Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2016 - (Page 24)

"TO HAVE FOUR - SOMETIMES FIVE - GENERATIONS WORKING TOGETHER SIDE-BY-SIDE IS TRULY UNPRECEDENTED." BLOWING YOUR "OUR WORKFORCE SPEAKS 18 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES." "OURS IS THE MOST DIVERSE WORKFORCE IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND." These are routine comments in any conversation about the nature of doing business today. Races. Genders and forms of gender identification. Cultures. Religions. Ages. The diversity is rich - and sometimes daunting. As a result - and with the best of intentions - management scientists and others have set out on a mission to understand these differences. That's how "generations in the workplace" has become one of the most heavily studied issues in business today. Over the past decade, thousands of studies and reports have sliced and diced this phenomenon, shining the light brightly on how we are different. And there's no doubt about it: Differences do exist. But a recent study of nearly 800 individuals across the generational spectrum suggests that our similarities actually outweigh our differences. So perhaps we should start focusing on common ground. Perhaps we can step away from our simplistic and frequently onedimensional characterizations. Perhaps it's time to stop scrambling to deliver custom solutions to valid - but less pressing - generational difference. Perhaps we can have a greater positive effect by appealing to needs and priorities that everyone shares. 24 VIVA LA...SIMILARITIES In our 2015-2016 study, "Workplace Priorities and Beliefs Across the Generational Divide," in partnership with The Insight Advantage, the preponderance of the North American data points to considerable and surprisingly similar experiences, priorities and beliefs among the generations. Let's take career development, for instance. When asked about satisfaction with the career development available in the respondents' current roles, all generations share an unexpectedly similar experience. Between 66 and 72 percent feel satisfied (either somewhat or very), and the differences are not statistically significant. The millennials (who are routinely described as disillusioned by the lack of opportunities available) are just as satisfied as their boomer colleagues. One difference worth noting is the almost complete absence of ambivalence on the part of generation X workers. Neutral responses from young millennial, older millennial and boomer groups ranged from 12 percent to 17 percent, but only three percent of gen Xers were neutral on this topic. CONFOUNDING CONVENTIONAL WISDOM A review of the countless studies and articles written about millennials suggests that they would be very different from any prior generation to enter the workplace. By all accounts, millennials were predicted to revolutionize the workplace, having literally grown up in a digital world filled with mobile technology and instant communication. Much of the media buzz on this topic skews negative, characterizing millennials as "entitled" and "lazy." But it's now clear that these studies and publications only scrape the surface. Digging deeper, we designed our study to explore career priorities and beliefs across generations. We fully expected to uncover significant differences by age and to develop an understanding of what might be contributing to the frequently cited negative perceptions of millennials. The results, however, told an entirely different story, debunking millennial myths and revealing far more similarities than differences among the generations. Priorities What might be most startling are the surprising similarities in terms of what's not important to employees. Promotions are the least important of all of the workplace priorities explored for every generation. Compensation also rates in the bottom five priorities across all age ranges studied.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2016

Perspectives
Table of Contents
Three Strategies to Ensure Your Training Has Tensile Strength
Experience, Exposure and Education
Beyond the Classroom Paradigm
Applying the Buddy System
Purpose-Driven Professional & Organization Success
Making It Personal: The Four Pillars of High-Impact Mentoring
Blowing Your Millennial Mindset
Hidden Forces: Unconscious Bias in Learning
Memory: The Critical Bottleneck to Learning
Gender Barriers & Solutions to Leadership
Cognititive Collaboration: Utilizing Diverse Thinking & Behavioral Preferences
Get Into the Act: Accelerating Collaborative Teamwork
Dispelling the Five Myths of Microlearning
Quicken Loans: Culture Driven
Developing Global Leaders: On-the-Job Leadership Development
From Where I Sit
Why Do We Wait to Train Our Managers?
Is Knowledge Overrated?
Is Your Business Acument Showing?
Avnet Expands Services with ExitCertified Acquisition
Company News
What's Online
Training Talk

Training Industry Magazine - Summer 2016