Wisdom for all ages: generational researcher Lynne Lancaster talks about how retiring baby boomers and Gen X workers will affect the organization of the future.

Any given organization is made up of employees from several different generations. Are there differences in how these generations communicate, and like to be communicated with? Generational research expert Lynne Lancaster studies just that: the impact on communication of having multiple generations in the workplace. In her work, she has found that expectations about loyalty, values, approaches to work and preferred media all affect how well companies communicate with their employees. Longtime IABC member Shel Holtz spoke with Lancaster about her research, which she presented at the IABC Research Foundation Luncheon at the 2006 International Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Shel Holtz: Could you tell me a little bit about your organization and what you do?

Lynne Lancaster: Generations is a small consulting firm based in Sonoma, California, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and we kind of see ourselves as cultural translators. We study demographics and generational differences in the workplace and marketplace, and we try to draw conclusions about what's happening and then put a business spin on it, so the managers can actually use these ideas to help recruit and retain employees. It has a fun theoretical aspect and also a demographic and statistical aspect, but then there's that element of "but now what can we do to be better in our businesses?"

The fun thing about our research is that everyone can sit there and also be thinking about their parents, their grandparents and their children. It has such a wonderful resonance with everybody's home life. I feel like I get double bang for the buck in what I do.

SH: What kinds of organizations bring you in to work with them?

LL: We work with companies in the public sector, the federal government, and state and local governments. They're hiring us because they are looking at the impending retirement of millions of baby boomers and they haven't built enough bench strength among Generation X [those born from 1965 to 1981] to replace all those boomers. So they're looking at succession planning issues. We also do a lot of work with U.S. corporations like General Mills, Ethan Allen, Ralston Purina and Wells Fargo about retention issues--how do they identify the best and the brightest among the different generations and hang on to them?

SH: I know an issue around the retention of Gen Xers is that they don't perceive commitment to the organization the same way the baby boomers did.

LL: That's such a great way to put it. Sometimes managers will say to us, "Well, why aren't Gen Xers loyal? What's wrong with them?" That's very accusing, and the way you said it really reflects what we're finding--that the different generations can be loyal in different ways. Gen Xers are saying, "Wow, I feel very loyal to my project, my boss, my mentors, my teams. Those are things that might make me want to stay." But it's not necessarily that sort of lifetime loyalty to an institution that we saw with Traditionalists [people born before 1946].

As a result, organizations are having to ask, "What drives loyalty in our company? How do we identify that and pull that out and make sure that's really working for us, so that we are able to retain the best people?"

SH: Does the environment in the organization also come into play? For example, if you told somebody coming out of college who was going to join your company that even though they had been sending e-mails and communicating that way in college, when they got to your company they would have to stuff typewritten memos into an interoffice envelope, I imagine they would opt for another company that would allow them to communicate the way they were accustomed to.

LL: That seems to be a hot topic. We've had Millennials [people born from 1982 to 2000] and Gen Xers in focus groups tell us that they couldn't even apply at some companies because they looked at the company web site and it was so bad that they felt that it must be a very slow-moving, backward organization. So, in many cases, they're equating how the communication process works with how they size up a company in terms of its ability to be flexible and forward-thinking and manage change well. And that isn't always an accurate read. As communicators, we're going to have to take a look at how the different generations size us up, what's most important to them, and be more responsive to that based on what kind of outcomes we want to have.

SH: I have a daughter who's 17--only about four or five years from entering the workforce--and I talk to her about how she communicates. She says she hates the phone. I ask, "How can you sit there and punch keys and text-message? Why don't you just call someone?" And she says, "Because then you get into this long conversation about the weather and dates and movies, and I don't have the time for that. I just want the answer to the question." That's why she likes instant messaging. I'm wondering how that is going to translate into the workplace in five years.

LL: It's just fascinating. The Millennial generation was born from 1982 to approximately 2000, so there's a pretty broad spectrum of technological advancements that have happened during their lifetimes. And many of them are going to graduate. Actually, we hope they will graduate--high school dropout rates are on the increase in the U.S., and about a third of U.S. Millennials will not graduate from high school. That's a staggering number, and it's a real concern. But when we're talking about the ones who are going to graduate from high school and/or college, their workplace will have very different technologies and communication practices than what their bosses and bosses' bosses are going to be accustomed to. That means that the communicators will not only have to figure out what the different modes of communication are, but they're also going to have to explain them to each other. So, the responsibility of the communicator has just gotten one layer deeper, because we now have to explain the rules to each other. It's going to mean a lot more coordinating between teams and bosses and subordinates of what's appropriate, how we are going to do this on our team, what we can put up with and what we can't. New rules will have to be written.

