Amy, a program manager at a tech company in Salt Lake City, learned her most valuable lesson about inter-generational relationships when she was a rookie kindergarten teacher more than two decades ago. Back then, she fully expected to have a positive educational impact on her students; after all, she was 20 years older than they were. “Of course they would learn from me,” she said. “But I didn’t expect to also learn from them.”

Learning to meet someone where they are in life, to underscore their strengths and work around their weaknesses, is something she carried with her when she left teaching to work in tech, where she thinks that surprising experience helped her be a more dynamic supervisor and mentor. “I don’t expect that every team member who is 20 years or more younger than me will need my guidance. I know that there will be ebb and flow between us, and I think that makes me a better manager.” 

Working in a multigenerational organization can leave you surprised by what you need to teach, but also what you can learn from those who are older and younger than you. Embracing opportunities to foster a multigenerational team can help move a good organization to great. In this story, the second in a three-part series leading up to our Oct. 3 webinar on Tools to Create a Multi-Generational Workforce, we'll be looking at how employers can confront this challenge by adopting more age-inclusive practices. Here are four ways you can do that:

Expand Your Hiring Process

If you are only sourcing potential hires who are recent grads, those who have a degree, or who are younger (and perhaps therefore lower-paid) you are limiting your organization. Even if you think you are casting a broad net, the data suggests otherwise.

People in their 40s and beyond typically find it harder than younger people do to find entry- and intermediate-level jobs, according to a survey of 3,800 employed and unemployed people and more than 1,400 hiring managers. It can take more than six months to find a new job for older people, partly because of the perception of hiring managers. One quarter of them view younger candidates as having more relevant work experience than older age groups. The survey, conducted for Generation, a non-profit involved in job training and placement, reported that hiring managers think older people are less adaptable as well. However, when asked to rate the people they hired, 87% said older workers perform as well as younger ones. 

AARP, the nonprofit group that advocates for people 50 and older, practices an expanded search process when adding to their 2,000 person workforce. The organization ensures its job descriptions don’t overly privilege any single age group, says AARP senior advisor Heather Tinsley-Fix. “We don’t put upper ranges on experience requirements. Rather than five to 10 years, we say five or more. We don’t ask for graduation dates.” 

The organization has  a robust internship program that doesn’t limit interns to college students. When looking for interns or candidates, AARP sources from organizations beyond universities, Tinsley-Fix says. Her organization may engage with libraries, senior centers, or civic organizations that host work fairs or put advertisements in media favored by older users.

Another problem with limiting recruiting efforts to post-secondary education and training institutions is that it prevents organizations from considering those without degrees. Prior to the pandemic, companies engaged in degree inflation: requiring degrees, or higher degrees, for jobs that may not really need them. But according to a Harvard Business Review report, as hiring became more and more difficult during the Great Resignation, companies reduced educational requirements and adopted a more skills-based assessment of candidates. Postings for jobs requiring an undergraduate degree fell by 12% overall. At companies like Accenture and IBM, less than a third of the job postings for software quality-assurance engineers required a four-year degree. At the same time, ads grew more descriptive of skills the job required.

Sow Accord, Root Out Distrust

While it’s human nature to seek out those who are like us, it’s not a healthy dynamic for high-performing teams or organizations. One way to help improve understanding between different age groups is with a multigenerational Employee Resource Group (ERG). 

FINRA, a not-for-profit organization that oversees broker-dealers and their personnel, has more than 4,400 employees and contractors. The organization created a Multigenrational Employee Resource Group Exchange (MERGE) to specifically engage its workforce in the diversity of their points of view in life. According to the leaders of the MERGE team, Ann-Isabel Previl, Julie Petulla and Elizabeth Potter, its purpose is to give voice to each generation. They do this “by showcasing their unique and diverse perspectives and facilitating intergenerational collaboration and communication,” said Previl.

There are currently four generations in the FINRA workplace, Petulla says, and in 2018 the organization’s leaders decided that providing a way to share different generational experiences and perspectives could increase understanding and decrease any prejudices. “MERGE seeks intentional opportunities to provide members the forum to engage with generations other than their own to help members increase their professional network and increase communication and collaboration among different generations.” 

