Bridging generation gaps in a corporation to build a united workforce

 

Real-estate developers, too, need to keep pace with rapidly evolving trends, and the need is even more urgent in residential property.

While it is true that differentiation is key to survival, I believe that the goal for most organisations is not merely to survive but to grow sustainably.

At AP, we emphasise the principle of management we dub “2P2S”: Structure, People, System and Processes. After a restructuring to ensure competitive ability, “people” became our focus, because people are the components that drive progress within the organisation and enable it to keep pace with the world and outrun the competition.I have always believed that for a company’s people-strategy to achieve its goals, its leadership needs to stay behind the scenes and let the human-resources team do its work, which in this day and age needs to be strategic HR.

We have brought in APM Group to help craft a seamless HR strategy and implement it based on its in-depth knowledge of the industry.

While many think that bringing in talent from different businesses constitutes a shortcut to success, it must be pointed out that people from different organisations tend to have different DNA, making it hard to build a shared organisational culture under which multiple generations can work together seamlessly and efficiently.

Any corporation that has been around 20 years or longer will have three generations working together. 

The first is baby-boomers, many of whom are nearing retirement but who have a wealth of experience gained from having fought many battles using many different strategies. Next are Gen Xers, more and more of whom are stepping into leadership roles, while the millennials or Gen Me-ers are the biggest generation in today’s workforce. 

Misunderstanding among people of different generations could lead to clashes that trip up the company.

Companies are giving a lot of importance to millennials, as they possess the kind of creative energy that is the wellspring of business innovations. Frequently, one will find that the new is better than the old, but management must exercise due care not to let this issue cause an intellectual crisis in the organisation. 

Even though millennials have strengths that are desirable to today’s corporations, they tend to be self-centred, need to be constantly challenged and believe in the power of their ideas. Older generations, on the other hand, are seasoned veterans of the industry, even if they do have their limitations. 

How, then, do we ensure that people from different generations work together harmoniously and pursue the same goals?

While younger workers are hungry for new challenges, older ones tend to want certainty, security and minimum risk. The key strategy is to emphasise constant, perpetual learning and adaptation and recognise that different generations grow up in different socio-economic environments, which is why they have different attitudes, beliefs, work styles, perspectives, communications methods and values and use different languages.

Once old and new members of the organisation start to learn about the different realities that each other has experienced, the result could be better mutual understanding and a decrease in serious workplace conflicts as well as a more open, more adaptive mindset and increased focus on shared goals. 

Young people want challenges, so older colleagues should give them the opportunity to express their ideas. At the same time, younger workers need to show respect for their older colleagues’ experience, as past lessons could translate to more sure-footed future moves and prevent the repetition of past mistakes.

This way, generation gaps could be narrowed and older workers’ experience combined with their young colleagues’ fresh ideas to create true differentiation for the company. The organisation’s sustainable progress and success will then truly come from all of its people.