Communicating with all generations

If you often have difficulty communicating with your Gen Y kids, imagine the challenges of managing a team of younger workers.

Finding that Baby Boomers are often competitive and focused on material possessions, Tammy Erickson says, "There are very logical reasons for Boomers to love winning. When we were teenagers, we discovered there were too few seats in the school — many of us were sent outside to attend class in trailers behind the building. There were too few sports teams for us all to play, too few college admission letters. The infrastructure was too small for the size of our cohort as we squeezed through the key hole into life. There was only one logical conclusion for Boomers to draw — if life is a never-ending game of musical chairs, you better play to win, and, we have."
"The flipside is that Generation Y are less competitive because they are accustomed to playing on sports teams — even with others who don’t play well. With so many younger employees more interested in having challenge and variety than in "moving up," and so many older employees remaining in the workforce, it is more important now than ever before to understand the wants, needs and preferences of each generation."

In addition to her blog, you can check out the book she co-authored, Workforce Crisis, to better understand this critical reality of everyday.