Five Generations at Work E-Book

Rebecca Robins

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 290

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The definitive playbook for empowering intergenerational collaboration, innovation and productivity at work.

Five Generations at Work: How we win together, for good explores how to maximise the dynamics of our generational diversity to create more collaborative and competitive organisations. An energising and pragmatic read, this book unpacks six years of research and work with organisations and individuals who are taking progressive action to lead from lenses versus labels, evidencing the value of generational diversity.

For the first time in history, we have up to five generations at work. In the context of a world in flux and polycrisis, our diversity is a powerful force multiplier for good, if we debunk the stereotypes and know how to unlock it.

Get inspired by exclusive case studies and conversations written through the voices of five generations and four continents across global corporates, family businesses, education and foundations, including: Ahlström I The EY Foundation I The Financial Times I Hoffmann-La Roche I Imaginable Futures I LVMH I Liberty Global I MARS I Mission 44 I The Oxford Character Project I St Gallen Symposium I The UNDP and Samsung and more …!

• Borrow and build on inspiring work from intergenerational alliances and intrapreneurs, to next generations and future generations
• Learn from case studies and solutions across diverse business contexts
• Apply the mindset, skillset and toolkits from work delivering shared value and sustainable impact

Five Generations at Work: How we win together, for good is a transformative read for all business leaders, people leaders and CEOs. Importantly, it stands out because it was written for every generation – for students, first career movers, founders, managers, leaders and board members. Above all, this book is a call to action to us all. When humanity is being challenged by the forces upon us, from climate, to geopolitics, to technology, we need to draw on the strengths of every generation for sustainable and systemic change for good.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Dear Reader

1 Introduction & Call to Action

2 Defining Our Generations

3 Intergenerational Working

4 The Intrapreneurial Mindset

LVMH DARE

5 Family Businesses

AHLSTRÖM

HOFFMANN-LA ROCHE

MARS

THE PENTLAND GROUP

6 Next Generation Boards

THE EY FOUNDATION

MISSION 44

THE FINANCIAL TIMES

LIBERTY GLOBAL

7 Intergenerational Alliances

IMAGINABLE FUTURES

THE ST GALLEN SYMPOSIUM

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AND PARLIAMENT

8 Generations Future

THE FUTURE GENERATIONS ACT WALES

Coda & Call to Action

With Gratitude

Sources & Notes

Introduction & Call to Action

Defining Our Generations

Intergenerational Working

The Intrapreneurial Mindset

Family Businesses

Next Generation Boards

Intergenerational Alliances

Generations Future

Coda & Call to Action

Bibliography

Age Diversity / Intergenerational

Intrapreneurship

Collaboration

The Future of Business, Culture and Work

Family Businesses

Next Gen Boards

Future Generations

Index by Industry & by A-Z

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

Dear Reader

Begin Reading

Coda & Call to Action

With Gratitude

Sources & Notes

Bibliography

Index by Industry & by A-Z

End User License Agreement

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Rebecca Robins

Patrick Dunne

Five generations at work

How we win together, for good.

This edition first published 2025

© 2025 Rebecca Robins and Patrick Dunne. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. The right of Rebecca Robins and Patrick Dunne to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Robins, Rebecca (Writer of Five generations at work), author. | Dunne, Patrick (Writer of Five generations at work), author.

Title: Five generations at work : how we win together, for good / Rebecca Robins, Patrick Dunne.

Description: Hoboken, NJ, USA : Wiley, 2024. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2024020963 (print) | LCCN 2024020964 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394252206 (hardback) | ISBN 9781394252220 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394252213 (epub)

Subjects: Collaboration, innovation and productivity at work. Sustainable and systemic change.

Generational diversity

Classification: LCC HF5549.5.C75 R65 2024 (print) | LCC HF5549.5.C75 (ebook) | DDC 658.30084/2—dc23/eng/20240603

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024020963

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024020964

Cover Design by Jason Hyde

Author Photos: Courtesy of the Authors

Dedicated to my mother, Mary.

For your words and your wisdom – always.

