By: Seema Nayyar, Photo: Peter Lamastro
| Linda Leonard of Bristol Myers-Squibb with Rachel, 9, and Nathan, 5.
|
Today, four generations of women converge in the workplace for the
first time. Companies are scrambling to meet their divergent needs as
they rethink how we can all work together.
General Mills hosted a conference for its female sales team last
November, it was full of fun and games. Literally. In addition to
seminars and speakers, the food products manufacturer rolled out a
board game called "Leading Through the Generations" to teach employees
about the distinct work and communication styles of coworkers. Leaders
in the sales division's training group invented the game to open up a
dialogue among staffers of different ages. "The game helped me
under-stand how to motivate the individuals I work with," says Shari
Sauer, 43, a national accounts manager for General Mills, who attended
the forum. "As a manager, I learned it's okay for people to have
different methods for getting a job done. It's important to be open and
flexible, and let employees accomplish their tasks using their own
framework."
General Mills isn't alone in concocting creative ways to energize and
connect its employees. Today, the U.S. workplace boasts four different
generations of women. While this diversity is a source of strength for
women in the workplace, it's also creating new challenges around the
conference room table. Older bosses, for example, who are used to
certain ways of working, are sometimes uncomfortable with younger
employ-ees who demand greater autonomy and flexibility. Recognizing the
need to manage these diverse perspectives, Working Mother 100 Best
Companies like General Mills are leading the charge to mesh the varied
work and communication styles of all four generations. The reason: As
the war for skills-based workers heats up over the next few years,
firms with a greater understanding of their employees will have a
critical edge in attracting new recruits and retaining experienced
executives.
"This is a business imperative," says Annette Merritt Cummings, vice
president and national director of diversity services for Bernard Hodes
Group, a New York City recruitment communications company.
"Organizations are trying to get a handle on how they can minimize
conflict and foster teamwork, and how they can begin to plan the
transition in management from one generation to the next. We're
increasingly seeing more interest in this among employers."
Indeed, forward-thinking companies such as the 100 Best are at the
vanguard of managing this change. General Mills has rolled out its
board game to 1,000 sales employees so far—with an eye toward expanding
it to more staffers. Bristol-Myers Squibb included generational issues
in its management training programs over the past two years. IBM began
offering voluntary multigenerational diversity workshops to all
employees in May, as well as training for managers. And Merrill Lynch
and Dow Chemical have found a shared desire among the generations for
flex work and are educating managers about how to incorporate more
flexibility into the workplace.
"It's a diversity challenge," says Natalie Augustin, director and head
of campus recruiting for Merrill Lynch's global infrastructure
solutions unit. "Before, the discussion was about gender and race. Now
we're looking at diversity more broadly, and generations are part of
that. The firms that are out in the forefront of this are the ones that
are going to succeed. The ones that aren't will have trouble attracting
talent."
Work Ethic Clashes
It's a tall order when your talent has widely divergent expectations
and attitudes about the workplace. The oldest workers, typically called
Traditionalists or Veterans (ages 62 to 77), expected to work in the
same company for their entire career and leave with a gold watch and a
pension, says Stephanie Marston, a family therapist and workplace
consultant. Baby Boomers (ages 43 to 61), the largest generation, are
the group that forced the workplace to include more women and
multicultural employees. The vast size of this generation, with its
willingness to rebel against societal norms, gave it unprecedented
power and influence. Boomers are workaholics who "live to work" and
believe that you earn your stripes by putting in face time. In
contrast, Gen Xers (ages 31 to 42), the smallest generation, place less
value on hierarchy and loyalty to a specific organization. They "work
to live" and believe that work, although fulfilling, should not define
one's life. Then there's Gen Y, also called Millennials (ages 13 to
30), the techno-literate children of the Boomers. After watching their
workaholic parents get downsized from high-powered jobs, they're more
devoted to their own careers than to any one company. Says Marston:
"The four generations all have different work ethics and value systems.
That doesn't mean the younger generations don't work hard. They just
work in different ways."
These dissimilar approaches to work can cause confusion—even resentment—among women of the four generations.
As senior director of diversity and work/life at Bristol-Myers Squibb,
Stacey Gibson, a Boomer, oversees several Gen X and Gen Y employees.
