this is the first time in history that four generations — those who lived through World War II, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y — are together in the workplace.
But WHY is this the first time in history that there have been four generations together in the workplace?
The retirement age isn't older now than it has been historically - sure, some people do have to work past 65, but once upon a time retirement didn't exist at all. And while overall life expectancy was lower, it wasn't unheard of for people to live to 70. Also, historically people started working younger, thus making room for more younger generations in the workplace, and started breeding younger, thus cramming more generations into the same time period. If everyone started working at 16 and retired at 65, you've got a 50-year age range in one workplace. And if everyone had their first kid at 20, you could easily find yourself working in the same workplace as your own grandfather. And the four generations listed above aren't all direct descendents of each other. Gen Y is generally considered the children of the Boomers, and Gen X comes in between (I assume they're descendents of the lived-through-WWII generation?) I'm not exactly sure how this works since I identify as Gen X (even though I'm on the X/Y cusp) and my parents are definitely Boomers, but at any rate Gen Y is most definitely NOT the children of Gen X, so this isn't a children-parents-grandparents sequence.
So what on earth is their logic in saying this is the first time in history that four generations have been in the same workplace? I cannot conceive of any possible way that might be true, so they really shouldn't put it in there without further clarification.
3 comments:
I thought it was interesting that the "four generations in the workplace for the first time" idea is referred to in the article as "the favorite fact of human resource managers everywhere." I hadn't really heard that before, either.
I googled it, though, and sure enough, several links were returned.
I wonder if the logic is that the older generation is more distinctively different than in the past? That the "Greatest Generation" sector has a much different worldview than the Baby Boomers, whereas in the past those two "older" segments were more alike and so less distinguishable, to the extent that what seems four generations now was more akin to three generations in the past?
Maybe not. But here's a link with a bit more explanation of the thinking:
http://mac10.umc.pitt.edu/u/FMPro?-db=ustory&-lay=a&-format=d.html&storyid=5312&-Find
Trying to post the link again...
If they meant four distinct generations that would at least make sense, but they really do need to say so.
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