Fred Harteis News Articles - Boomers vs. Xers: Can't we all just get along?

Fred Harteis News Articles - Often, the tensions are subtle and unspoken, but they're there: Baby Boom managers, those in their mid-40s and older, have a tough time understanding the group coming up behind them in the corporate ranks - Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1979, the first generation to grow up with the Internet.

Accustomed to everything happening more and more quickly, they are an impatient bunch. Rather than pay their dues and work patiently toward promotions, they'd rather quit and go elsewhere: Xers change jobs, on average, every two years.

To Boomers who spent decades earning their stripes, Xers often look like spoiled brats. By Xers' lights, meanwhile, Boomers just don't get it - and when are they going to retire and get out of the way, anyway?

Enter Janet Reid, a managing partner at Global Lead, a worldwide diversity consulting firm that numbers Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney, Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, and Radio Shack among its clients. Reid specializes in teaching Boomers and Xers to find common ground at work. Some excerpts from our recent conversation:

By encouraging the generations to talk out their differences, companies are hoping to reduce turnover among Gen Xers, right? Does it work?

Employers have really only recently become aware of how big a problem Gen X turnover is. It's an enormous threat, when you consider that this is the generation corporate America is counting on to run things when Boomers retire.

So yes, companies are starting to try to address it. They want to reach those Gen Xers who are very talented, and who want to move up faster than most companies move anybody up, and keep those future leaders from quitting.

How do you do that?

Often, Gen Xers will approach their careers with the attitude, "I'm just going to keep changing jobs until I get the title I want and the pay I want, until I reach Nirvana." So employers who want to keep them have to offer them bigger responsibilities and interesting projects.

As long as they are involved and learning and contributing, they'll stay. Pay for performance works, too. Give them more money to go along with those bigger challenges.

But one thing we find is crucial is the bond between individual Boomer managers and their Gen X subordinates. If you work on improving that one-on-one relationship, you can eliminate a lot of problems that lead to high turnover.

Source: Cnn.com

About Fred Harteis: Fred Harteis leads Harteis International. With a background in Agriculture Fred Harteis has lead many successful business ventures.