“This is really the first era in American business history in which four different generations of people are sharing the same workplace,” says Hal Logan, senior vice president for strategic planning and industry relations at Manheim, the car auction giant. In the opening address of the fourth annual Diverse Leadership Conference held recently at Emory University's Goizueta Business School, Logan discussed generation gaps in the 21st century and how they impact organizations. Managing diversity, he suggests, needs to go beyond considerations of race and gender to the divergent world views of workers from a range of generations: those raised in the WWII era, Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and Generation Yers, also called “Millennials.”

There is some disparity concerning exact dates for the respective generations, but in general the baby boom birth years are 1946 to 1964, while Generation X consists of persons born in the mid-1960s to 1970s. Members of Generation Y, or Millennials, were born in the 1980s and 1990s and began entering the workforce around 2004.

Among the challenges of an intergenerational workplace, notes Logan, is getting the different generations to work effectively on teams. He characterizes the style of the World War II generation as formal, invoking a protocol to get the job done. The Boomers’ style, on the other hand, is more about a process: “The Boomers say, ‘let’s have a meeting and talk about it,’ while the Generation X attitude is ‘I’ll do my part. You do yours.’” Logan observes that the youngest people in the workplace, the Millennials, tend to assert, “I can. I will. Just let me.”

Teamwork is an increasingly crucial aspect of business growth, claims Logan. At Manheim, for example, with over 30,000 employees facilitating sales of used cars at live auctions averaging a billion dollars a week, meeting growth expectations will require the company to “grow outside [its] core business.” That will demand innovation, Logan adds, most likely by way of teamwork. “Work gets done in teams,” he says, adding that teamwork is an especially effective approach in part because individuals tend not to stay in a particular job or career for long periods of time. Logan warns it is critical to build relationships “across your unit, across different units within your building, and across different generational groups” to sharpen leadership skills and improve prospects for achieving corporate goals and personal success.

Motivation also differs from generation to generation. According to Logan, the Boomers seek status, while Gen Xers seek feedback and Gen Yers “need to feel they are making a contribution.” He cites additional contrasts such as a Boomer like himself taking or making calls during the workday on personal issues like teenagers or aging parents, versus younger people in the workplace leaving right at five o'clock to attend a child’s soccer game or to get in a work-out. Logan says these differences distort workplace perceptions of individual productivity and commitment, and he warns that if they’re not managed correctly, such differences “can have a negative impact on employee interaction and productivity.”

Organized by Goizueta’s Black MBA Association, the Diverse Leadership Conference is the largest student-run diversity conference in Atlanta. Held in conjunction with the school's Inside Goizueta Conference, the event provides an annual forum for students, alumni, educators, and professionals to attend lectures and network. By providing a venue for professional advice from business leaders and opportunities to establish mentoring relationships, conference organizers hope to create a valuable learning experience, as well as to lay the groundwork for entrepreneurial ventures and leadership roles in African American and Hispanic communities.

The 2008 event, held in November, brought together 175 people in business or business school in the Atlanta area to discuss “Bridging the Generation Gap: Cultivating a New Generation of Leaders.” In a panel titled, “Moving In & Moving Out,” self-described Millennial Nichelle Evans, diversity recruitment specialist for Johnson & Johnson, noted that opportunities for mentoring exist on both sides of the age divide. Panelist and Goizueta alum Ibn Newsome agrees. “Everyone in their 50s needs a mentor in their 20s,” and everyone in their 20s needs a mentor in their 50s,” he said, adding that at The Coca-Cola Company, where he is senior manager for global marketing, strategy and insights, these relationships are formally encouraged to help smooth leadership transitions.

Panelist Marvin Hamilton, human resources director for AmericasMart, Inc., described a tendency among Gen Y job candidates to bring a stronger sense of self-entitlement to negotiations than their older counterparts. Evans countered by suggesting that the generations really want the same things, but her generation is earning the reputation of being more inclined to ask for them. “I tell the MBAs who are coming in to ask for more,” notes Evans, “because hiring companies expect you to.” Angela Jones, vice president of human resources for ConAgra Foods, went one step further, saying she appreciates that Millennials are willing to ask for what they want because, “there are twenty other people behind them saying, ‘I’m so glad you did that because I wanted it too,’ and that really does raise the game and the opportunity for everyone else.”

As vice president and general manager for the global commercial card division of the American Express Company, Walter Jackson says he has observed that younger workers “are much more into life balance, and it does impact how you manage and motivate a team.”

Panelists, including Nsombi Ricketts, a Goizueta MBA alum and the former human resources manager for diverse talent acquisition at American Express, offered a variety of options and advice for ways to successfully navigate the multigenerational workplace: Understand a company’s core values. Do the kind of work a mentor can brag about. Favor personal contact over electronic communication. Get to know and be open to working with all kinds of people. “When you get to know people,” says Jackson, reflecting on his experience at AmEx, “you start to find the commonalities more than anything else.”

The American Express Company was a conference sponsor, along with SunTrust Banks, Inc., WellPoint, Inc., and Chick-fil-A, Inc. 

Photo: Hal Logan, senior vice president for strategic planning and industry relations at Manheim