With love, Rebecca

To my inspirational, resilient, incredibly

generous and joyful mum Margaret.

With love, Patrick

Preface

We are at an unprecedented time in history, in the confluence of force factors of climate, geopolitics, technology and more. We are also witnessing firsts in both intergenerational and intragenerational shifts – the next decades will see the largest wealth transfer in history, and for the first time in history we have five generations at work.

And yet, narratives around generations have become warped and weaponised through bias and stereotypes. And this matters, as we are at an inflection point in the convergence of forces and flux that will challenge us, as businesses, as society – as humanity at large. We believe in, and evidence, a more productive and progressive approach – through turning labels into lenses, through seeing our human difference as a strength, and by the everyday actions that are making a difference and delivering sustainable change.

Written through the voices of five generations, which are celebrated and interwoven throughout, this book open-sources progressive and practical action, and what we can make happen through more inclusive ways of seeing, and more integrated ways of working.

You may be embarking on your first career. You may be a manager, or about to become one. You may be a founder, an owner, in a leadership role. You may have a plural or portfolio career. You may be first generation or taking on the work of other generations. The contexts are multiple, but they are united by the one dimension of diversity that we all share.

Rebecca Solnit, in addressing the crises and challenges of our times, said: “Every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis. We are hemmed in by stories that prevent us from seeing, or believing in, or acting on the possibilities for change.”

The subtitle of Five Generations at Work is the pivot. It is about the possibilities for change.

Dear Reader

Here’s to …

the connectors, the creators,

the first movers, the next movers,

the innovators, the integrators,

the interpreters and horizon scanners,

the generalists and the specialists,

the leaders, the managers and the owners.

Here’s to us as individuals, as collectives, the world over.

This is dedicated to you. As one of the five generations at work, as someone who has a story, and a contribution. It is dedicated to every individual and collective behind the organisations featured in this book and so many more.

You may read this book word for word. You may read a few chapters. What matters is turning words into actions. We share work taking place across the world to inspire us to act on the possibilities for change. Because that is how we begin to win together … for good.

Thank you for your attention.

We would love to hear your story. Please get in touch …

“To stay human is to break a limitation.”

Anne Carson

Anne Carson’s writing defies easy definition. Her writing not only spans genres, but crosses genres. Her challenge around what it is to be human, and breaking the boundaries of genres, was one that we took on. We set out to break limitations in how we look at what defines us, and at what binds us across generations.

1Introduction & Call to Action

The rise of five generations in the workplace is intersecting with the rise of exponential change. With the global advance of an ageing population, our workforces are operating across Silents, Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z, with the advent of Gen Alpha on the horizon. What is striking is the simultaneous convergence and divergence – the convergence in the unprecedented moment of age diversity at work, and the divergence in the fractures and fragmentation exacerbated by the context of our times. In an age of flux, or as some have termed a ‘polycrisis’, the forces are being felt from the outfall of a pandemic to socio-political turbulence, from generative AI to the need to regenerate the planet. These multiple forces are rapidly changing the world of work, from the types of roles and shapes of our careers to the way in which we work together. Consequently, the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to succeed are changing at a similar rate.

Yet the prevailing discourse on how different generations work together has defaulted into divisive generational silos and stereotypes. In the context of so much flux, and when it has never been more imperative to work together, we not only have a necessity to change this, but more importantly to transform it into a hopeful opportunity. For the first time in history companies have five generations in the workplace. And each generation has its own defining characteristics, values and attitudes shaped by the culture, technology and formative events of their time. In parallel, the pace of change in the workplace is accelerating, requiring adaptability from us all. As a consequence, the skills and behaviours necessary for how we win together are evolving. In valuing the human difference of each generation, we can rethink the dynamics of different generations as contributing to more connected, collaborative, and competitive organisations, drawing, rather than draining strength from multiple generations.

