Generational Cohesion and Conflict

Working with people from various generations

Working with people from various generations has its advantages and disadvantages, but when the advantages are well used, they transform the workplace into a place that produces a lot of great results. To take use of the advantages that each generation offers, I made the decision to form a project team.

Baby boomers

The baby boomer generation’s beginning and end dates are unknown. However, according to demographers, they were born between the middle of the 1940s and the years 1960 and 1964. (Becton ,567). I chose baby boomers to be a part of my team since they have a lot of experience, with the knowledge that they have acquired throughout the years they will work well with the customer accounts system that has been in place for 30 years. They are also dependable, they consider their jobs to be essential, and that makes them show up for work on time and work very hard. They are loyal which means that we can depend on them in the absence of other employees. Baby boomers have gained experience and knowledge throughout the year, which makes them become good leaders (Costanza , 311). Baby boomers are financially stable they have the usual healthcare coverage, and they do not seek a lot of work benefits which can be beneficial since it saves money.

Generation X

Generation X is the cohort that follows baby boomers, there is also no exact dates of when the generation starts or ends, but they are considered to range from the 1960s to the beginning of the 1980s (Lyons). They are a cohort with an entrepreneurial spirit possessing an attitude of doing it themselves. Generation X embrace changes that occur in the workplace and have a balanced work ethic which means that they are career oriented but also see the need for family relationships. They require a flexible workforce since they prefer to work to live and not live to work. People from the cohort value feedback that is constructive that will be provided to them while we work together so that they can be able to improve their work.

Generation Y

I also chose people from generation Y; they are known to have been born in the early 80s to the 90s. They are referred to as technological whiz kids. People from this generation are excellent multi-taskers which will be an added to the team. They strive on improving the workplace through teamwork and networking (Yi ,76). They prefer team-oriented and collaborative work which will ensure that they work together with other team members. They possess different expectations in the workplace which will ensure that they work hard to reach their goal in other words they are motivated intrinsically. The cohort is cost-effective, genuine, flexible and they value feedback.

Experiencing generational conflict

I have experienced generational conflict at work; it occurred when my manager required that I put in long hours at work while I did not see the whole point of doing that since I thought that as long as I complete my work that is all that is expected from me. However, this week I understood that it was all due to generational differences, he came from a generation referred to as baby boomers that like putting in extra hours in the workplace while I am from a different generation. This week’s reading will help me know how to respond to incidences in the future which will occur as a result of generational differences; I will be able to identify them when they occur and how I will respond to them.

Works Cited

Becton, John Bret, Harvell Jack Walker, and Allison Jones‐Farmer. “”Generational differences in workplace behavior.“.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 44, no. 3 (2014): 175-189.

Costanza, David P., and Lisa M. Finkelstein. “”Generationally based differences in the workplace: Is there a there there?.“.” Industrial and Organizational Psychology 8, no. 3 (2015): 308-323.

Lyons, Sean, and Lisa Kuron. “ ”Generational differences in the workplace: A review of the evidence and directions for future research.“.” Journal of Organizational Behavior 35, no. S1 (2014).

Yi, Xiang, Barbara Ribbens, Linna Fu, and Weibo Cheng. “”Variation in career and workplace attitudes by generation, gender, and culture differences in career perceptions in the United States and China.“.” Employee Relations 37, no. 1 (2015): 66-82.