How to run a five-generation workforce

Hello and welcome to Working It.

Last week’s podcast episode with Oliver Burkeman about finding the things that matter to us, and doing more of them, was one of our most popular, ever. One of the tips that Oliver gives in his new book, Meditations for Mortals, is to reconnect with the things we loved as children — we sometimes lose sight of our truest selves in adulthood.

With that in mind, I went to see the original Star Wars film at the cinema last week. It made me just as happy as when I saw it within days of its 1977 UK release, on the big screen in Leicester Square. That moment kicked off a love of sci-fi and fantasy 🧙🏽‍♂️. Happiness and purpose = better work and home lives, so let’s bring back more of our childhood passions. Do tell me yours: [email protected].

Read on for a novel take on how to keep five generations of workers happy and harmonious, and in Office Therapy I suggest that a needy colleague who also buys cakes 🍰 is . . . not actually a bad thing.

How to please everyone at work — from 18 to 80

Everyone I talk to in “work world” at the moment is obsessed with two pressing workplace challenges:

1. The impact of generative AI 🤖

2. Intergenerational tensions 🤬

I always try to find solutions to pass on to readers and this week I learned that a single fix for both of these issues might be under our collective noses.

It goes like this: leadership strategy that’s focused on easing problem two, the intergenerational tension, will create ripple effects across the organisation. A harmonious four- or five-generation workforce is more likely to accept and embrace disruption and change — including that caused by challenge number one, the AI rollout.

Sceptical journalist me is a bit 👀 about the likelihood of everyone singing in workplace harmony together (visions of the 1971 Coca-Cola advert) but Rebecca Robins has a persuasive idea. She is a brand and culture expert and has co-written, with Patrick Dunne, Five Generations at Work: How We Win Together, for Good. It’s out next week.

I called Rebecca and asked her to give me her magic solution to the generational issue, in a nutshell, for Working It readers. Her idea focuses on unity — not on drawing attention to cohort differences between (usually) Gen Z and older staff.

She said: “We have been having the wrong conversation about generations — and that conversation is the divisive discourse, it is fuelled by stereotypes and the clickbait headlines that really only distract us from the real work that needs to be addressed and then the other piece of context is that we genuinely don’t have time to waste.” The climate crisis, AI and automation, political divisions and geopolitical uncertainty — all of these make it vital for leaders to create effective workplaces where staff can, as Rebecca puts it, “win together”.

Essentially, an excessive focus on difference — whether that’s age or other identity characteristics — may be distracting us from the vital task of working together. Rebecca’s work feeds into some of the off-the-record conversations I’ve had with corporate leaders about DEI. It’s not that it isn’t a good thing to invest in building and retaining a diverse workforce — it is. The issue is that organisations have been doing too many things, aimed at different groups of people — and many of these initiatives are ineffective.

Rebecca believes she has the solution to the initiative glut. “The one big thing we show from all of the work in the book is this: do fewer things well — and sustain them,” she says. This approach is very “of the moment”: the productivity guru Cal Newport talked to me about this in on the podcast recently.

What, I asked, might be an example in practice of doing one uniting thing, and doing it well*? Rebecca cites LVMH’s Dare project, an “intrapreneurial” platform that incubates new ideas and skills across the luxury conglomerate’s 75 brands. She said: “It has really taken off, as one of the most successful things they have done, bonding and binding people across disciplines, from different brands and different levels . . . it links generational dynamics to regeneration.” (My colleague Emma Jacobs wrote about Dare in 2020.)

I think we are only at the beginning of trying to figure out what helps us work together across generations. Do send me your ideas: [email protected].

*Rebecca’s book has a lot of useful case studies, including the FT’s own Next Generation Board project 😇.

This week on the Working It podcast

Nate Silver is all about risk — he’s a poker player as well as the founder of political analysis website FiveThirtyEight, and his new book, On The Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, is a great primer for those of us who’d like to take more risks at work — but don’t know where to start. On this week’s podcast episode, Nate talks to me about why fear plays too much of a part in our decision making at work — and how we can stay curious and risk-focused as we get older.

Office Therapy

The problem: I recently joined a small agency. One very long-serving colleague will only make a decision after extensive chats with me or other team members. I am talking basic things: email tone, graphics on slides, what information to share with clients. She also arranges all the birthday cakes, team lunches etc. That takes pressure off the bosses and I think that’s why nobody says anything about the time-wasting. Will I get past this annoyance?

Isabel’s advice: You are right, the endless reassurance is not helping your colleague get better at their job and it’s taking up your team’s collective time. On the other hand, we all have different anxieties and it’s not your job to fix your colleague’s hang-ups. She is apparently competent overall and performs a useful role in doing the “office housework” in a small business.

Before everyone shouts at me, I know that gender advancement at work partially rests on women deciding not to take on these so-called “non-promotable tasks”. But in this case it sounds like your colleague isn’t looking to get promoted and gains satisfaction and a sense of belonging from being the social secretary 📋.

It’s possible that nobody says anything about the neediness because they aren’t bothered by it. You are new, and it takes time to get used to a workplace culture. Part of the joy of working life is experiencing its (often infuriating) variety. You may never get used to this person’s MO, but you do not have to be their go-to helper — you can tactically withdraw — and you also get to have your (birthday) cake 🎂 and eat it.

Five top stories from the world of work

1. FT and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2024: The shortlist. Six books have made the final cut for this year’s business book prize, including Professor Andrew Scott’s The Longevity Imperative and The Corporation in the 21st Century by John Kay. The winner will be announced in December.

2. The problem with panels: Viv Groskop skewers the issue that so many of us have with panels: there are too many, guests are too waffly — and the large number of high stools.

3. Blanked or rejected: is finding a job harder than ever? The labour market is allegedly tight but candidates are applying for hundreds of jobs and getting no replies at all. Bethan Staton talks to those involved on both sides and finds a big reduction in the number of graduate-level jobs on offer.

4. The fury of the frequent flyer: Nothing gets FT readers engaged like a column about the many shortcomings of frequent flyer programmes. Brooke Masters reports on US regulators’ efforts to weigh in — and the reader comments are on🔥.

5. What, me, retire? Just because I’m 80? Pilita Clark picks up on the scandal of the Indeed job advert that went viral on LinkedIn (the one that suggested workers over 55 were “in decline”) and riffs on why many people are working longer — and why that’s a good thing.

One more thing . . . 

Last year, information about ADHD was the second most-searched topic on the NHS website and BBC research suggests it will take eight years to assess all the adults on waiting lists. These startling facts come from a BBC article that outlines why ADHD has become such a common diagnosis. It seems that rates of ADHD prevalence haven’t changed in the population (it’s likely around 3-4 per cent of adults in the UK) — it’s just that the rate of incidence is rising, meaning the number of people getting a diagnosis. At some point, that will stabilise, it seems, as the backlog of diagnoses is completed.

This week’s giveaway . . . 🐇

During the pandemic, Chloe Dalton — a senior government foreign policy specialist — rescued a baby hare (a leveret) and raised him. Their bond led her to adopt a very different relationship to her career, to change her pace of life — and to connect with nature for the first time.

Chloe’s memoir, Raising Hare, is published on September 26. (If you, like me, loved H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, then this will instantly appeal).

We have 10 copies of Raising Hare to give away to Working It readers, and all entries we receive by 5pm UK time on September 20 will go into the draw. Enter using this form.