Tips on building a unified workforce

Millennials have been dubbed the most “impatient generation” in the workplace, with more than 90% wanting “rapid career progression”.

Almost 70% of employers believe that this level of ambition and desire is the leading cause of conflict between generations – with a third of generation X (34%) and a quarter of baby boomers (24%) and millennials (24%) agreeing with this.

The findings come from a Robert Walters white paper, which surveyed more than 2,000 respondents to find out what it takes to retain millennial professionals. Chris Hickey, UK CEO at Robert Walters, said: “According to our survey, almost 60% of workers have experienced inter-generational conflict in the workplace. As millennials make up a growing part of the workforce, finding a way for members of different generations to work together effectively is an increasingly high priority.

“Making sure that managers understand what motivates workers from different generations, how they like to communicate, and identifying common sources of conflict is essential to creating a strong team of varied generations and diversity of opinions.”

The following are some sources of inter-generational workplace conflict:

1. Workplace culture

According to the Robert Walters report, three-quarters of professionals (73%) have left a job because of poor company culture. Over half of millennials reported that poor company culture was a source of disappointment in a new job, with 90% claiming they research the culture in advance of taking an opportunity.

Whilst a third of millennials felt that meeting their colleagues in a social setting was important, this contrasts with just 15% of generation X and less than 1% of boomers.

2. Technology

Millennials widely perceive technology to be at the root of workplace conflicts – 34% reported that older workers not understanding new technology was the chief cause of these conflicts, followed by younger workers becoming frustrated at using outdated technology (33%). Millennial professionals are also distinct from their older colleagues in their attitudes to social media. Almost 40% of millennials felt employers should actively encourage workers to incorporate social media into their work, compared to less than a quarter (24%) of generation X and just 10% of baby boomers.

3. Tailored approach

Employers and employees from generation X and baby boomers believe millennials are far more pampered than was ever the norm in the workplace, with their demands for time and a tailored approach way out of line with general expectations. Whilst only 15% of employers believe personalised training programmes to be necessary, more than a third of millennials rank this as one of the most important factors in retention – 53% of millennials have been disappointed by the lack of a properly implemented personal development plan/ training programme when starting a job. 4. Experience

Given that millennials have the most formal education of any generation in history, being likely to hold at least a bachelors degree already, the chance to earn qualifications on the job is their lowest priority – unlike fellow colleagues from older generations. When asked what they believed employers value most in potential workers, 59% of millennials gave personality fit with the team or company culture as a top priority. In contrast, 53% of employers felt that hard technical skills were highly important in potential employees.

5. International aspirations

More than half (52%) of millennials said that the opportunity to develop their career abroad was important to them, compared to less than a third (31%) of generation X and 15% of boomers.

Chris states: “One of the side effects of growing up in the digital age is that millennials often see themselves as ‘citizens of the world’, having grown up in an environment where access to the internet means that geographical boundaries are far less important than they had been in the past.”