Do younger employees sabotage boomers? 50+ workers report information cut-offs, 'senior shutout'

HR Magazine, Oct, 2008 by Rebecca R. Hastings

There are "3 Rs" that worry baby boomers: redundancy, relevance and resentment, according to Age Lessons, a Chicago-based intergenerational consulting firm. Concerns about possible layoffs, the need to keep skills current and resentment from younger associates are keeping these workers up at night, the firm found in a study released in August.

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Age Lessons conducted 50 in-depth phone interviews with workers age 50 and over that explored issues that had surfaced in the firm's earlier Ageism: Managing on the Bias research conducted by Harris Interactive.

"Older workers believe that younger associates drop them from critical informal communications networks ... blocking access to important political and business developments," Laurel Kennedy, president of Age Lessons, said in the announcement of the results.

"Whether it's overt, or unintentional, the net effect is the same," said Kennedy. "Mature workers gradually get foreclosed from water cooler banter, and shunted to the sidelines. Without access to emerging news in the workplace, mature workers find it difficult to make good strategic decisions and career moves."

Another key finding, she said, was referred to as "senior shutout," in which companies close off career paths and training opportunities to mature workers, assuming that they are unwilling to accept a new challenge.

Respondents identified other issues they had observed at work. For example, when older colleagues spoke during company meetings, younger colleagues would yawn, avoid eye contact with the speaker, doodle, or send text or instant messages under the table.

Kennedy encourages companies to:

* Adopt age-neutral hiring and educational policies that look at the candidate pool irrespective of age.

* Form intergenerational work teams.

* Extend continuing and professional educational opportunities to all workers, regardless of age.

* Provide awareness training about generational differences, as well as office and meeting etiquette.

She says older workers can reach out to younger counterparts by initiating social outings and learning to text or instant-message colleagues if that's the preferred communication method their colleagues use.

--Rebecca R. Hastings, SPHR