The workplace is becoming more age diversified than ever before, with most industries seeing a big mix of generations making up their workforce. Although there are now a lot of Generation Z entering the workforce, they are yet only a small fraction compared to the more tenured Baby Boomer workforce.
In fact, almost a quarter of the working population in America is now over the age of 55, which is the highest that age demographic has ever been. But with the Generation Z employees making up approximately 12 percent of the workforce, there are still enough of them to be a considerable influence on companies.
The benefit of having such a diverse group of employees is that it brings a variety of perspectives to the job. Unfortunately, it also brings quite a few challenges for managers to effectively direct multiple generations of workers at once. Luckily, there are ways to accomplish this - follow these helpful tips on how to make internal communication more age inclusive.
Email Reaches Multiple Generations
One major difference between all of the generations in the workforce is their attitudes towards the many different communications options that are available to businesses. For example, the oldest generation, the Silent Generation, have a strong preference towards communicating with someone in person rather than through something like email or text message. On the opposite end of the spectrum are Millennials, who have a strong preference towards digital over any other form of communication. Because of this, it is important that companies are choosing the right medium to communicate with their employees in order to appease as many of their workers as possible.
Email is a standard form of communication in almost any modern business and has been for over 20 years. Because of this, there is a vast majority of employees who are perfectly fine with email communication and Generation X employees actually tend to find this the most preferable way to be communicated with.
Use Employee Apps
For many companies, it may be worth it to invest the resources to create an employee app as well. Although this may seem like something that would only appeal to Millennials and Generation Z, there is a surprising number of Baby Boomers who would be happy to transition. In fact, a shocking 68 percent of Baby Boomers now own a smartphone, which means they should be able to integrate an employee app into their day-to-day work with little to no effort on their part.
Include Educational Content
Education is something that also extends to multiple generations quite easily. While approximately 10 percent of Generation X workers have post-secondary degrees, the number of Millennials who have advanced degrees is four times as much. Therefore, no matter which generation composes more of the employees, the company should be able to effectively communicate with them by including a lot of educational content into their internal communications.
By doing this combination of communication tactics, it should help to effectively reach as many employees as possible, making a more united workforce. To improve your multi-generational employee communication even further, contact us today.