The indicators from leading global reports on the current and future state of generations, leadership and skills point consistently to the imperative of collaboration. Deloitte reports that only 6% of organizations believe their leaders understand how to effectively manage generational differences.1 The value that effective multigenerational workforces can create across their talents, improving continuity and stability, assisting with the retention of critical skills and knowledge and a significant competitive advantage is further evidenced by The World Economic Forum (WEF) in How a Multigenerational Workforce Is Key to Economic Growth.2 This also cites research on the age-inclusive workforce by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)3: “Diversity of experience, generations and skills gives employers an important opportunity to harness the talent that different age groups bring to the workplace and improve productivity and profitability.”

Through a series of waves of research and our work over the past six years, we have amassed a global body of work and database on businesses, organisations and institutions who see generational diversity as a strength and are taking progressive action across generations. Underlying our research and this growing body of evidence is a consensus that we all, as individuals, collectives and organisations, have a greater capacity to thrive when we choose to turn generational labels into generational lenses, which are about learning from and with each other.

This is about breaking down silos and misperceptions on all aspects of generational equations. To do that, it will require unlearning of behaviours, it will need more empathy and understanding. The lazy discourse around generational differences has lost sight of the reality and recognition that there is value in the perspectives and experience of each generation, where no single generation has the prevailing monopoly.

With the fracturing of trust in institutions the world over, brands are stepping into the void, in some respects, in the mind of global consumers. There has never been a time for brands to establish more conscious and responsible roles, in business, and society and to demonstrate real progress from stated ambitions in diversity, ethics and sustainability, to systemic outcomes. Spanning intergenerational alliances, family businesses, next generation boards, intrapreneur platforms and deep commitments into future generations, this book demonstrates collaborative constructs that run counter to the divisive discourse that we seek to dismantle, exposing the counterpoint of generational tensions, with the urgency to regenerate – across business, society and the planet.

“We live in an age of classification and I am not sure it’s helping any of us.”

Alex Mahon, Chief Executive of Channel 4

FROM LABELS TO LENSES

Ironically, in the context of so much tension-laden debate around generations, there is no standard determination of how we define a generation. “As it stands, there is no official taxonomy or oversight committee who decide when a new generation starts or ends, or what to name it. Although these labels often evolve organically through popular media and public discourse, many originate from the Pew Research Center, a US Think Tank.”4

This naming and labelling is linked to our behavioural wiring to seek meaning in types and stereotypes. As Alex Mahon, Chief Executive of Channel 4 states in Channel 4’s 2023 Beyond Z report: “We live in an age of classification and I am not sure it’s helping any of us.” A defining factor of our research and so many of the collectives that we talk with is the breaking of types, the challenging of so-called norms and an approach to measurement that is inherently more balanced and linked more to collective outcomes.

We set out the business logic for investing across the multigenerational workplace, as evidenced through our research across industries and global markets, with leading global brands, SMEs, founder and family businesses, institutions and non-profits. The structures on which many organisations have been established were forged in a different age, and not all are fit for purpose across the five generational workplace. Others have sprinted ahead and evolved more organically to embrace generational diversity and difference as both a more natural modus operandi and a distinct competitive advantage. In conversation across generations and across the world, we hear from five generations across students, first careers, mid careers, managers, leaders, owners, board members and wider partners.

MUTUAL LEARNING: BUILDING THE MINDSET AND MUSCLE OF LEADERSHIP

What we need are tomorrow’s regenerative leaders – today. The stark reality is that we will miss the critical mass that we need unless we engage with this transitional era, in diversifying the pipeline of talent, and crucially, in building the mindset, skillset and toolkit. As The London Interdisciplinary School argues: “The problems facing humanity are more complex, interconnected, and urgent than ever before. The modern workplace needs people who can tackle these kinds of issues and make a real impact on the world.”5 The London Interdisciplinary School in the UK is amongst others across the world pioneering a new approach to higher education, where the curriculum is grounded not in subject matter verticals, but in the horizontal and zigzag connections of interdisciplinary thinking. As we shall go on to reinforce, the best working practice that we evidence is about shared value and outcomes – within and across generations. The skills required will converge around collaboration in new and deeper forms, around how to manage ambiguity and uncertainty, and, perhaps, one of the most important, yet underestimated skills – the ability to keep learning.

