Managing The Multi-Generational Workforce
It’s a fact…For the first time ever managers are leading employees from four remarkably unique generations. Recent studies show that, across the generations, 85 percent of the workforce wants to be provided the opportunity to continually improve and grow. This is not new. The difference today: If employees are not learning and growing, they are leaving. Each of these generations expects and frankly, demands, dramatically different relationships with their manager and your company. This group will move on quickly if they are not being challenged, valued, and developed. In this context, the organization must focus on applying employee engagement to the design and delivery of every initiative across the enterprise. Managing people is now beyond complex.
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The good news is that our one day workshop equips your managers with the skills needed to create a harmonious and productive work environment among individuals with competing beliefs, values, and priorities. Participants gain awareness as to what drives, motivates, and inspires individuals with different generational characteristics. Managers learn how the need to modify the leadership philosophy and behaviors to respond to the needs and expectations of the multi-generational workforce. Whether you are managing your boss or supervising subordinates, these top management strategies can lower stress, boost productivity, and ultimately benefit your workplace.
Key Takeaways from this Course
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Managers walk away with a game plan that helps your organization enhance performance and productivity of the multi-generational workforce.
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Managers realize how to demonstrate a flexible management style that fits with the needs and aspirations of multi-generational workers.
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Managers enhance their personal adaptability and awareness and improve their interactions and relationships with employees
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Managers learn how to balance today’s workers needs to be part of a high performance team, while also feeling that they stand out.
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Manager gain solutions to the challenges of retaining and motivating today’s younger workers when older workers are postponing retirement.
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Managers learn how to create a productivity and harmonious work unit is spite of the conflicting work and personal values of the multi-generational workforce.
Our Game Plan Learning Method pulls it all together. We use a very unique learning design called “Game Planning”. Throughout the day, your managers work on a game plan to use on-the-job. It’s really cool and drives a commitment to act. We go deep into behavioral change and help your team identify what to stop, start, do more of, less of, and differently, to turn the multi-generational workforce into a competitive advantage for your organization.
Course Outline
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Module One - The Business Case For How We Should Be Managing a Multi-generational Workforce
In this module, we stake out the business case for moving to a “new mindset with new behaviors” for managing the multi-generational workforce. After a brief review of workforce trends and demographics, teams are formed and each one develops a business case on a specific opportunity on how leaders could harness the talents and skills of the multi-generational workforce.
Module Two - Game Plan Development Part 1: Introduction & Connection to Motivation, Engagement, & Retention
The foundation of the workshop involves each participant in developing a “management game plan”. In this segment, we introduce how this will be developed and present the three broad categories. The participants complete an assignment, “What Does a Compelling Work Environment Feel Like”, which is aligned with the key skills of open communication, trust building, flexibility and adaptability.
Module 3 - Game Plan Part 2:
Building a Culture of Engagement & Commitment
At this point in the workshop, we explode the myth of a “typical workforce” and at the same time, build on the idea that all employees want to be engaged and committed at work and oftentimes managers sabotage this through “one size fits all” thinking and action. Using short case studies, management strategies are built around accommodating differences through communication, creating workplace choices, and moving from lip service to action on performance management and employee development.
Module 4: Game Plan Part 3:
Head Butts or Collaboration?
Put people together with different values and work styles and incidents of conflict will arise. Tensions will increase, fingers will get pointed and colleagues will get thrown under the bus. In this module we play a game called, Conflict or Collaboration. The group must reach a consensus decision in an environment of conflict with both accurate and misleading information. Once concluded, the participants discuss how to transfer what was learned to real world situations.
Module 5 - Game Plan Part 4:
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This module goes right to the heart of using specific management practices to create high levels of retention for each of the four generations.
Module Six - Game Plan Part 5:
​The participants complete their individual game plans and then work with a partner to share ideas for motivating, engaging and retaining employees. This builds peer learning and is followed by a group discussion in which common themes are discussed and we identify what managers would do to demonstrate high commitment and follow through versus what we’d see if managers decided to “fake it”. This exercise builds a sense of accountability and a bias for action in implementing game plans.