Embracing generational diversity

Over the past few months, I have been frequently asked what I think of how certain representatives of GenZ present themselves on social media. I felt more and more inspired to reflect on this topic from a “non-judgmental” perspective. Rachele Focardi’s work on “Reframing Generational Stereotypes” was a great help in this regard.

“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.”

This quote from George Orwell, included in Rachele’s book, really gets to the heart of the matter. I assume, most of us can relate to this. However, I think it’s too easy to see this as a response to what is currently happening with GenZ entering the labor market and addressing their needs to employers.

It’s not about always pleasing GenZ

Personally, I think many of the GenZ representatives do a great job in helping companies understand the needs of young colleagues. On the other hand, I feel that many companies focus too much on pleasing GenZ in their recruitment strategy. And at the end they only find out that they don’t get the reward for their efforts they expected. This leads to many people labeling GenZ as ungrateful, GenZ still not feeling understood and involved and older generations feeling left out. But to successfully drive positive change, it takes everyone, regardless of their generation. Isn’t that, what we have also learned from GenZ ?

It’s about different interpretations of “respect”

Rachele Fodardi has many answers on how to promote mutual understanding and collaboration between generations. Even though, at the end of the day, most people’s needs are probably not that different from each other. An important takeaway for me is that there are different interpretations of respect and that it’s worth working on a common understanding of the different expressions within organizations.

For those of you who would like to learn more about how to deal with generational stereotypes, I can highly recommend Rachele Focardi’s work. It’s a pure embracement of generacional diversity.