Infographic: Millennials vs Boomers at Work – Generational Showdown
Owing to the fact that people nowadays live longer and retire at a more advanced age, we are slowly but surely entering the period of heterogeneous offices in terms of age differences among workers. According to the 2015 statistics, Millennials and Baby Boomers represent the majority of USA workforce and are bound to be working side by side for many years to come.
Nevertheless, problems can occur in the working environment because of their behavioral differences. They can have a negative influence on the quality of the employee collaboration and ultimately cause lowering overall productivity levels.
On the other hand, many claim that working in such environment can be quite beneficial, as diverse working attitudes do not necessarily have to imply conflict. By working in heterogeneous offices, employees are provided with an opportunity to complete one another.
If we were to compare these two generations, we have to start with the things that had the most influence on them. Those who were growing up between late 1940s and the beginning of 1964 are post-war babies who were promised “The American Dream” that they spent their lives pursuing. This lead to shaping boomers to be extremely ambitious individuals. On the other hand, Millennials were more sheltered than any other generation before them and were raised in a child-focused world. They were constantly kept busy and are considered to be the first generation of children with schedules.
With this in mind, we can conclude that there are some dissimilarities in core values of these two generations. Baby Boomers are famous for taking anti-war and anti-government stand, while advocating equality among people. They are known to be extremely optimistic and team-oriented at work, and when it comes to money, they prefer to “spend now and worry later”. Millennials are characterized as extremely confident, because not only are they the most educated generation, they are street smart too. Furthermore, they are extremely tech-savvy, since they were raised during the period of great technological advances.
At the office, Boomers are amazing multitaskers, have great communication skills and cope well in times of crisis. They can be quite competitive and although they tend to challenge authority, they are loyal to their careers and employers. In one sentence – they live to work. On the other hand, Millennials are quite difficult to keep in one place and more than 50% of them don’t expect to stay longer than 3 years at a given job. They are extremely independent and at ease when forced to work in a team. Even though they put themselves before others, they ensure that they stay loyal to their teams. Millennials are open to new ideas, they are quite innovative and think outside of the box. Most importantly, they cannot imagine working without being surrounded by technology.
To get the clearer picture of just how diverse the attitudes of Boomers and Millennials are when it comes to their work life, take a sneak peek at our infographic below. 🙂
