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Challenges managers face in the 21st century
Identified how communication in the work setting
Generation x and y
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Introduction
In the next decade, the challenge to every manager will be attracting and retaining skilled workforce especially with the tightening of the labor market. The evolution and advancement in technology has played an important role in the intensity and the management of the workforce. The modern organizations face four key generational workforces that includes traditionalists (born between 1925 and 1946), Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), generation X (born between 1965 and 1980), and generation Ys (born after 1980) (Hahn, 2011). The task of the management is to ensure that it incorporates all the aspects and the characteristics of this generational workforce. It is difficult to have a single generational workforce operating in the organization. Every group is distinct in character, values, and attitudes towards work basing on generational experiences. To effectively integrate the diverse generations, companies need to actively demonstrate respect and inclusion for its multi-generational workforce embrace radical changes in recruitment.
Characteristics and Challenges of Generational Workforce
Traditionalist:
They are most devoted workers. They are excellent team work player and regard highly the development of interpersonal communication skills. They are enthusiastic
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Leaders should ensure that every employee understands that working together is not negotiable, by creating a respectful, open and inclusive environment where all workers can share irrespective of age, culture backgrounds without the fear of being judged, fixed or changed. In order to achieve the company strategic vision, leaders must remain open to new ideas and provide constant feedback. They must be open to different perspectives based on generational attitudes and shun from projecting their own
They have to understand and practice the tools needed to manage a diverse workplace. As discussed in The Loudest Duck leaders can employ these methods to obtain a harmonious, all-inclusive environment: appreciate, promote, employ and celebrate diversity. Leaders must show appreciation and interest in the diversity of their workforce, not just look at percentages and how those are fulfilled but truly engage in understanding and developing the challenges and successes diversity brings. They need to understand how their subconscious is predisposed towards other's differences and develop a character and attitude that is not biased or predisposed to people and situations that are only similar to them. It's important for leaders to have an open-door policy that encourages sharing thoughts, rationale and feelings will help unify the diverse workforce. Leaders more than others need to understand that for a company to succeed everyone needs to feel valued and appreciated regardless of the
The millennial generation is made up of people that were born from 1978-1999. People from older generations say the millennial generation people are growing up being unprepared for the real world. In an article titled “The Tethered Generation” written by Kathryn Tyler she talks about why the millennial generation is so different than any other generation. She also explains how they depend heavily on their parents well into adulthood. In this article Tyler allows the reader to see why HR professionals are worried about the millennial generation entering their work force. Using Toulmin’s schema the reader can judge the effectiveness of Tyler’s essay to the audience, and this schema is used to persuade the audience to
As leaders, enterprises give them authority and require them to act responsibly to create a hospitable work environment by guiding others in practicing mutual respect. Overt or implicit bias in the workplace undermines potential. People of varying ages, genders, ethnicities and regions all have valuable contributions to offer, and as the corporate world draws from a global talent pool, fostering understanding is increasing in importance even for small organizations.
HR has abundant resources, however to bridge the generational gaps and provide employees with what they want seems to be a similar issue. In years past, HR only had to deal with Baby Boomer and Traditional values, which were similar in nature, however the new generations have different values and have different career paths than their elders. For example, “Why is it that Gen Y has not been more actively recruited? Why is it the Baby Boomers remain in the market place? Why would someone still want to work when their 70?” These are all questions an HR hiring manager has to decipher when determining candidates for a position. The task has become quite difficult due to the broad spectrum and variances of these generations.
In finding that generation Y yields almost equal numbers of intrinsic and extrinsically motivated people, we can confidently conclude that generation Y should not be stereotyped as being mostly one or the other. Accepting that this generation of workers encompasses a plethora of behavioural characteristics and can be motivated by different means, managers should be able to affectively create a work environment that allows for individuals of different motivational tendencies to work together and successfully accomplish work tasks.
With the current change in demographics throughout the workforce, organizations are feeling the effects of a larger percentage of baby boomers retiring and a large percentage of millennial new entrants. The words used to describe millennial employees, “spoiled, trophy kids, ambitious”, seem to be as everlasting as the constructive and negative perspectives attached to them. Many can debate on the entitlement of these employees within an organization, how these employees can be groomed and managed to better fit the organization, the positive and negative attributes they bring into the workplace, and how the preceding can benefit or derail the effectiveness of an organization. Nonetheless, a harder debate, comes about in denying that organizations must adjust to and integrate these employees into the workforce.
