Millennials make up the largest percentage of the workforce, posing challenges to long-standing structures, working practices and management styles. With this change there have been shifts in the way organisations need to bring generations together, adapt the working environment, and manage a diverse population.
This practical session focusses not just on millennials, but on the traits and characteristics of each of the generations found in the workplace, and the differences between them. Exploring preferences and behaviours through practical case study discussions, participants will work to understand and respect generational differences and commonalities, adapt their style to avoid a ‘one size fits all’ approach, and turn negative stereotypes into positive working relationships.
- Understand the manager’s role in managing a multi-generational workforce
- Explore the characteristics of different generations
- Be able to map the needs of your workforce
- Know how to create a collaborative working environment that draws on generational strengths
- Appreciate the adaptations needed to recruit, retain and develop people at different life stages
Workshop outline
1. The assumptions we make about generations and age
2. Your role as manager
- How do you like to be managed?
- Flexible management
- Understanding people from a variety of generations, backgrounds and outlooks and uniting them in a common purpose and vision
- Exercise: identifying core behaviours of good managers of multi-generation teams and organisations
3. Understanding generations
- Different generations currently in the workplace
- Common characteristics of each generation
- Impact on teamwork, communication and motivation
- Exercise: case study scenarios
4. Mapping your workplace
- What generations are represented in your workforce, and to what percentage?
- Impact on performance, motivation, collaboration and reward – and on how these might be influenced
- Exercise: exploring strengths, opportunities and challenges for each of the generations
5. Multi-generation collaboration
- Drawing on the strengths of generations to create a strong working team
- Creating the right environment for collaboration
- Employing reverse mentorship to share experience and experiences to drive innovation
6. What makes them tick
- Factors that influence employee motivation at each stage of their lives
- Impact on career planning, recruitment and retention strategies
- How to have conversations about what’s important to people and make adaptations for them, eg, flexible or remote working
- Exercise: practical ‘real-play’ activities to support discussions about career progression and employee motivation
7. Adapting to millennials
- Millennials now make up 75% of the workforce and a significant percentage of management roles
- More and more people from this generation are now self-employed, struggling to find companies willing or able to adapt to their needs
- Exercise: Group brainstorm and peer sharing of what has worked in their own team or organisation and what more could be done
8. Bringing new generations into the workplace
- Gen-Z: how to blend their fully digital mindset with their desire for increased social and human collaboration
- Exercise: Participants review their induction process to adapt to the skills gaps, communication needs and mindset of Gen-Z starters
9. Flexing to diverse needs
- How to flex key elements of the manager role (eg, coaching and mentoring, training, providing feedback, etc) to diverse needs of different generations
10. Actions and next steps
- Review
- Action planning – create a plan, based on your mapped team and predicted future staff, to improve current management practice
- Next steps
