Shared Learning Closes the Generational Divide

“There’s a great cultural and technological divide between younger and older workers, but both can benefit from each other’s knowledge and skills in important ways.

What Younger Workers Can Teach Older Workers

• New technologies that will impact internal collaboration and their profession and industry and how to use them.
• The importance of lived experiences and how it can benefit the team, since younger employees are the most diverse in history.
• How change is inevitable, why the skills of today may not be as valuable in the future, and how to learn new skills.
• Why they shouldn’t give up on their dreams. Research shows that younger workers are more optimistic and can use that to inspire older workers.
• The collaborative mind-set that will help older workers best interact with them, brainstorm, and come up with new ideas.

What Older Workers Can Teach Younger Ones

• The struggles and setbacks of building a career and the importance of having years of experience.
• The soft skills that have helped them build the relationships that have made them successful.
• The loyalty that makes others on your team want to invest in your learning and development.
• The regrets they might have had in their career and how to not make the same mistakes.
• How to manage corporate politics that naturally occur in any corporation, especially larger ones.
• The skill to handle conflicts in the workplace and the wisdom to use those conflicts to actually solve problems and form stronger relationships in the aftermath (p. 133-135).”

From: Schawbel, D. (2018). Back to human: how great leaders create connection in the age of isolation. (e-book edition). New York: Hachette Book Group.

Questions for Reflection:

• What is something that you have learned from a younger worker?
• What is something that you have learned from an older worker?
• Why is it important for all generations to interact in the workplace?