By 2025, about 75% of the American workforce will be made up of Generation Y workers, said Emily Matchar, author of “Why Your Office Needs More Bratty Millennials.” Generation Y, also known as millennials, are those who were born within the years 1982 and 1999. Time management has become a persistent issue for people in the United States because of the lack of flexibility in the workforce. Work is taking over people’s lives. The current generation of workers tend not to demand because of the fear of unemployment; jobs are scarce these days. Generation Y workers have shown that they will not accept today’s hierarchical workplace, on the contrary, they will begin to change the workplace to their likings.
The typical collation of Josh, Jessica and Ashok in the above case is a typical show case of the transformations in the workplace reasoning and due dealing. Demonstrated here is how rapid the organization cultures are changing drastically considering the fact that a culture is collate of perceptions (Miller, 2012). Josh’s approach of attaining goals represents the modern perception in work theories usually held by the generation Y. On the other hand, Sarah goes the seasoned way of responding to protocols and work bureaucracies, responding to considerations of constraints and knowing their jurisdiction boundaries. In both cases, there could be a point of consideration, however, there is need for both of them to
Leader should have the shared responsibility and collaborative quality. For example, instead of making the strategy alone, he will gather the idea of all brilliant workers to increase the productivity of the organisation.
Smola, Karen Wey, and Charlotte D. Sutton. "Generational Difference: Revisiting Generational Work Values for the New Millennium." Journal of Organizational Behavior 23 (2002): 363-82. JSTOR. Web. 28 Mar. 2012. .
...The importance of the generational mix within an organisation is that it brings about inclusivity and helps generate new innovative ideas that could bring the organisation to its sustained competitive advantage. With each age group with its expectations by interacting with one another, there is knowledge and experience exchange.
Klobucher, T 2011, Characteristics of Generation 2020: Generations at Work, The Great Workplace Revolution, accessed 11 November 2013, http://www.thegreatworkplacerevolution.com/characteristics-of-generation-2020-generations-at-work/
Leadership, without doubt, is a significantly important function of management. It helps to aggrandize efficiency and to fulfil an organization’s goals. Leadership is the ability of a manager to induce the subordinates to work with confidence, determination, courage and zeal. It is also defined as ability to influence a group towards the realization of a goal. Leaders should have the capability of developing future visions, and to drive the organizational members to want to attain the visions. This paper states my points in which I duly believe, justifies the importance of an outstanding leader in any organization.
Robbins (2013) recognizes that baby boomers have an enormous hard-working attitude with a definitive want to characterize themselves through their expert achievements. Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964 value their achievement, ambition, loyalty to career and dislike to authority in competitive workplace (Robbins and Judge, 2017). Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1977, who are independent-minded like work-life balance, team-oriented, loyalty to relationship and dislike of rules. The generation born between 1978 and later, known as Millennials value flexible hours, teamwork and collaborative culture, career development, loyalty to both self and relationships with employers and dislike the formality of regular meetings if there
There are many generations in society such as Traditionalist, Baby Boomer, Generation X, Y, and Z. Generation Z is the youngest generation in the list. However, in any work place, Generation Y, which is known as an Echo Boomers or Millenniums, is the youngest. No one knows how it emerged, but it began in 1998 and ended in 2006. The people in this era were born between 1977 and 1994, which is my generation. In the United States, there are seventy one million Generation Y-ers, which takes up the largest part of population. Unlike other generations, Generation Y has very outstanding abilities and environments to success. Those abilities and characteristics are efficient in business and companies. Also, Generation Y’s remarkable characteristics affect their social lives a lot. The Generation Y is very family centric, and able to catch up the trends. Their general cultures are pop-music, iPods, social websites, like Facebook and Twitter, and anything that relates to technology. In principle, Generation Y-ers are optimistic, social, and have high self-esteem. Those characteristics bring many pros and cons to hire them. Pros are general mostly, but cons are not true mostly because of misconceptions.