***Intergenerational Conflict in the US Workforce

For the first time in history, we have four – some people argue five – generations in the workforce: the Traditionals, Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. The normal stresses in the workplace are being exacerbated by the fact that the leading edge of the 79 millio
Boomers born between 1946 and 1964 are not moving out of the workforce as expected. The likely result will be increasing conflict among the generations over jobs, pay, benefits and advancement opportunities.

Because of lifestyle preference or financial necessity, Boomers in large numbers are trying to hang on to their paychecks and their health care benefits, blocking the career paths of younger employees and putting pressure on employers’ payroll and benefits costs.

The underlying trend lines that will ensure intergenerational conflict for at least the next 20 to 25 years have finally captured the attention of researchers, social scientists, government and corporate policy makers. Most seem to agree that simply tweaking existing policies won’t be enough. We need new approaches to managing divergent generations and to supporting 79 millio
Boomers who will be transitioning to the third stage of their lives over the next 30 years. We need a new vocabulary to redefine words like work, career, success, retirement and quality of life. Words like ‘senior’ and ‘mature adult’ are resented and irrelevant because they have been code for “old.”

Averting intergenerational clashes in the workforce will require management and labor to close the book on more than 50 years of employee and labor relations and adopt new rules of engagement between employers and employees. Managing the intergenerational workforce requires employers to do a better job of forecasting their staffing needs, developing competency models, redesigning their pay and benefits programs, introducing job sharing and mentoring programs, investing in training and retraining, and designing career paths that match the profiles of younger employees whose aspirations are different from their older coworkers. Although this is a tough message for recession-fatigued companies, when the economy recovers, they will still be challenged by intergenerational issues they have never experience before.