In the first of a two-part series on Avril Henry, author, professional speaker and founder of the Australian Avril Henry Pty Ltd we share her experiences dealing with different generations in the workplace and the challenges this throws up for HR managers. As a previous finance director, Henry confessed she used to think that, “HR was a place where they sent birthday cards. And when we were trying to cut costs the Finance Director said we can cut costs by cutting HR staff because we don’t need them. Because after all that is the soft touchy feely stuff.”
As a ‘reformed accountant and economist’, Henry has now worked out that without people you don’t achieve anything, and without people you actually won’t achieve the productivity and the profitability that engages the stakeholders if you don’t understand what motivates people. Henry pointed out that 67% of all mergers and acquisitions fail. And the reason they fail is that their top three priorities are:
- Shareholders and clients
- Products and services
- Technology integration
Nowhere are people mentioned in the top three. Yet without the people being on board you don’t deliver to shareholders and clients. Without people understanding the products and services you are not going to deliver the products and services and you are not going to develop the products and services.
Turning to the issue of why HR should understand the different generations, Henry stated that, “people are using the global financial crisis as an excuse to say ‘we don’t have to worry about recruitment and we don’t have to worry about retention because we can just get rid of people’.”
Henry also firmly believes that the skills shortage is here to stay as it has come about because of an aging population and a declining birthrate. According to the United Nations, Hong Kong has the lowest birthrate in the world with the exception of Macau at 1.02, so it is unable to replace its workforce.
Generations X and Y are the most tertiary educated generations in history and are sending a strong message to companies that if they don’t have an inclusive and collaborative workplace culture, if they don’t have an adaptive leadership style, and if they don’t have a culture that values employees, then they won’t come and work for them. The question for HR managers is what do they have to do to motivate and to manage different generations. Henry cautions that, “the one size fits all—the approach taken for decades and people managed to get away with—will not work anymore.”
Henry gave an insight into the mindsets of the four generations currently in the workplace:
Veterans born prior to 1946: making up, on average, 6-10% of the workforce in most countries, who dominate the Fortune 500 and are usually board members responsible for strategy vision and change. The veterans will normally give you two responses if you want to change something. The first is “That’s the way we have always done it around here.” The second response you invariably get is “something is not broken so why change things.” For the veteran generation technology is a necessary or unnecessary evil which makes them really stressed. Baby boomers born 1946 to 1964: make up as much as 80% of senior executive roles in the private sector and major government departments. Intellectually baby boomers know change is good, but might prefer somebody else have a go at it first, so they tend to stand around while this change is being discussed. For the baby boomer generation they have all the technology but don’t know how to use it for functionality.
Gen X born 1965 to 1979: interestingly tend to be the skeptical generation, playing their cards very close to their chest. They tell you what they want you to know - when they want you to know it, to the degree that they think you should know it. In the background you have Gen X looking at change—it could be a restructure or a merger of two organisations. They will say “pick me pick me, I want to be on the change program.” Gen X love change, seeing it as an opportunity to learn new skills and stretch themselves. Gen X is comfortable with technology. Technology is an important means to an end, used as a business tool. For Gen Y born post 1980: change is all they know and they don’t understand why people get so traumatised by change. Change is what happens every day. For Gen Y they have always been social communicators and it is a way of life. They have never known life without technology; they have never used a typewriter.
In the next issue we continue this feature and share more from Henry on what drives each generation in the workplace and exactly what HR managers need to learn in order to best engage and leverage the strengths of each generation set.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
