true for any organization. And especially on the post pandemic world innovation, we’re always going to be cranking things up and things are only going to be innovating or changing faster. And so what a great way to use generations to lean into that and to figure out ways in which we can pivot and move forward in a more effective and strategic way. So something to offer all of us to consider is that we should prioritize why over the way, prioritize why over the way. So stated differently, we should be married to the mission of our organization or the mission of our team, but be very open and only date the approach because the approach is constantly changing. We all know this very well in the last five years, and again, generations can help unlock that and guide us appropriately moving forward so you can leverage the fresh perspective the emerging generation brings to the table while using the experience of the established generation to help guide us. And so again, prioritizing why over the ways, a really helpful banner for any of us to consider as we continue to work and collaborate in multi-generational teams,
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz:
Especially in today’s workplace, with so much change and uncertainty that there is in the workplace. I’d love to hear your thoughts around how else can learning leaders really help set multi-generational leaders and employees up for success? With so much change happening daily, hourly, what can learning and development do?
Ryan Jenkins:
Yeah, I think something really important for all of us to keep in mind is that this is never a conversation. We’re talking about generations. It should never be a conversation about changing for a generation. I think so often people get frustrated or there’s a lot of friction when we start talking about generations. They feel like they should be changing for some other generation, and that shouldn’t be it at all. It’s not about changing for a generation, it’s about changing in light of the evolving landscape of work. And one of the ways that we unlock how work is evolving is by understanding the differences that are occurring across generations. So if we understand the evolving differences across generations, we begin to pull the future a little bit closer. So that’s usually helpful to, that’s a little bit of a easier pill to swallow. And we’re talking about generations because we’re not talking about changing for Gen Z or Gen X, it’s really about changing in light of today’s evolving landscape of work. And one of the things that we have to keep in mind and why, again, learning and development is so critical and this conversation is that this is never a one and done conversation. Because guess what? As soon as you understand the youngest generation in the workforce, the next one’s coming right behind it. So this is a consistent conversation we’re going to have to have. And the other thing to kind of keep in mind too that I think will be helpful context for our learning and development professionals is the generational spans are shrinking. So the generational spans in the past were measured in about 15-20 year spans, which made sense. That was kind of a natural step in our ancestry. But that is out the window because there’s so much change happening now that since we all have a 24/7 news cycle in the palm of our hand, there’s an event that can happen halfway around the world and imprint a generation of cohorts that are in those multiple years as they’re coming of age or a new innovation or technology can come out and imprint that generation. Thus, they’ll carry very different perspectives of the world and experiences of culture and society, et cetera. So those 15-20 year spans are likely to shrink down to 10, maybe even five year spans. So again, why is this all relevant for learning and development folks? Well, again, this isn’t a one and done conversation, and you’re not going to be able to get away with just having a conversation every decade when there seems to be a new generation. This is something that we’re going to have to revisit yearly, if not even more so than that because the preferences, experiences, behaviors, attitudes of different generations are going to become that much more fragmented. And so we’ll start seeing new generations that are fundamentally approaching work and communication and leadership different in such shorter amount of time. So again, it poses a really unique challenge as well as opportunities, especially for L&D folks to step into that and help give people context and tools to navigate these differences.
Sarah Gallo:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Ryan, we’ve covered so much ground today, but before we do wrap up, are there any final takeaways or any insights, nuggets of information, helpful tips you’d like to share with our listeners?
Ryan Jenkins:
I think the last idea to absorb, and it really fits well with what we’ve just talked about, and the last question is the following statement, that generational differences are not a problem to solve. They’re attention to leverage. Generational differences are not a problem to solve. They’re attention to leverage. We don’t want to solve these differences because there’s gold. There’s uniqueness in these differences that we can leverage to explore new markets and to be more inclusive and to create greater diversity inside our organization than our team. So our goal should be to stamp out these differences. It’s really to understand each other fully, and that’s where L&D comes in and can help a lot of people in that form, is to help with the awareness and the appreciation of all the unique strengths and differences and attitudes and experiences of each generation. So then moving forward, we can leverage those for a better tomorrow.
Sarah Gallo:
That is exciting. Well, on that inspiring note, Ryan, thank you so much for sitting down with us today on the podcast. How can our listeners get in touch with you after the episode if they would like to connect?
Ryan Jenkins:
Yeah, you can find me at ryanjenkins.com. So that’s the mothership [where] you can find all my socials and you can join the newsletter and anywhere else there. So look forward to connecting with anyone who wants to reach out. And again, that’s ryanjenkins.com.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz:
To learn more about multigenerational working and learning, visit the shownotes for this episode at trainingindustry.com/trainingindustrypodcast.
Sarah Gallo:
And if you enjoyed this episode, let us know by rating or reviewing us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Until next time!
Speaker 1:
If you have feedback about this episode or would like to suggest a topic for a future program, email us at TrainingIndustry.com or use the Contact Us page at TrainingIndustry.com. Thanks for listening to the Training Industry podcast.
