20 May 2009

This article was written by Cynthia Wagner and originally appeared in The Futurist in December 2008. Globis believes that bridging the age divide and emracing age Equality and Diversity is one of the biggest issues facing organisations today.

Baby boomers and millennials must learn to teach each other

Old-timer Victor remembers that bad run-in your company once had a certain supplier; he warns you to check all references before signing a crucial contract. New-comer Sasha seems to keep to herself, but she turns out to be one of the best salespeople on your staff. She shows the rest of the team how she found six new client leads just by using Facebook contacts.

When most organisations think about “knowledge transfer”, they think in terms of veterans of the organisation mentoring the new hires, younger people with little experience. But increasingly, younger workers are bringing in new skills that are valuable to an organisation, the Conference Board points out in a new report.

“As baby-boom generation of corporate leaders and experts approaches retirement, business in the US, Canada, and many European nations face the loss of experience and knowledge on an unprecedented scale,” says Diane Piktialis, co-author with Kent Greenes of the report, “Bridging the Gaps: How To Transfer Knowledge In Today’s Multigenerational Workplace.” Piktialis notes, “Younger workers can’t be counted on to fill the void, as they lack the experience that builds deep expertise. They also tend to change jobs frequently, taking their technological savvy and any knowledge they’ve gained with them.”

With potential brain drains from both retiring baby boomers and job hopping Gen Xers and millennials, managers are challenged to keep institutional knowledge intact and organisational learning and innovation expanding.

The Conference Board report urges managers to understand the different learning styles of the generations and to ensure that receivers of “knowledge transfer” understand that it’s a two way street. The report identifies four generations working side-by-side in many of today’s workplaces, each with distinctly different learning styles.

Matures or veterans (born 1925-1945) and baby boomers (1946-1964) prefer to learn via formal classroom instruction and printed texts; they tend to be more verbal than visually orientated communicators.

Gen Xers (1965 – 1979) prefer informal learning but are adept at formal classroom learning as well. They strongly prefer action-orientated leaning that focuses on solving real problems. As the first generation to grow up alongside the development of computers, their learning style is more visual than verbal, the report notes.

Gen Yers or millennials (1980 – 1995) were born into the computer age, where leaning is a team process and occurs through a network and connections. They prefer to do things their own way rather than be told how.

With this mix of learning styles, and with mentors and mentees trading roles frequently throughout the process, knowledge transfer has never been more complex. And the rapid acceleration of advances in computers and other technologies has widened the generational knowledge gap, the report notes. For instance, younger workers may prefer to receive IMs (instant messages) rather than attend a company-mandated workshop, and to share their own insights via blogs, wikis, or podcasts rather than talking to others through a procedure they’ve developed.

The methods of knowledge transfer need to be as diverse as the workforce itself, including formal education and training, apprenticeships, simulations and games, storytelling and conferences, blogs and papers.

The report stresses that there is a strong business case for improving both ends of the knowledge transfer process – providing veteran workers with new skills and orientating new workers with institutional history. The benefits include increased productivity, innovation, and organisational stability.