Engaging A Multi-Generational Workforce

An engaged workforce—across generations—is the best vaccine for any organisation to help it develop immunity against future crisis; but are the leaders listening?

- Dr Debashish Sengupta

To be fair, it has not been easy for anyone—neither the companies, nor the employees. The pandemic has not only caused a major, worldwide disruption, it has meant a quantum jump in challenges. Since much has been written and deliberated already on this topic, I decided to focus on how the so called ‘new normal’ is affecting different generations at work.

It is during times of crisis that relationships— including that between an employee and the employer are tested. Engagement has never been more relevant than it was during the past year.

While writing this piece, I had the opportunity to interview a lot of people across generations— Generation X (born between 1964/65 and 1977/78), millennials (born between 19791999) and Generation Z (born 2000 and 2020)—working in India and abroad, and listening to their experiences first-hand. Based on these interactions and other research, I have drafted this article to describe the on-ground situation, and hence serve as a consultative guide for organisations to in re-align their employee management and engagement strategies/policies to suit the new order.

An account of a Generation Xer

Dhruv, who works in the non-profit sector says, “Our organisation being in the social sector depends on various types of grants and funding for undertaking social development projects, and it was severely hit due to COVID. This resulted in subsistence concerns for the organisation, which, in order to maintain its visibility and get newer business, had to work overtime with PR exercises like organising webinars during the lockdown period to keep the clients and beneficiaries engaged, and also to pitch to new corporates and funding agencies.