Effective Management in Diverse Workforces: University Report Analysis

This report delves into the complexities of effective management within a diverse workforce, particularly focusing on the interactions between baby boomers and Gen Z employees. Drawing upon scholarly articles and Ted Talks, the report highlights the challenges and opportunities presented by age diversity in the workplace. It examines the differing perspectives on job roles, career growth, and communication styles between the two generations. The analysis includes insights from Holly Schroth's article on Gen Z and Chip Conley's Ted Talk on intergenerational learning. The report discusses biased practices, communication challenges, and the importance of building trust and collaboration. It concludes by emphasizing the significance of age and gender diversity for improved teamwork, knowledge exchange, and overall productivity. The report also highlights the importance of reducing age-related conflicts through trust-building and supportive relationships.

Running head: EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT IN DIVERSE WORKFORCE
EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT IN DIVERSE WORKFORCE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author Note:

1EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT IN DIVERSE WORKFORCE
Introduction
The effective management in the workplace is very much needed for employee
motivation and the productivity of the teams in departments. The workplace containing
diverse workforce these days require flexible management. This diverse workforce in terms
of age diversity is a major issue facing challenges for managing the different generations of
employees (Andrei, Petery and Parker 2019). The age-conflict between millennials and the
baby boomers are not new. In organizations, the allocation of duties and the tasks are viewed
from different perspectives to these generations. This paper highlights how the baby boomers
and the millennials can collaborate through effective management and bring productivity
together in the company. To study this, we especially take into references a scholarly article
of Holly Schroth “Are You Ready for Gen Z in the Workplace?” and a Ted talk video by
TedX speaker Chip Conley in his video “What baby boomers can learn from millennials at
work and vice versa”. The Gen Z creates a workplace revolution with new ideas and the fresh
wave in the industry while the baby boomers feel like old kettles kept aside in the
organization with stale ideas. This kind of thinking and the biased policies of the company as
per the ageing workforce make the paper discuss more about the effectiveness of a conjoint
learning framework between both the millennials and the baby boomers.
Discussion
View on Holy Scroth’s article
As per the article of Holy Scroth, we see that how Gen Z as the most vibrant
generation in the workplace creates new ideologies with their new perspectives in job
execution. We see that Gen Z often do not have the most work experience in the workplace,
they mostly perform as interns in their early career and carry innovative ideas to place in their
activities. The main difference lying between the Gen Z and the baby boomers are, the Gen Z
look for more things in a job role –like the career growth structure, the working environment,
inter-personal relationships, the training and development methods in the organization
(Schroth 2019). While the old generation workforce are mainly subjected to thee high
compensation package with minimum learning opportunities. The Gen Z prefer creative
leadership styles, but however they themselves often do not take the initiative to take the role
of leader just in their early start of career with less experience. That is why they have a
growth mindset and want to learn the various technologies and implement them. However,
the Gen Z also face issues like in terms of mental health be it depression or stress from excess

2EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT IN DIVERSE WORKFORCE
workload and burnout. They prefer different working styles with digital communication mode
to interact with supervisors and peers in the workplace. The Gen Z is tech savvy. Therefore,
their working styles and the work values are different than the baby boomers. This does not
mean that the baby boomers are not that technically efficient. They mature workforce has
much experience with high leadership skills to lead the Gen Z. However, the biased practices
of favoring the mature workforce in terms of seniority promotion should be reduced.
View on Colin’s Ted Talk
As per the Ted talk of Colin regarding the baby boomers and how they can learn from
the millennials, we can see that he stresses the fact of gaining insights from the new
generation flourishing in the workplace. According to him, from his life experience he
discusses that being aged in the team of new blooming junior members it often feels that you
are a liability for the organization now with high age and your value has decreased, however
matching the footsteps with these millenials can help you gain more creative knowledge and
work across the boundaries of age and race for bringing best results (Conlley 2018). He talks
from his experience that in AirBnb, his position made him teach that how the workforce of
junior age can teach you valuable lessons. This is more of appositive outlook to promote the
age diversity in the workplace and collaboration of all five generations in the team. The more
the diverse a workplace, the better is employee engagement and the productivity
(Meulenaere, Boone and Buyl 2016). The different values are shared along and the
importance of the senior aged members of the organization are used to coach and mentor the
junior workforce. Colin specified the fact that age conflict can arise, but through proper inter-
personal trust and support, the age bar between baby boomers and the millenials can be
eliminated. He learnt a lot from his junior team members and led them personally through
mentorship. The baby boomers may be not that much technologically advanced like the Gen
Z but their old and traditional values can be exchanged with the new and innovative values of
the current generation.
View on other management discussion theories
There are many biased practices in the age diversity of the organization. The
generational differences create conflict among the aged and young workforce (Radford et.al,
2018). The aged employees often feel demotivated and low in morale when the ideas and the
practices of the younger workforce are much appreciated (Marcus and Leiter 2017). The Gen
Z are very much concerned about their career growth and the company career ladder. The
commitment and loyalty of this generation employees are less than the aged workforce. The

3EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT IN DIVERSE WORKFORCE
talented new generation with a growth mindset often change companies and explore their
opportunities. The age diversity can also impose certain inter-personal communication
challenges in the workplace – for example, if the supervisor is young and the team is of aged
employees, there is a psychological barrier of ego clashes between the two generations and
acceptance of ideas (Yang and Matz-Costa 2018). Similarly, the younger workforce with an
aged supervisor will not prefer the old and traditional approaches. They will try to amend the
structure and desire other ways of operations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the age is just a numerical figure for the workplace productivity. The
age diversity along with gender diversity should be given prime importance to bring better
results. The collaboration of baby boomers with millenials can help in better exchange of
knowledge and teamwork with idea generation. The age conflict should be reduced with
trust-building relationship framework between these two generations in the workplace. The
paper also tells that having age diversity in the workplace can also create conflict in inter-
personal communication through ego clashes, low morale in aged workforce and reduced
motivation among senior employees questioning their abilities.

4EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT IN DIVERSE WORKFORCE
References
Andrei, D., Petery, G. and Parker, S., 2019. Include, integrate, individualize: A framework to
guide effective managerial practices for an age diverse workforce. In Age in the Workplace
Meeting.
Conlley, C 2018, ‘What Baby Boomers can learn from Millennials at work and vice versa’,
Ted Salon: Verizon September,
https://www.ted.com/talks/chip_conley_what_baby_boomers_can_learn_from_millennials_at
_work_and_vice_versa/transcript?language=en
De Meulenaere, K., Boone, C. and Buyl, T., 2016. Unraveling the impact of workforce age
diversity on labor productivity: The moderating role of firm size and job security. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 37(2), pp.193-212.
Marcus, J. and Leiter, M.P., 2017. Generational Differences: Effects of Job and
Organizational Context', Age Diversity in the Workplace (Advanced Series in Management,
Volume 17).
Radford, K., Chapman, G., Bainbridge, H.T. and Halvorsen, B., 2018. The ageing population
in Australia: Implications for the workforce. In Work and Identity (pp. 39-54). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
Schroth, H 2019, ‘Are you ready for Gen Z in the Workplace?’ California Management
Review, vl.61, no.3, pp. 5-18.doi: 10. 1177/0008125619841006.
Yang, J. and Matz-Costa, C., 2018. Age diversity in the workplace: The effect of relational
age within supervisor–employee dyads on employees’ work engagement. The International
Journal of Aging and Human Development, 87(2), pp.156-183.