It’s no secret that employees from multiple generations bring distinct perspectives to the world of work. These ranging perspectives can result in positive outcomes such as innovation, productivity and efficiency, but they can also be the cause of friction and discord between colleagues. So how can managers combine employees’ divergent viewpoints, behaviours and needs to create a more inclusive and engaging environment for all? We review UK’s Best Workplaces™ who have demonstrated inventive approaches to this challenge.
Mentoring
Adobe’s Women’s Executive Shadow Programme (WESP) gives female employees a chance to shadow a key leader in the company. The WESP is a volunteer-led programme focused on providing women at Adobe a valuable opportunity for multigenerational cross mentorship through executive visibility, professional development, networking, and cross-functional exposure.
“Genuine culture and very collaborative environment where everyone can thrive and have the tools and support needed to do so”
– Adobe employee
Teaching
World Wide Technology strives to educate and provide guidance on topics such as day-to-day money management issues to building emergency funds and saving for retirement through a range of seminars. These seminars are geared towards individual employee groups in different phases of life. Their ‘Millennials in Finance’ seminar includes subjects on managing student loans, creating a budget, buying a house and saving for the future, while their ‘Women in Finance’ seminar covers issues surrounding outliving assets, losing a spouse, long-term care and investing sufficiently for retirement.
Reverse Mentoring
Baird's ‘The Millennial Masters Program’ is a reverse mentoring program that provides opportunities for mentors and mentees to collaborate on strategies which position the firm to attract and retain the next generation of clients and associates. Senior leaders receive an instant link to Baird’s Millennial talent in order to gain valuable perspectives to the current state and future vision of the organisation. Millennials gain company and industry knowledge to carry forth Baird’s rich history.
Listening
PayPal implemented a ‘Listening Tour’ related to their core values of Inclusion and Wellness, with focus groups conducted both face to face and by video call. Sessions were run by an independent external consulting partner to maintain the confidentiality of individual views. Some focused on a specific aspect of diversity, and welcomed input from any colleague with an interest in different aspects of the theme, including gender, LGBT, disability, mental health as well as multigenerational and multicultural aspects. This was an opportunity for all employees to put their mark on the organisation, and to help drive the direction of the company from a diversity and inclusion perspective.
“This is a great place to work as people are willing to spend some time to share their knowledge with other employees”
– PayPal employee
Workforce diversity provides a competitive advantage. Download our Multigenerational Workforce Report, where we’ve examined data from our Trust Index© and national population surveys to give HR professionals the all-important knowledge to successfully recruit, engage, reward and retain a multigenerational workforce.
Read our other blogs for more workplace culture insights:
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