Some big trends are playing out in today's workplace generations right now, and communicators are going to be right in the thick of things when it comes to having to respond. It's going to make the lives of communicators more complicated but also more interesting. Probably more strategic too.

That's a personal mission I have--to help communicators take an increasingly forceful place at the strategic table in their organizations, to really be part of looking at the future and planning, because communication is absolutely on the forefront of what every company should do. For example, we're looking at worker shortages over the next five, 10, 15 years in many areas of the economy. And it's often going to fall to our communicators to figure out how we get the word out, how to find people, and then how we communicate really well so that we hang on to them.

SH: So what's the next up-and-coming generation called?

LL: We don't have a good name for them yet. I'm kind of holding off because I don't feel like we know them. We don't know what their world is going to be like or who they're going to be in the workplace. I'm trying to give it a little tiny bit more time--maybe until they're into school--before we slap a name on them that they're going to live with for the rest of their lives.

The Millennial generation--that's quite a large generation, about 76 million of them. And then right above them in age would be the Gen Xers. That's a much smaller population--only about 46 million. And then above them on the age totem pole would be the baby boomers, born from 1946 to 1964, 80 million strong.

That's the interesting thing: We have 80 million boomers heading toward retirement. We don't know exactly what they are going to do. And it's one of the hottest topics in the news today, with [the potential impact on] Social Security and Medicare and health insurance, but also looking at the huge exodus that the boomers may be making from the workplace. What are they going to do? Are they going to stay or go? Or are they all going to leave and come back as consultants?

We also have a generation older than the baby boomers. We call them the Traditionalists. They're the ones born prior to the end of World War II, or prior to 1946. And many Traditionalists are finding that they're healthy, feeling great and have a lot to give. They're actually heading back into the workplace. So we're kind of seeing a reverse osmosis, in that workers who have successfully retired are getting sucked back in because they have a lot to offer.

SH: It sounds like organizations are going to have to deal with some pretty divergent sets of values that each of these generations brings with them.

LL: That can be a really subtle thing to try to get your arms around. When we talk about values, we talk about what drives someone to come to work at your company, to take that job, to step up and get involved and want to stay. Those can be external things, like how much money you're making and how bad the commute is, or intrinsic things like whether your values match the company's. How do we identify those values, or how do we size that up, put a name behind it, and then allow that to affect the way we manage? Those are really interesting questions.

SH: From a communication standpoint I would expect that it means you can't create a one-size-fits-all communication process.

LL: Exactly. I think if anyone's read the book The One-to-One Future [Currency, 1996] or taken a look at some of the writing that's been done around mass customization in the marketplace, that's where we are starting to go in communication. How can we reach a mass of people but in an increasingly customized way? The complexity is that, of course, we have budgets--we don't have unlimited money to spend on customizing all of our communications. We also don't have an unlimited attention span. We have to hit people where they live and do it the most efficient way we can so that they'll pay attention to and hear our message.

That's going to mean really understanding who the different generational cohorts are, and targeting the mode of communication and the messages in the most efficient way we can. I think we're going to end up communicating some of the same messages through multiple means, on multiple levels. It can feel quite overwhelming at times, but what I've observed with smart communicators is that they find ways to break it down and keep it fairly simple.

generation breakdown: u.s. statistics

Traditionalists

Born before 1946 75 million

Baby Boomers

Born 1946-1964 80 million

Generation X

Born 1965-1981 46 million

Millennials

Born 1982-2000 76 million

by Shel Holtz, ABC 

U.S. workplace trends by the numbers

* 65 percent of employees surveyed said that generation gaps make it hard to get things done at work (Generations).

* By 2010, nearly one in three workers in the U.S. will be over 50 (AARP).

* The skilled-worker gap (between the number of skilled workers needed and those available) will grow to 5-3 million by 2010, and to 14 million by 2020 (National Commission for Employment Policy).

* 50 percent of companies surveyed expected the departure of mature workers to create knowledge vulnerability (The Conference Board, 2006).

* 72 percent of Traditionalists (those born before 1946) said they plan on returning to work in some capacity after formal retirement (Generations).

* 60 percent of Traditionalists who are employed full time said they do not have a clearly defined career path where they work (Generations).

SOURCE: When Generations Collide: Who They Are. Why They Clash. Flow to Solve the Generational Puzzle at Work (HarperCollins, 2003)

Shel Holtz, ABC, IABC Fellow, is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology in Concord, California. With his co-host Neville Hobson, ABC, Holtz produces the podcast "For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report," available at www.forimmediaterelease.biz.