Find the hidden talents of five generations to close the skills gaps and boost productivity in your business.
Presented by Workday
The time when there will be five generations working together is coming. Generation Alpha, the youngest of the five, is already 14 years old, and older generations now live longer and work more years before retiring. This means the future of work is around the corner, but businesses aren’t prepared for the impact, says Simon Tate, Workday’s Asia Pacific president.
Research and advisory firm McCrindle defines Generation Alpha as those born between 2010–24, with more than 2.8 million born every week. By 2025, they will number almost two billion — the largest generation in the history of the world.
“In three or four years, Alphas will enter the workforce on a full-time basis,” says Tate. “At the same time, Baby Boomers are extending their careers, thanks to greater life expectancy and higher living costs.”
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for business owners and executives to harness the power of five generations’ worth of thinking and ideation with the specific outcome of lifting productivity. But it’s not top of the agenda for many boards and organisations. People are the biggest cost for companies, and executives need to do more with less in a tough labour market, where the increasing cost of living and inflation are eating into the bottom line.
Broaden the board skills base
“Most boards on the ASX 50 do not have a 20-something-year-old on their boards,” says Tate. “In fact, most of them don’t even have a 20-something on their senior leadership teams. Business leaders must realise that around 30 per cent of our entire labour market is under the age of 30, and they have unique, valuable expertise and knowledge. What does that cohort bring to us and how can we channel their skills to lift productivity in our businesses?”
Tate stresses the need for “giving them a voice at the table” to enable multi-generational collaboration, encourage reverse mentoring and, ultimately, drive ideas and innovation. “To successfully move into the future of work, leaders have to look at the traditional corporate hierarchies and begin to morph them to look like the employee base. The composition of most boards is still largely Baby Boomer and Gen X, which doesn’t recognise the distinctive skillsets and capabilities of the younger generations that will be essential to lift productivity.”
Tate acknowledges technology has its role to play, but notes it’s not just about rapid technology adoption. “Business leaders must be deliberate in harnessing the nascent skills of younger generations and allow their work styles and expectations to update complex processes, modernise technologies and flatten stale, old structures,” he says. “Get a group of young, bright, super-ambitious people together to brainstorm with more experienced employees and they will disrupt the workplace in a way that will help future-proof the organisation. We’ve already seen that in our own business.
“The Workday platform was designed to raise organisational productivity by simplifying strategic planning and workforce planning,” he says. “For example, if a business has a role to fill, or a skills gap, Workday provides the tools, the data and the analysis to show executives the make-up of their current workplace. They can identify the skills that already exist in their organisation — some of which they may not be aware of — which allows for internal recruitment, promotion and development of existing employees.”
Multi-generational workforce
Businesses have a time-critical opportunity to harness the power of a multi-generational workforce to create innovative, inclusive workplaces that value cross-generational knowledge sharing, genuine collaboration and upskilling. Businesses that get it right will lead the way, says Tate.
Workday’s Multi-Generational Workforce research and its corresponding white paper found that 80 per cent of both management and workers believe companies that effectively cater to multi-generational workplaces will thrive. More than 85 per cent of respondents said encouraging employees of different generations to collaborate and learn from each other is key to success.
To prepare for this, companies must gain a clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges an increasingly multi-generational workforce brings.
“For Gen Z now, and soon for Generation Alpha, it’s not just a job, they’re making an active choice to be part of an organisation, as opposed to working for themselves,” says Tate. “If they’re making that trade-off, they want to make sure they’re working for a company that is good at what it does and also doing good in the world. The large and mid-tier customers I talk to haven’t really thought about these topics in earnest, so they won’t be ready for Alpha’s arrival.”
Executives could be more proactive in their outreach to younger generations and give them specific licence to share their ideas, he says. “If we get better at that, then businesses will be able to make better decisions and start to lift productivity.”.
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