I was listening to a podcast the other night, The Ongoing History Of New Music. It’s a music podcast (if you couldn’t tell from the title) and the host, Allan, was discussing how our musical tastes change as we start to age.
He unpacked some long term, ongoing research that demonstrated the older we get, the further away from youth culture we go. As you start to hit my age *cough* 50 *cough* you are pretty much in full on nostalgia mode. No music will ever be as good as the music released in your late teens – mid 20’s.
The only thing is, no music era is as good as the early to mid 90s right? I’m just stating a fact. These kids these days they have no idea what good music is.
It’s a little like the workplace isn’t it? For as long as there has been multiple generations in a workplace, the older generation have blamed the youth for being lazy, for not wanting to work, for being entitled. Back to the podcast, even Socrates wrote about the terrible music that the youth played.
Getting old and complaining about the youth is just a part of the circle of life.
In the immortal words of Grandpa Simpson “I used to be ‘with it.’ But then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me. It’ll happen to you!”
When we look at employee priorities, they change as we all move through different stages of our life. According to McCrindles Generations Defined Report our younger years are spent seeking out experiences (personal & work) and pursuing the things we love, when we have young kids we start seeking out flexibility to accommodate child care, schooling and having all our balls in the air. As the kids (& us) start to get older it’s about financial freedom and independence. When the kids leave home that wanderlust kicks back in and the flexibility to take frequent leave becomes important, and as we approach retirement factors such as the length of commute and work hours take priority.
So let me guess, you’ve read this and thought “yeah all these younger workers just want to take holidays all the time” What if I told you that taking a gap year has been popular since the 18th century?
The youth have always loved to travel and build experiences, it’s just for some generations, war, depressions and accessible transportation have got in the way.
When we look at generational expectations of leadership is it a bad thing that our younger generations expect to be treated with fairness? To be consulted by changes that impact their livelihood? Be given feedback about performance? Be valued and included?
These are all good things for our workplace because there’s a tonne of research out there that tells us when this happens the organisation has more chance of exceeding it’s financial goals
My point is, every generation has some sort of issue with those younger than them. What a drag it is getting old
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