The generation game: understanding age diversity

01 June 2024

With multiple generations working together in today’s workplaces, Carina Monnelly-Owen, head of people services at Housing 21, explains the importance of employers adapting to accommodate those working in payroll

We’re in an era where five generations are in the workplace together, where people are living and working longer and where technology is advancing at a relentless pace. So, it’s more important than ever to understand the changing age diversity to not only manage an effective payroll function, but also to provide excellent service to our customers for our businesses to thrive.

Each generation has its own unique characteristics, values and communication styles due to the socioeconomic developments and technological advancements during their lifetime. These are:

Traditionalists / silent generation (born between 1928 and 1945)

Loyal but traditional, appreciate security and offline opportunities.

Baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964)

Tend to be hard working and prefer face-to-face communication, have learnt to use technology when introduced.

Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980)

Shaped by the evolution of personal computers and further education, but can prefer face-to-face communication.

Generation Y / Millennials (born 1981 and 1996)

Grew up in during an internet revolution, embracing new technology more than previous generations.

Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2015)

Raised as digital natives, technology is essential to their productivity and helps shape their relationships.

Recognising the age diversity of the team will help to harness the range of experience and skills which enable the critical role the payroll team plays in any organisation.

So how helpful are these generalisations about age generations?

There are new payroll roles developing in the workplace which require adaptive skills and technological proficiency, moving from traditionally administrative and transactional to more strategic business partnering and technology enabled roles, suggesting younger generations may be more adept to the future evolution of payroll teams. However, age bias can have profound consequences, with older people looking to re-enter the workforce finding it more difficult than other age groups to find new employment because of recruiting bias.

Given the proportion of older workers is expected to increase in the UK, the key question is, how do we embrace age diverse teams to reach maximum productivity and engagement?

Let’s not stereotype

You could easily read the generational summaries above, based on loose research and make assumptions about each age group. It would be advisable to read the summary again for your own age group and decide if it encapsulates all your personal experiences, values, communication styles, ambitions, likes, dislikes, quirks, strengths and weaknesses in one sentence.

Of course it didn’t, which is why it’s imperative that we don’t stereotype people into generational boxes and instead simply get to know people, their needs, wants, personality and preferences. It’s through uniqueness and diversity that we succeed, so let’s not make any harsh generational judgements and instead ask people how they perform at their best, as they’re best placed to know.

It may also be useful to break down any assumptions in your teams too. Older workers may have these about younger workers and vice versa, which may affect how they work together. By enabling team members to get to know each other and build relationships, it will encourage greater empathy and understanding. This may be difficult in a more remote world, so create opportunities for social interactions and personal bonding, creating team belonging and inclusivity.

Adapt your style

Once managers understand the needs, wants and expectations of their age diverse team members, they will need to adapt their management and leadership style to meet their needs. This is likely to have a positive impact on team members’ engagement at work as they will feel valued, listened to and recognised for their uniqueness.

Adapting communication styles is a great way to meet various needs by offering different methods for teams to converse e.g. via phones, instant messaging, emails, video calls or in person. Agree together which ways best suit the individuals and team as a collective to ensure the stereotypical barriers are broken down and everyone has the opportunity to be informed and influence ways of working.

Openly encourage flexible working and professional development to help with attracting and retaining an age diverse team, ensuring succession plans are in place to plan for future workforce changes. Promote benefits and policies that support people
at different times of their lives to support work-life balance, well-being and to
recognise the diverse needs of the team.

Understand the benefits

There are several benefits which come with getting to know the needs of your team and adapting your approach.

A diverse team comes with a diverse set of views that are likely to be representative of your customers and their needs. Actively seeking the views of age diverse teams will provide insights which can only support your organisation’s objective to enable the growth of the business by encouraging innovation and proactively meeting the needs of the customers.

An age diverse team comes with a wide range of knowledge, experience and skills that everyone in the team can benefit from; whether it’s older employees’ experience of introducing new benefits or younger workers’ support to introduce self-service technology, everyone stands to gain from shared learning.

Employee engagement has already been mentioned in this article as a benefit so let’s also recognise that engagement is multifaceted as lots of factors impact upon engagement; but as engaged employees are said to perform 22% better than non-engaged employees, they’re more likely to give discretionary effort and it can only benefit your team and your customers if this adaptive approach is taken. High employee engagement because of increased belonging has other benefits too, including general happiness, a positive impact on well-being and people feeling more fulfilled at work.

You only know if you know

A lot of changes will have happened in the past which your older employees with longer tenure will know and understand because they will have lived through it, including legislation updates, government interventions or organisational decisions. What an incredible opportunity for shared learning, perhaps through cross-mentoring schemes to not only upskill team members but also to bridge a perceived empathy gap and create opportunities for people to find similarities, rather than differences.

This also provides an opportunity to pool knowledge, skills and experiences, because while it can be impossible to know all the facts all the time in reward and payroll terms, a high-performing team would know who to ask or where to find the information needed. Seeking multi-generational approaches to maintaining networks, seeking solutions and collaborative working can actively encourage problem solving and innovation.

In summary, managing an age diverse team may create some challenges for managers as there can be differing viewpoints, values, work and communication styles. But if we embrace these as positive personal needs and preferences, we create inclusive high-performing teams and cultures that not only recognise and value age diversity but also embrace the uniqueness of the whole person.