Professionalism

Generational Values Overlap Remarkably

March 26, 2007

 

Hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear the members of some recruiting team wax and wane about the growing generational gap that seemingly separates managers from their new hires. I keep learning about managers who complain that youthful employees “just don’t get” that they need to put in a certain number of hours in order to win the big rewards. At the same time, recruiters say that new hires express concerns that employers don’t understand work too often impinges upon their critically important and closely guarded personal time.
 
Are we experiencing a major culture clash? Are the values of today’s Boomer managers simply inconsistent with those of the Millennial (born on or after 1982) employees?
Maybe not.
 
Research undertaken by the Center for Creative Leadership seems to indicate that employers and employees, who span the generations, actually share very similar values. According to the Center, no matter their generational cohort, when given the opportunity to review a list of 40 potential values, survey respondents quickly identified a list of ten core values. They included:  Family; Integrity; Achievement; Love; Competence: Happiness; Self-Respect; Wisdom; Balance; and Responsibility. Of these values, Family and Integrity were chosen by half of all respondents. 
 
This seems to suggest that key values are shared across the generations. The challenge workplaces now face is recognizing that generations may very well differ significantly in how they express those values. According to the Center, the problem isn’t what people from different generations say they believe.  Instead, it’s what the different generations do that causes conflict.

 




 



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