While Stacey, 56, prides herself on maintaining an open dialogue among
the spirited personalities in her department, generational differences
have cropped up in subtle ways. For instance, there was the time Gen
Xer Linda Leonard, diversity and work/life associate director, wanted
to create a one-stop shopping guide for Bristol-Myers employees about
all HR questions—even those not directly related to her department.
(Severance, for example, is handled through benefits.) Stacey and Linda
batted around the idea for a few weeks until Linda, 38, became upset
with the ongoing discussion and Stacey's apparent unwillingness to
create the guide. Surprised by Linda's reaction, Stacey realized that
the issue wasn't just the guide but rather how each of them tackles a
specific problem.
"Linda as an Xer wants to chart a new course, throw out the system and
create something brand-new," explains Stacey. "I want to leverage
what's good within the system to make something better." Adds Linda, a
mom 0f three children, Rachel, 9, Nathan, 5, and Jack, 7, who has
Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, a rare central nervous system disorder:
"I tend not to see structure. I simply focus on whatever is necessary
to get the job done. I don't pay attention to hierarchy. I feel free to
ask questions and raise issues, and don't see it as questioning
authority."
There are nuances in how the generations work differently, and it takes
enlightened managers to accept their employees' varying work styles.
For example, Generations X and Y, in a push for more efficiency, want
to do much of their work through emails, blogs and webcasts; Boomers
prefer face-to-face collaborations around a conference room table.
Stacey, for example, has learned to accept that Gen Xer Stacy
Wittekind, 34, a diversity and work/life manager, would rather spend 20
minutes going back and forth on email answering a question than pick up
the phone and talk about it. Explains Stacy: "I don't trust that the
phone call will be official. I need something in writing to make sure
it doesn't come back to bite me."
Common Ground
Even with these dissimilarities about how they work, the generations
generally agree about what they want from work, especially when it
comes to family-friendly benefits. Boomer moms feel they've made huge
sacrifices—namely, family time with their now-Gen Y children—to make
the workplace more family-friendly. But they don't begrudge younger
working moms—or anyone, for that matter—who want to continue to push
the same agenda.
"As Boomer women, we had a do-it-all mentality: have a great career,
kids, make it look seamless even if that meant pretending there wasn't
a crisis going on at home," says Lynne C. Lancaster, coauthor of When
Generations Collide and cofounder of BridgeWorks, a consultancy on
generational issues in the workplace. "Gen X women are more out there
with it, saying, 'I'm nursing. If you need me, I'll be in the lactation
room.' There's a real gain that's happened over the past twenty years.
Boomer women feel proud we were able to fight for those things but also
feel the younger generations don't appreciate what it was like then."
Stacey echoes that sentiment. "When Boomer women came into the
workforce, we changed it. We gave up a lot for our careers. The younger
generations are saying, 'I'm not going to give up my life,'" she says.
"Sure, there may be a bit of jealousy on our part that we did give up
some of the personal side for the work side. But I'm thrilled that Gen
X and Gen Y women walk into a workplace that's much more accepting."
Linda, for her part, is grateful for the path Boomers carved. "If I had
entered the workforce then, I would have been so overwhelmed," she
says. "Those initial hurdles would have seemed insurmountable. But
these women said, 'Let's shake this institution to the core and let
women and people of color into the workforce, and then let's rearrange
things to accommodate us now that we are here.' That was a Herculean
task, but now our potential knows no bounds."
My Way or the Highway
In fact, some among the youngest generation don't even see the
proverbial glass ceiling. Whereas Boomers distinctly saw one path and a
necessary choice between either working or staying at home, Generations
X and Y are supremely confident that they can suspend a traditional
corporate life for children and then rejoin the workforce when they're
ready, says Bernadette Kenny, chief career officer for Adecco North
America, a human resources and staffing company. "The younger
generations do not view it as an either/or situation," says Kenny, 56,
a Boomer. "They view it as a point in time: I'll stay out of the
workforce for a few years and then I'll go back."
Kizzy Maitland, a diversity and work/life manager at Bristol-Myers,
embraces this "work my way" approach. Kizzy, a single 28-year-old Gen
Y, doesn't have a hierarchical view of the workplace and takes much
more ownership of her career than many older workers. She regularly
lunches with people outside her department to broaden her network. "If
I'm just sitting at my desk working hard, my manager will know about
it, but no one else outside the department would know what I'm doing,"
Kizzy says. "It's about marketing my skills, staying connected to the
business, keeping up with what else is happening in the organization
and sharing with people what I'm learning and doing in my role. If
you're not paving your own way, you're not going to get other
opportunities."
