Generational Conflict: Whose Bad Attitude Is It Anyway?

Complaining about younger generations is a trend reaching back to antiquity…

“Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannise their teachers.” – Socrates, 425 BC

In many organisations, the leadership team is likely to be made up of Baby Boomers or older Gen X, aged forty and over. When conflict arises with younger staff, all too often I see generational differences cited as the cause. This normally takes the form of a sweeping statement describing their impatience, lack of respect, selfishness, impudence, musical taste… and the list goes on.

Now that we have neatly thrown this person into a box and marked ‘GEN Y: DIFFICULT TO GET ALONG WITH’ in big red letters across it, we can wipe our hands of the situation and confidently walk away safe in the knowledge that all future encounters with this generation will garner a similar result. “It’s a generational issue and outside my control… Let’s face it, we can’t control when someone was born!”

The employment market is tightening. Declining birth rate, retirement of the most populous generation (Baby Boomers) and high employment levels will result in less choice when hiring the candidate with the perfect skill set or experience. What’s more, you will be selecting from a candidate pool that includes Gen Y candidates requiring development or Baby Boomers looking to shore up their Super after it went through the GFC mincer.

Neither immigration nor the birthrate are increasing, so apart from the economy tanking, talent scarcity is the new normal. A workplace of mixed generations in an environment of fierce competition for labour is your new hiring reality.

If finding new staff isn’t as easy, then we better start evolving our talent management capability. Integral to this is figuring out how to deal with the obnoxious whippersnapper in accounts with the appalling attitude. You could be right, maybe they are a toxic employee. In that case move them on.

But perhaps… just perhaps… it’s your attitude? In that case, it’s time to move the attitude on and not the employee.

Dale Whitton
Senior Consultant

————————————————————————————————————————–

Do you need to improve communication in your organisation? Could be time for a Mindset Check.

This free survey accurately and tangibly highlights current issues that may be occurring in your organisation by assessing ten key drivers including Leadership, Teamwork and Communication. After your team has been surveyed, a Mindset consultant will compile a comprehensive leadership report that will enable you to:

• Understand staff satisfaction levels and attitude
• Pinpoint areas to improve performance
• Understand your organisation’s capacity to handle change
• Improve communication

Submit our online enquiry form and a consultant will be in touch to set up your workforce demographics. Enter ‘Mindset Check’ in Comments/Enquiries.