Generational Differences: Separating Fact from Fiction

Dr Jennifer Deal of the CCL revealed the results at a breakfast seminar hosted by the Alumni Association of Unisa's Graduate School of Business Leadership in Midrand recently.

A sample of 3 417 participants mainly in the US consisting of five different generations was conducted.

Categories of generations:

8% Silents (born 1925 - 1945)
29% Early Boomers (born 1946 - 1954)
30% Late Boomers (born 1955 - 1963)
30% Early Xers (born 1964 - 1976)
3% Late Xers (born 1977 - 1982)

Responding to the question; do you see yourself being with your organization in three years, 70% of the Early Boomers said yes, whilst only 40% of Late Xers said yes.

The results showed that the myth about younger people always looking to leave was both factual and fictitious. Both the older group (Silents) and the younger groups (Early and Late Xers) said they were not sure if they were going to stay with their organisations in the next three years.

The myth about financial rewards as the only component of retention for younger people and older people being more inclined to stay with an organization for a longer period was also proven to be both fact and fiction.

"Younger people do want higher compensation, but not as much as they want improvements in their career/job, especially learning and advancement. Older people also want improvement to their career/job, especially recognition and challenge," Deal said.

Another popular myth is that older people want training in broader issues such as strategy and leadership, while younger people want training in more specific areas such as business skills. A second myth related to this states that older and younger people are different in how they want to learn; younger people want to learn everything through the computer.

Both these myths also had some truth and fiction in them. Firstly, it was established that as regards the former, there are a few differences, with the interesting ones related to the level of an employee in the company as opposed to age. Therefore, a younger person in executive management would more likely be interested in learning about leadership and strategy in a similar manner as his or her older counterpart in a similar level.

Other general findings of the study revealed that most of the myths about the younger and older generations are much more than myths. It was established that there are a number of striking similarities among the generations, including what should be done to retain younger people, and their strong desire to learn on the job.

Deal points out however that people must not "assume that younger employees want to learn everything through a computer - that assumption is just as false as the assumption that older people do not want to learn through the computer at all".

While conclusions cannot be drawn about South Africa from this study, it does provide an idea about differences and similarities among generations.