Kizzy joined Bristol-Myers four years ago after weighing other offers.
One of her main considerations: the company's commitment to work/life.
If she chooses to pursue continuing education—or even if she needs to
work from home one day—Kizzy feels comfortable the decision will be
supported by her manager. "The flexibility offered by Bristol-Myers
definitely contributes to my desire to have a long career with the
company," she explains. "In some companies, if an unmarried staffer
leaves at 5:30 p.m., a manager might ask, 'Why is the single person
leaving so early?' But we Millennials are just as interested in our
personal pursuits as anyone else."
In Bristol-Myers employee surveys, flex ranks among the top benefits
for all age groups. The pharmaceutical giant started formally offering
flex work arrangements in 2000; today, 12% of its 17,000 workers use
formal flex options, such as job-sharing. Another 67% have informal
flex arrangements, which in Kizzy's case means sometimes working from
home.
Because having flexibility at work requires support from the top, in
2005 Bristol-Myers launched a training program for new managers that
aims, among other things, to facilitate an understanding of varying
work styles, including how to bridge generational differences. This
year, the company also began rolling out voluntary diversity workshops
that debunk stereotypes. Among the ideas they challenge: Mature workers
are not receptive to new ways of working and learning, including the
use of new technology.
The Spice of Work/Life
Working through such generational biases and assorted approaches to
work isn't only good for business, it also boosts morale. Even IBM,
which launched its work/life programs in the 1950s, has learned to
incorporate the work styles of younger generations. The company created
a tip sheet five years ago to help managers communicate and connect
with other generations, says Maria Ferris, director of global workforce
diversity programs. The tips include avoiding generational stereotypes
and playing to the unique strengths of each generation. Since then, IBM
has tweaked some existing programs to incorporate new work habits. For
example, employees can now choose to attend training seminars via
webcast rather than in person. The firm also trains its supervisors to
manage multigenerational teams.
In recent years, IBM has initiated blogging, which a manager, who may
be working with dozens of people on a project, can use for
collaborations—especially with Gen Y's, who typically have an increased
desire for feedback and involvement in decision-making. Says Ferris:
"It's not necessarily about creating something brand-new. Instead, it's
about evolving programs that pertain to all of our employees across the
generations."
For Patty Dudek, 48, teaming up with Chelita Love, 31, is proof that
two generations are better than one. As an HR executive for IBM's
software business, Chelita helps Patty, vice president of WebSphere
Development, by providing strategic guidance on workforce development
programs for the 1,000 employees Patty manages worldwide. Last year,
when Patty mentioned she wanted to offer more career opportunities to
her employees in emerging countries, Chelita suggested creating virtual
mentoring sessions so that workers around the world could communicate.
Patty says she herself would probably have taken a more traditional
approach of sending an experienced manager to specific countries to
mentor and train locally. "Chelita came up with a long-term solution,"
says Patty. "She brings a different perspective."
Not just A Working-Mom Issue
At Merrill Lynch, the generational discussion has fueled a whole new
attitude toward flex work. The financial services company held its
first generational training session in October 2006 and plans to hold
more. It has also increased its push to educate managers on how to
incorporate flex options into the workplace in an effort to reposition
the benefit as something more than a working-mom issue, says Deborah
Tsai-Munster, a director in the diversity and inclusion group.
Merrill Lynch's push to allow more flex work arose directly out of a
need to better recruit and manage young employees. Over the past few
years, the firm's recruiters have witnessed enormous changes taking
place on college campuses. Prospective employees now ask work/life
questions that never came up before, such as "Can I go to the gym
during lunch?"
Recruiters like Natalie Augustin now routinely receive calls from the
parents of job candidates asking, for example, why their sons didn't
get the job. Augustin has even seen parents accompany their children to
interviews. "I'm a staunch Gen Xer," says Augustin, 40. "It was an
eye-opener to sit in an interview and ask, 'Why do you want to work at
Merrill?' and the person says, 'My mom thinks it's a good company.' My
first reaction was 'They can't think on their own.' Now, we try to get
managers to understand the context in which they're raised. Parents are
an integral part of their lives."
