In July, I explored the ACT’s Annual Conference workshop on leadership and management, highlighting the need for treasurers to be aware of their own preferences and style of leadership to be truly effective.
At the workshop, the panel explored the differences in workplace expectations between generations and how this affects a treasurer’s need to flex their management style to fully engage with their teams. This article expands on the topic further.
Since the turn of the 20th century, demographic categories have been used to define generations born within certain periods from the early 1920s onwards. Each generation has been grouped according to common values or culture, as well as its impact on society.
Baby Boomers come from the birth-rate spike caused by returning soldiers from World War II. This is the generation that began to reject traditional values ascribed to by their pre-war parents. They fought for civil liberties and experienced access to education, travel and economic opportunities like no generation before.
The world of a Baby Boomer has been about opportunity and individual choice; they are goal-orientated. This generation values a work-life balance, but is more accepting of a long-hours culture compared to others.
A 2011 survey carried out by Ashridge Business School and the Institute of Leadership & Management indicated that managers from this generation are far more likely to take work home at least once or twice a week compared to Generation Y.
Generation X was the first generation where the new-found freedoms of the Baby Boomers were the norm. While this had huge advantages of opportunity, Generation X experienced a society where they had to become more independent and self-reliant.
The exponential growth of technology in this era meant the pace of life was increasing, too.
Generation X started to move away from the motivations of the Baby Boomers. While work is highly important to Generation X, there is much more focus on a balance between work and life with a ‘work to live, not live to work’ attitude.
Independence is a key theme in work, with Generation X seeing themselves much more as free agents and as marketable employees who can push for promotion or job changes.
This generation’s attitude to authority has also developed: people are no longer impressed with titles, although there is still a respect for authority.
Generation Ys have grown up with technology. Communication and social media have surrounded this generation and there is a real focus on immediacy. Having been raised by Baby Boomers, this generation has high expectations of entitlement and recognition without necessarily seeing the need to work for it.
Generation Y is currently the fastest-growing segment of the workforce, with numbers estimated as high as 80 million or more.
Generation Y takes things further than the previous generations. At work, they actively seek out opportunity. They are fiercely motivated by career progression and high salaries, believing that their high levels of education entitle them to this. The need for autonomy and freedom to act at work is far more important than their forebears’.
Just starting to enter the workforce, this latest generation are technology-savvy and naturally entrepreneurial, with 61% of a recent poll of Generation Zs saying they would rather be an entrepreneur than an employee on graduation.
Generation Z is strongly motivated by inclusivity – they think globally and are people-orientated. They are far more likely to work collaboratively to be creative – although this may be virtual. Attention spans are short at an average of just eight seconds, increasing the need for immediacy.
Today’s workplace is diverse. Employees in treasury are likely to be made up from a mixture of generations. Mostly, managers will be either Baby Boomers or Generation Xs.
Each generation builds upon its predecessor, but what does that mean for the changing expectations of the workforce and, importantly, how should managers lead in a way that gets the best from their teams?
The Institute of Leadership & Management, together with Ashridge Business School, led a piece of research investigating the impact of Generation Y’s expectations compared to that of their managers in the workplace.
More than 1,200 recent graduates and their employers were interviewed with the following findings:
Generation Ys are highly ambitious, so have great expectations of what work can do for them – for example, 56% of the sample believed they could reasonably expect to be in a management role within three years of starting work. Money, status and career advancement are the motivators.
Managers are likely to have a much more conservative view of what is achievable. Most managers are not appointed until they reach their early 30s , so reality is somewhat different to perception.
Money and status are high on the agenda for Generation Ys, but they often feel let down by their employers in this area.
In the survey, 45% of graduates felt their salary was below or greatly below expectations. Possibly linked to the first point, this in combination with a lack of career advancement could lead to high staff turnover or demotivated teams for employers.
Managers view performance feedback and setting clear objectives as important management behaviours, whereas graduates considered this relatively unimportant and placed higher value on being given opportunities to use their skills, and have challenge and interest in their work.
Generation Y will not be burning the midnight oil, working like their managers do. They expect time for personal activities in true balance with work.
Generation Ys want a boss who is a coach and friend rather than a manager in the traditional sense, and even those who do have this kind of relationship don’t feel it goes far enough.
Generation Ys have a strong focus on self, whereas their managers tend to have a greater focus on team and belonging to a company. Managers are likely to put their interests to one side for the sake of the company and expect the same from their teams.
But if Generation Ys don’t get their way, they’ll simply go elsewhere. Indeed, 40% of the respondents in the survey stated they expected to leave within a year.
Taking on a graduate is a significant investment for organisations, and employers need to think carefully about how they retain and motivate colleagues. This is especially the case when those that lead the organisation may have very different mindsets to those entering the workplace.
Employers need to look at how they can bridge the gap between these generational expectations, and individual managers can play a crucial role in this by:
Vanessa Harwood-Whitcher is director of learning at the ACT.
This article was taken from the Sep/Oct 2017 issue of The Treasurer magazine. For more great insights, log in to view the full issue or sign up for eAffiliate membership