The shape and trajectory of careers are evolving and will change at an extraordinary pace, as are the skills needed to move with the pace of change, where singular disciplines of careers are becoming more multidisciplinary, where the linear verticals of career pathways are more fluid and cross-fertile. Putting a value on breadth and diversity of experience, and space for lateral exploration on our career paths, is the focus of David Epstein’s prescient book: Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. As the future of work is changing, and with it the shape of roles and the skills that we need, we must continue to adapt. The question is – are generations learning from each other, and are they working together effectively by putting their strengths to work? The cases that we share in the book are living examples of practical commitments to cultures of collaboration and lifelong learning.

One of the unintended consequences of change programmes or of ambitions to advance strategic agendas at work, has proven to be the tipping point of “project” or ‘initiative’ overload. Amongst that body of indicators, a survey by Gartner evidenced a steady decrease and drop in employee engagement with change initiatives in their organisations – from 74% in 2016 to 43% in 2022.6

This context is important for two reasons. First because the body of work that we share runs counter to this, defined by commitments that hardwire to business strategy, by doing fewer things well and through longer-term investment. In many cases this is about sustained and systemic change for how we look at rising leadership today for the leaders that we will need for the rising challenges in business and society. Second, because the overload effect of projects and initiatives – which are often disconnected and not sustained – is invariably a distraction from the real focus of building the muscle that is needed across all generations. The ‘accidental manager’ is a key case in point of this multigenerational muscle. The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) in the UK has been a longstanding voice on the consequences of accidental management, which speaks to the pervasive promotion into the title of manager without the important work on development and skills. The managerial role and responsibility that goes with it is of particular importance because it transcends generations.

“Intergenerational collaboration and leadership is a lifelong learning process to make transformation happen, everyone has a role to play and a wisdom to share from the experience of the age that we are at.”7

Erioluwa Adeyinka Executive Director and Co-Founder, YouthxYouth, Nigeria

Unpacking the benefits of intergenerational thinking and collaboration, we draw a future trajectory of the cumulative capability of how new generations of leadership demonstrate cultural and collaborative advantage, which, in turn, generates competitive advantage. Based on the common principles of collaborative, inclusive and respectful leadership, intergenerational thinking also establishes a mindset and skillset that offers an alternative to the ‘heroic’ narrative around leaders and leadership. This concept and context of superhero leadership is something that Margaret Heffernan, entrepreneur, author and professor of practice, addresses in calling out “the enduring attraction of simplistic narratives.”8 It brings to mind the words of Ken Frazier, former executive chairman and CEO of Merck, on how he shaped the culture at Merck: “When a company is successful, the CEO gets a lot of credit for what I call the big moments, but leadership is in the many small, quiet moments with the team.” This is further supported by Rebecca Henderson in her book Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire: “Real change happens in small rooms and in small actions that accumulate over time.”

We explore living blueprints across cultures, disciplines, industries and generations that are developing both mindset and skillset, and empowering opportunities to exercise the muscle. Importantly, this is about no one ‘ism’ or defining solution. What we reflect is a lifecycle of intergenerational thinking – from platforms and programmes designed to represent and elevate the voices of next generations, to commitments designed to hardwire decision-making through the lenses of generations to come. This is also why we dedicate the culminating chapter to future generations. A powerful common pattern that emerges throughout is the multiplier effect through cohorts and generations. The work and ways of thinking that we are advocating today are the collective actions creating compound interest for tomorrow.

In the context of unprecedented forces across business and society, with far-reaching implications from one generation to the next, what emerges through intergenerational thinking is a deeper reflection on the age that we will have been a part of, and to which we will have contributed. One constant remains true – that humanity ever evolves through stages of its own progression and regression. We are part of generations past, with a responsibility for generations future, and it is easy for the generational discourse to forget the longer-term perspective of how we exist today has been informed and defined by the eras and movements before us – consider the references made today to a ‘new Renaissance’ that hark back to one of the most deeply formative times for humanity. In his book Generations,9 Policy Expert at King’s College London, Bobby Duffy brilliantly cites the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, “who believed that history was a series of epochs, where each new generation considered itself either heir to a valuable heritage or born to destroy it.” “Ortega suggests that ‘the concept of the generation is the most important one in the whole of history’, precisely because it constitutes the mechanism by which ‘history moves, changes, wheels and flows.”