“Each generation has different styles of communicating,” said Potter. “Our generation may impact our preferred communication platform, level of directness or formality, and use of slang. These differences in communication styles can lead to misunderstandings. For instance, over text/instant messaging, a short sentence ending in a period may look perfectly friendly from a Baby Boomer's perspective but could be construed as an angry message by a member of Gen Z. By discussing these differences openly, we can better understand our colleagues and collaborate more effectively.”

MERGE has created several programs that have helped to dispel myths about different age groups and foster a better understanding. “The Workplace Through Her Eyes” focuses on how women perceive their working environment. One woman from each of the four generations at work at FINRA is asked to share their stories about work–how it was at the beginning of their career, how work attire has changed, or what’s different about communication styles. A series on financial innovation featured investment differences between generations and looked at changes in technology and attitudes towards investing. In this case too, someone from each generation shared their views and experience. “Programs like these do a great job of bringing in other ERGs to raise awareness and address issues related to creating and maintaining multigenerational collaboration in the workplace,” Potter said.

Teach and Learn

When you think of the word mentor, the image is usually an older person guiding a younger one. But according to Harvard Business Review, companies like GE, Deloitte, Cisco and Procter & Gamble are upending that tradition with “reverse mentorships” in which younger people teach older people new skills. Mutual mentorship, where a linked pair teach each other, has also been shown to “support employees’ development of competencies and skills and increase both individual involvement and collective motivation,” said HBR.

Aaron Witt, CEO of BuildWitt, a services, media and software company that works with mining and infrastructure organizations, is a generation younger than company VP Dan Briscoe, but the two are unfazed by the age gap. “I don’t think we ever acknowledged being so different in age, but we have definitely leveraged each other’s perspectives,” Witt said. “Dan had way more experience in marketing and business, so I leaned on him heavily. And Dan knew I could tell stories well and leverage social media to build our brand, so he always supported what I was doing on the ‘younger’ front.”

Witt says it’s critical to remember that everyone comes from a different place. It’s not just age, but upbringing, career, and life experiences. “It’s my job as a leader to know how someone thinks and what their strengths are. The better I know them, the more effectively I can position them in the right place for themselves and our business.”

As someone relatively new to the business world, Witt has learned to lean on Briscoe’s expertise. While he still may have an occasional inclination that he knows better, “I’ve learned it’s best to keep my mouth shut. They have more to offer than I previously thought.”

See the Differences That Matter

If you want to leverage a multigenerational workforce into your organization’s superpower, you need to understand them. There are, indeed, differences between generations. But it’s not productive to embrace the stereotypes, for example that one group is tech savvy, and one is staid and slow to change. The more valid observation is that there are differences in communication styles. Younger people may prefer texting and instant messaging. Older people may respond better to public recognition and rewards. What engages someone who is 45 may be different than what keeps a 60 year old focused. “Generational differences exist, and the research, done right, can be very enlightening,” says Corey Seemiller, PhD, who studies generational differences. “It is insightful, not predictive. If you want to understand Gen Z and you’ve never heard of TikTok, you may want to find out what it is.”

She suggests getting to know how the different age groups in your organization think. She pointed to a survey she believes gets to the heart of similarities and differences between age groups. “Learn what it takes to make them thrive,” she said. It’s the same lesson that Amy, the tech-industry manager, learned as a kindergarten teacher.

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, AARP, for sponsoring this story, the second in a series on how employers can foster age inclusion in the workplace. Interested in assessing how you are doing with age inclusion? Try AARP’s new tool on Managing a Multigenerational Workforce. Just send an email to employerpledge@aarp.org, with the subject line betatest. In part three of this series, we’ll explore worker-retention strategies from the perspective of different age groups. Part one of the series is What a Five-Generation Workforce Means for You: The Myths and Realities.

Lisa Jaffe is a freelance writer who lives in Seattle with her son and a very needy rescue dog named Ellie Bee. She enjoys reading, long walks on the beach, and trying to get better at ceramics.