How the Generations Differ at Work

It is more likely that we will like our job if we have autonomy, mastery, and purpose. With autonomy we can make independent decisions. Next, we can expect to become better at what we do. And finally, we need a sense of vision. According to author Dan Pink, the result is probably a motivated worker.

Looking more closely though, we do have a generational divide at work.

Multigenerational Work Differences

We can start with how our birth years divide us.

Our generation can determine how we communicate at work. While baby boomers tilt toward in-person meetings and email, at the other end of the age scale, Gen Z uses chat and text more:

Moving to motivation, we see again how a multigenerational workplace can differ from what Daniel Pink suggests. You can see below that three of the four generational cohorts place salary first. By contrast, the baby boomers have health insurance and “A boss I respect.” I was happy to see Gen Y cite passion and excitement:.

Our Bottom Line: Labor Markets

As economists, we can return to our circular flow model and to the labor markets in our lower loop. In the model, the market is a process through which price and quantity are determined. Consequently, the labor market is anywhere and any way that businesses interact with labor.

In labor markets, workers bring their aspirations and employers arrive with what they need. Together, we wind up with five generations that communicate differently and have varied motivations:

My sources and more: Having long ago read Daniel Pink’s Drive, I’ve always remembered autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The perfect complement, the wonderful graphic from the Visual Capitalist reminded me of the Pink book. From there I did find this article from Pew Research.

Please note that our featured image is from Corporate Rebels.