Five Generations at Work is written through a series of multigenerational conversations and lenses for our multigenerational workplace. Importantly, we are not proposing another model or framework – each case study is a living blueprint from which we can all take insight and inspiration. Ultimately, this is a manifesto and movement for every generation, through the scale of change that generations can achieve together. We look through the lenses of five generations at work, from rising generations entering work for the first time, to generations in management and leadership positions, to generations at the edges of retirement. We hear from multiple generations within family businesses who are carrying forward the founding work of generations before them. We go inside the companies embedding generational thinking into their organisations. Some are establishing platforms for more productive dialogue across employees and leadership and enabling diverse pathways for more collaborative leadership. Others are mobilising ways to generate collaborative creativity and innovation across their organisation. We hear from those who are more proactively unlocking the accumulated experience of older generations and transferring that knowledge to rising generations. Through our focus on the ‘five generations at work today’, we identified a constant red thread throughout our research and conversations – on ‘future generations’. We therefore dedicate our penultimate chapter to our longer-term legacy, as generations today, to the generations that have yet to be born, with a lens through the Seventh Generation principle.10

This book is about sharing the possibilities for us all, as individuals, as collectives, as organisations, when we engage with what we value in each other and why. As we hear in the chapter Intergenerational Alliances: “The truth is that the greatest potential lies in combining the strengths of all age groups to create value that is greater than the sum of its parts.”

What we go on to share, document and celebrate, is drawn from a diverse body of work, across family businesses, next generation boards, intrapreneurship, intergenerational alliances and investment in future generations.

2Defining Our Generations

What do we mean by a generation, and what are the commonly used terms for different generations and why? As we have outlined, there is no definitive system for how generations come to be framed or named. There is something energising about this, suggesting an organic freedom where generational names are adopted, adapted and established through common use. It may also be the case that framing further evolves through how generations are seen as they age, and through their impact on the world.

Stereotypes, which tend to be oversimplified, biased and divisive, have become too pervasive. Indeed, one of the aims of this book is to challenge and break free from some of the stereotypes that have emerged around how different age groups might behave. Our perspective, and one shared and evidenced in our research and through this work, is that it is inherently more productive to think about generations in a series of ways, starting with, but by no means ending with age.

A definition that is often drawn on is from the seminal Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge: “A generation can be defined as a group of individuals born within the same historical and socio-cultural context, who experience the same formative experiences and develop unifying commonalities as a result.”1

In the West, the naming of generations tends to have been characterised by the conditions that a particular generation experienced and how they have responded to those conditions, as well as how they have behaved and influenced society, culture and subsequent generations. For example, the “Lost” generation in Europe, those who came of age during or just after World War I (1914–1918), were often viewed as cynical, disillusioned and without cultural or emotional stability. Hardly surprising given their horrific experiences and the social turmoil that they lived through as a result of a war which killed over 20 million, left another 20 million physically injured, with countless others suffering mental health injuries. There may be other manifestations of this in those currently suffering the consequences of wars. There are echoes of it in what we are seeing in the impact of a pandemic.

In Asia and in Africa the situation is a lot more complex due to the very different histories of the countries within those regions. In some Asian nations, including China, Vietnam and Korea, generational names can be more literal with a common character, often the first or second, embedded in a person’s given name to identify which generation they are from, with siblings and cousins sharing that character. For example, in Chinese the symbol 庆 meaning Qing links Wang Qingzhao with Wang Qingxi.

The first of South Africa’s “Born Free” generation, those born after the end of the apartheid era in 1994, may have felt, but not understood, the vibrancy of the early years of Mandela’s rainbow nation as small children. As teenagers and young adults, they will have felt the consequences of the challenging time which has followed under subsequent presidents and its impact upon the economy, and on the opportunities and the quality of life in their country. As a South African friend of ours put it many of the “Born Frees” have sadly and ironically become trapped and are now better described as the ‘Frustration Generation’.

