Within your contemporary office environment, you’re likely to have a few different generational groups.
Of course, your employees are all unique and individual in their own ways and don’t have to automatically tick the boxes of what their so-called generational group says. Your office is likely to contain gen X, millennials and gen Z employees, but you might also have a few baby boomers too.
These group names basically pertain to when an individual was born and therefore what influenced them in their childhood and adolescence. The idea is that each generational group has a slightly different set of values and therefore a different approach to work. What is important to baby boomers might not be important to millennials, and what is important to gen Z-ers might be completely pointless to a gen X-er.
For the most part, your office is likely to contain millennials, i.e. employees who were born around 1977 to 1997, although the exact dates sometimes differ according to sources. You might also hear this group called gen Y. Check out the infographic below for a few interesting facts about millennials.
Source - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/29-facts-see-millennials-differently/
Every workplace has the occasional bout of change, e.g. perhaps a new computer software package is introduced, the office has a complete renovation and new office furniture is introduced, maybe a new desking system is implemented, or maybe flexible working becomes a ‘thing’ n your office. Whatever the change in the workplace, do millennials handle it better than other generational groups?
In some ways, yes. Millennials were brought up around technology, and whilst you could say that gen Z-ers have more tech savvy than anyone else, they don’t have the same amount of life experience which allows them to handle change in the workplace as well as the millennial group.
Millennials are more open to flexible working arrangements, such as working from home, working and travelling at the same time, or flexitime. This is because creating a quality home and work-life balance is important to a millennial. Of course, changing the way you work completely means a huge upheaval; the fact that most millennials are happy to do that means they’re able to adapt and accept change without rebelling against it.
Any technological change in the workplace is likely to be welcomed, as most millennials are able to grasp new software packages and pieces of equipment without much tutoring. Of course, this isn’t the same for every single person born within that generational group, but we have to generalise here if we want to explore the point! So, on average, most millennials are able to take a new software package and figure it out without much hassle or stress.
All of this is very beneficial for the workplace, and productivity is, therefore, likely to stay stable or even improve during times of change. This is what you need when you’re altering things! However, millennials are also likely to want to have their say in things, so it’s more important than ever to involve them in the decision making and allow them to have their opinion and input. Ask for suggestions rather than dictating how things will go, and you’ll notice that your millennial employees respond far better as a result.
Because millennials usually enjoy a collaborative way of working, be sure that you have plenty of brainstorming sessions and discussions around the boardroom furniture, to allow the open flow of ideas and dialogue. You never know, you might be rewarded with a creative solution to a problem that has been holding the entire change back!