Are Generational Categories Meaningful Distinctions for Workforce Management? (2020) / Chapter Skim
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The Committee on the Consideration of Generational Issues in Workforce Management and Employment Practices included experts in management, industrial and organizational psychology, sociology, economics, research methods and statistics, learning sciences, adult development, personality and psychology, discrimination and diversity, and military personnel. The committee was tasked to assess the scientific literature concerning generational attitudes and behaviors in the workforce, to reach consensus on the state of this research, and to evaluate whether the concept of generations promotes understanding of the workforce and facilitates its management.
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So what does it matter if real or perceived differences among workers are labeled as age, period, or generational differences? Given the existing hype on generations in the workforce in the popular discourse, it is important for research to attempt to distinguish generation effects from age and period effects.
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Employers are seeking guidance on how to develop effective policies and practices for recruitment and retention and how to best manage a diverse workforce in these new work environments. GENERATIONS IN THE WORKPLACE One of the key changes in the workplace, and the impetus for this study, has been an increase in the age diversity of the workforce.
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The literature has not taken an empirical approach to define sets of experiences or to investigate the mechanisms by which shared experiences would shape lasting attitudes and subsequent behaviors across a large group of people. Moreover, as discussed below, most studies of generational differences make no attempt to separate generation effects from age and period effects, making it difficult to draw strong conclusions about generational characteristics.
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When researchers look for generational differences, they need to be rigorous in their approach to distinguish cohort effects from age and period effects: • Age effects are considered developmental influences resulting from biological factors or maturation that occur in all people. For example, age-related changes in muscle fibers create differences in physical strength, on average, between younger and older workers.
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For example, projected cohort effects resulting from COVID-19 experiences may be observed in groups defined by job sector, health condition, or socioeconomic status. The effects of COVID-19 on those who work in jobs in the service sector that require close personal contact are likely to be different from the effects on those with office jobs, who can adjust more easily to shifting levels of remote and virtual work.
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These limitations weaken the internal validity4 of research designs in answering the question of whether generational differences exist in the workforce because observed differences among groups may instead be due to age or period effects. Many studies also offer insufficient external validity5 in that the findings are limited to a narrow setting and cannot be extended to all the members in a generation.
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Some researchers have employed research designs that apply multilevel models to nested datasets: statistical methods that combine and analyze data on multiple individuals of different ages collected at different points in time. These designs have significant advantages over other methods in distinguishing among age, period, and cohort effects.
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Because generational beliefs and perceptions are not likely to reflect true attributes of members of any birth cohorts, they should be studied as generational stereotypes and biases. Areas ripe for research include examining how perceptions about generational qualities develop, what opportunities and challenges these perceptions present in the workplace, and what the implications are for organizations to address any prevalent misconceptions.
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This perspective differs from the traditional generational approach in acknowledging that people are influenced not only by broad historical events, but also by life events that are idiosyncratic to individuals. A research perspective on changes in work context focuses on social and technical changes in the environments in which work takes place that occur as a function of broad social and economic adjustments.
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and various state and local laws on age discrimination.6 Although these laws are based on age and do not explicitly address generational categories or stereotypes, a court could find that an employer who made a decision based on an employee's generation was using generation as a proxy for age. Employment decisions based on stereotypes about generations -- such as refusing to put workers of a certain generation in a specific job position -- could be particularly vulnerable to ADEA claims because Congress intended this act to combat pervasive stereotypes and stigmatization of older workers.
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Steps taken to help employees feel safe, respected, and influential on the job and believe they have the ability to balance work and life needs can promote employee engagement with an organization. Further, the demand for continuous learning on the job has risen, driven in part by both broad and discrete changes to the organization of work -- notably technological advances and hiring patterns that have led to institutional knowledge gaps between younger and older workers.
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The best advice and research evidence highlight the benefits of assessing one's own culture, engaging all levels of management in the assessment and the solutions thereby identified, and developing initiatives that go beyond procedural checklists to transform organizational culture as necessary. The goal of effective workforce management is not to find permanent answers to recruitment and retention challenges.
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