In China, the government’s 1979 to 2015 One-Child policy has also influenced the behaviour of around 180 million Millennials who also coincided with the economic re-awakening of the country. This is sometimes described as the 4-2-1 generation – four grandparents, two parents and one child, to whom all the attention and money flows, combined with no need to share, which has had an impact. It will also have a future impact as it reverses to a 1-2-4 with one Millennial having to support older family members.

In Vietnam the 9X generation, those born in the 1990s, followed the post-war generation of people born in the aftermath of the war ending in 1975. They overlapped, and have much in common, with older Millennials elsewhere in the world. Yet, the biggest influence on them was likely to be the opening up of Vietnam to the rest of the world, especially through the internet and the profound and rapid development of its economy.

The concept of identifying and labelling distinct groups of people based on shared experiences and cultural influences emerged as societies underwent significant transformations. As the attributes for various generations will differ, and different societies may approach generational distinctions in various ways, we can distil four force factors shaping generational mindset and behaviour: Economic; Social and cultural; Technological and Conflict. It is also likely that these generational mindsets and behaviours will adapt and develop as these force factors influence them through their key stages of life.

The classic names of generations in the West in the last century or so have been the “Lost”, “Greatest”, “Silent”, “Baby Boomers”, “Gen X”, “Gen Y” more commonly known as “Millennials”, “Gen Z” and the latest “Gen Alpha”. Variations on some of the generational names emerged in the context of more recent generations. This even gave rise to hybrid naming such as Xennials, speaking to a cross-over of a ‘micro-generation’ at the confluence of Gen X and Millennials.

Generation

Born Between

% GlobalPopulation

Why so Called?

Boomers

1946–1964

13%

Born from the boom in birth rates amongst relevant countries at the end of World War II and the resultant economic boom.

Gen X

1965–1980

18%

Popularised by Canadian author Douglas Coupland in his novel “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture.” As the undefined letter, X was embraced by a generation who did not want to be defined as previous generations had been.

Millennials

1981–1996

23%

Originally named Gen Y to follow Gen X, Millennials became the more popular descriptor as the older members of this generation were reaching adulthood at the turn of the century.

Gen Z

1997– 2012

25%

This is the first generation of digital natives. In China they are also thought of as the generation who grew up in the midst of the nation’s economic re-awakening, whereas in Japan they are defined as much by difficult economic conditions as they are by age.

Gen Alpha

2013 and still being born

18%

A naming convention has taken effect in the circularity of the alphabet. Whether that evolves remains to be seen, as this generation rises with the rise of generative AI.

We have intentionally used a consensus of sources in framing the age of generations, in the spirit of reflecting the degree of fluidity. And with Silents still present in the workforce, the Gen Alpha to Boomer range also correlates with the core of the five generations that will be at work, as we go on to map the shape shifts in population data. Those shifts will be important to keep in mind as we look ahead to our collective responsibility today in our culminating chapter on Generations Future.

Our stated focus is on how different generations are interacting at work, and how we can move away from the current divisive, stereotype-fuelled discourse to something which positively harnesses the power of both their differences and diversity. In essence a move from an “Other” mindset to a “Together” mindset. It is a mindset that we believe is fundamental to overcome the major challenges that we face in business, society, climate and geopolitics, and is integral to a more collaborative and inclusive leadership skillset.

“In essence a move from an “Other” mindset to a “Together” mindset.”

Boomers

Boomers are now in their sixties and seventies, and, in many respects, their direct influence in the workplace is declining. Their indirect influence however remains strong in a number of ways – with many acting as advisors, investors or board members. The natural decline in the numbers of Boomers, as they were retiring from the workplace, was also given further impetus by the pandemic – from those who sadly lost their lives to many who left the workforce for good, and others returning to it in part-time rather than full-time roles. In late 2021, for example, an over 3 million additional retirees in the US was reported over what might have been expected.2

Gen X