Bridging the workplace Generational Gap

The best companies tend to build teams with people from different backgrounds. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about gender and ethnic diversity in the workplace, but we should never overlook the importance of age diversity. A mix of experience and youth is critical to an organization’s success. Therefore, businesses must learn to develop practices that create a true level of inclusiveness for all generations so that they can benefit from the characteristics, values, and attitudes shaped by the events of their time.

Trying to build a culture that crosses the t’s and dots the i’s for all generations of employees is no easy feat, but doable. Our workforce spans multiple generations, defined by the years they were born. Let’s stop for a moment and think about how people in these different eras communicate, experience work, independence, and technology for the first time. It’s easy to work in silos and create cliques because one may not fully comprehend from one generation to the next. But learning is always more effective when done together.. Youth will bring exuberance and relevance; maturity will bring experience and resilience and both age cohorts have their own view on responsibility which may differ but neither perspective is wrong.. And when combined, they make the perfect pre-requisite for success.

Here, at Republic Bank, all our employees are valuable. They each play a pivotal role in our success. We have staff that have been employed for 20 years, 30 years, and even 40 plus years. They are the backbone of our organization. Our younger staff are our core, our future.

We strongly believe in the power of coaching and developing younger employees to empower future leaders. So much so that we’ve created our own formal mentorship programmes and of course informal mentoring is also prevalent. It aims to ensure that future generations of team members sustain the same mood, atmosphere, and positive corporate citizenship that exist today. But, it does not stop there. Mentorship should be intergenerational, by aligning the strengths of current leaders with the creative insights of future leaders so that every generation can benefit from learning and teaching.

At some point, the older generation will leave the workforce, and the younger generations will remain. Thus, it is imperative to connect these groups for synergy, improving current operations while also making leadership transitions as smooth as possible. Focusing on mentoring young people will future-proof your company.