So much so, in fact, that the company is piloting a Parents Day for
Millennials. A Boomer recruiter came up with the idea of inviting
parents to the office to show them what their children would be doing
during their summer internships.
Merrill Lynch's focus on flex work is popular with all generations.
Last year, employees on the email review team (who read company
correspondence searching for policy violations) were offered a chance
to compress their schedules and get every tenth day of work off. Of the
33 people on the team, 27 participated in this option, and everyone has
varying start and finish times. As a Boomer manager, Rebecca Saltern,
47, director of Merrill's central business review unit, was doubtful
that a whole department on a flex schedule could be managed without
creating chaos. Now, the experience has made her a believer. "When I
first heard about the idea, I was skeptical," she says. "But I decided
to try it, keep an open mind and see how this could work. If it
affected our output or the quality of our reviews, I couldn't allow it.
In fact, the team is functioning well, and we're meeting our goals
every month."
Passing the Baton
Holding on to valued employees is one of the reasons Dow Chemical is
championing flex work. Some 40% of its U.S. employees are eligible to
retire (at age 50, after ten years of service) in the next five
years—an opportunity and a threat, according to Julie Fasone Holder,
Dow's corporate vice presi-dent of HR, public affairs, and diversity
and inclusion. It's a threat if Dow allows experienced workers to leave
without transferring their knowledge. It's an opportunity if the
company restages its workforce and allows business to grow without
having to downsize in the United States. Half of Dow Chemical's 43,000
employees are in the States today, but the company is growing at
double-digit rates in emerging economies such as Asia. Its hope: to use
experienced employees who want to work on a project basis to train
workers here and abroad.
Last year, after 33 years at Dow Chemical, Susan Carrington, 55, was
set to retire as vice president and director of one of the company's
largest manufacturing sites. However, CEO Andrew Liveris asked her to
reconsider and instead work in a different role with more flexibility.
Today, as vice president and director of enterprise risk management,
Susan works from home. "I have the flexibility to be on the phone late
at night talking to a colleague in a different time zone. And now I can
also pick up my daughter from school," says Susan, mom to two teens.
Still, for many women today, a flex schedule continues to carry a
stigma—that they're not working hard enough or are not committed enough
to their careers or the organization. Even those managers who allow
flex work for a select few employees have difficulty understanding how
to make it work on a larger scale. Dow Chemical's Fasone Holder, 54 and
mother of two girls, acknowledges that flex work can turn into a mess
if it's not implemented well. Over the past year, Dow Chemical has
begun workshops where managers can share what has and hasn't worked in
terms of getting work done and effectively managing diverse schedules.
There is also a worry among managers that flex will hurt productivity.
However, anecdotal evidence suggests that there is an initial surge in
productivity in the first year. Then it levels off, with no huge
increase or decrease. Says Fasone Holder: "What you gain are things
that are harder to measure, like an employee who has more energy."
What's changed at Dow Chemical is not so much how productive employees
are but rather how productivity itself is measured. Today, managers are
held accountable for making the shift to flex "cost neutral," or
keeping quality and service high without increasing head count or
over-time. The company has introduced a "performance manage-ment
culture" focused on results rather than hours worked. Still, Fasone
Holder acknowledges that "this is a cultural mindset shift for
forty-somethings. We have to understand this as leaders and be willing
to learn and to change."
Indeed, the way we do business today is still built around the Boomer
model in which presence equals performance, says Margaret Regan,
president and CEO of the FutureWork Institute, a consulting firm that
deals with diversity work/life issues and future workplace trends.
"We're at a crossroads now," Regan says. "The Gen X and Gen Y pairing
will actually change the workplace around the issues of work/life
benefits. It won't be overnight, and it won't be programmatic change,
but it will involve rethinking the way we work, where we work and when
we work." And now, with four generations of women under the same
corporate roof, there's also a rethinking of how we all collaborate
together.
Generational Snapshot
Traditionalists or Veterans
Ages 62-77
Believed they'd work for the same company their entire career.
Baby Boomers
Ages 43-61
"Live to work" and believe in putting in face time at the office.
Gen Xers
Ages 31-42
"Work to live" and believe that work should not define their lives.
Gen Y's or Millennials
Ages 13-30
Their motto: "Work my way."
Devoted to their own careers, not to their companies.
|
