Boomers and Millennials: Who's Got it Worse in the Workplace?

If there is one place these generations are struggling is working together. Baby Boomers are extremely hardworking, competitive and workaholics, working 50+ hours a week. They made sacrifices to achieve professional accomplishments and further their careers. At work Millenials have a sense of empowerment, are ambitious and feel somewhat entitled, after all that is how they grew up. They are

Many employers view the old employers especially the baby boomers as too rigid, failing health, lack of enthusiasm, afraid of new technologies, do not want to learn new training (stuck in old ways), and expensive to keep. Many aged people are viewing job advertisements with pictures of younger employees. In addition, the aged are facing high cost of medical insurance and healthcare. With the obstacles in the job market, the aged could possibly experience social isolationism, low self-esteem, and financial hardship.

Every generation is influenced by its period 's economic, political and social events. From the Great Depression to the civil rights and women 's movements to the advent of television and advanced computer technologies. Thus generational background/situation may also affect the way they work. The key is to be able to effectively address and take advantage of the differences in values and expectations of each generation in the workplace. The current work place consists of four different generations; The Baby Boomers (1946-1964) who are slowly retiring and existing the workforce, The Generation X (1965-1976), The Generation Y or millennia (1977-1997), and the Generation Z who are about to or are just entering the work force. Although these different generations tend to want similar things in a workplace their environment/background has shaped their character, values, and expectations (Hahn 2011).

The most prominent change in the workforce affecting human resources at St. Anthony’s is the rise of a multi generational workforce. Providing different human resource needs for various employees is an evolving challenge. Being aware of different workplace standards between generations is taken into consideration to reduce “pain points” (Calvert, 2015). In the interview, Judie grouped Generation X and Millennials into the same group, and focused primarily on the differences between Baby Boomers and Gen X/Millennials. She described the Baby Boomers as

In today’s society, the work industry is comprised of numerous generations from baby boomers to millennia’s. Due to reasons ranging from increased cost of living to political policies, Americans are being forced to work longer in order to obtain the social security benefits they’ve contributed to during their careers. Each generation has certain generational influences such as war times and civil rights for the baby boomers and social media and the technology boom for the millennia’s. One constant that has not changed, however, is that the average American has to work for a living, and with the evolution of the US economy, they are having to work longer and are retiring later.

To start, this shift towards a shared economy is giving Millennials a bad reputation. Instead of focusing on their spending habits, Huffington Post blogger, Tim Urban, targets the work ethics of the younger generations in his article, “Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy.” In fact, Urban believes that younger generations were too spoiled in their childhood, so by the time adulthood hit they were destined to be failures. In addition to

Different groups in America are classified by the eras that they were born into. The active generations who had the great impact on society today are the Baby Boomers and the Millennials (Debevec, 2013). In between the baby boomers and the millennials are the Eco Boomers and the Gen Xers (Kennedy, 2000). According to population projections released by the U.S. Census Bureau, Baby Boomers are the generation defined by the boom in U.S. births following World War II. They were born in the years between 1946 and 1964 (Brownstein, 2012). On the other hand millennials are the generation born in the years between 1981 and 1997 (Brownstein, 2012). There are 77 million boomers and 82 million millennials (Fallon, 2015). Both generations overlap in time, and are linked in that most of the Millennials are generally the children of the Boomers, but they are actually completely different in economics, education, politics, and lifestyles (Fallon, 2015).

There is a significant value gap between degrees held and jobs worked by Generation Y. Without available positions in their fields, Millennials must take unskilled jobs, while waiting for their elders to give turn. Millennials who are not educated and working toward a professional career are the hardest hit by situation, creating a new echelon of poor Americans. Economists think that Millennials should accept this current economic climate as the "new normal." (Kotkin 3).

Some negative examples of how people in the workforce perceive older adults in the workforce are that older workers produce lower quality work, inflexible, less productive and are resistant to change. Some employers believe older adult workers skills are dated or do not have the required set of competence needed. Giving training and continuing education opportunities as well as companies adapting these courses to those with less experience technically will help with ensuring that older adults continue to feel like a vital part of the business and keep working until they decide to

In conclusion, ageism in today’s times is a real form of discrimination and needs to be fixed. An individual’s skills and capabilities should be based on a personal level, not their age. The elderly and the young need just as much job opportunities as the middle-aged individuals living in the

Every work environment is teeming with people from various generations. Though, the majority of people wish for a healthy work environment this is not the easiest to come by. People from these different generations have different ways of looking at the world. They were raised differently and though theoretically want the same things they want to reach these goals in different ways. Rising to leadership, the understanding of technology, adapting in the workplace, and communication are the four criteria you need to know to understand how the people of Generation X and Millennials function together in the workplace.

Aging! We all do it every day, but have you ever thought how it is going to affect the rest of your life or more importantly your career? Aging isn’t something that we get to choose if we participate in, however working is, and aging may affect that choice. Right now, I want you to think about the age of sixty-five. What words pop into your head when you think of someone sixty-five? I’d imagine some of the words you thought of were retired, old, fragile, slow, as well as many others. Those words right there all help to explain the many concerns that one’s employer may have when hiring someone that is of the older population. When we think of the older population in the work force we don’t necessarily think of positive things, instead we think of things. When we think of this population in the workforce we generally think of lower production rates and higher costs. These can create issues among the older population, as employers must consider all the possibilities when hiring someone. We know that more people in the older population are continuing to try to continue their careers, but why? How hard is it for them to continue? What changes have made it easier? How are the younger and middle aged populations perceiving them in the work place? This are only some of the many question surrounding the increase of aged workers.

“The number of employees over the age of 55 has increased by 30 percent; however, the number of 25- to 54-year-olds has only increased by 1 percent” (Claire, 2009). In 2008 the eldest of the 77 million baby-boomers turned 62. Estimates are that by the end of the decade about 40 percent of the work force will be eligible to retire. As people begin to reach the age of retirement there may be not be enough new employees to fill the gap (Clare, 2009). Companies need to find ways to attract Boomers and Millennials. Companies that want to attract Boomers and Millennials need to be creative in their culture, HR policies and work environments.

The world’s labor force primarily consists of three major generations: the “Baby Boomers,” “Generation X,” and “Generation Y.” The “Baby Boomers” were born during and after the 2nd World War (1940 to 1960). This generation has a legacy of expertise, “old-fashioned” autocratic management, and healthy productivity. “Boomers” are known to work hard, remain loyal to their employers, and receive promotions on the basis of hard work and high skill. Technology was rather limited (Hewitt and Ukpere, 2012).

The conflicts or differences can be caused due to various reasons like the preferences in the Communication Style, the Traditionalists and the Baby Boomers prefer more of face to face communication and the GenX and the Millennial prefer email and text messaging ([16] Glass ,2007:[52]Wagner,2007) Differences can also happen how they view authority and Management like Traditionalist believe in a chain in command , Baby Boomers believe in a consensus Model ( Roy,2008a,b) And when it comes to career stability, Traditionalists and Generation X likes to focus on employability over climbing the career ladder. And Generation Y has a high preference for engaging workplaces