Essay: Effective Manager in a Diverse Workforce

Introduction:

There is a total of five generations working in different workplaces today that are the Traditionalist (born before 1946), The Baby Boomers (1946 to 1964), The Generation X (1965 to 1976), The Generation Y (1977 to 1997) and the Generation Z (1997 to 2010) (Kunze, Boehm & Burch, 2011). Each of the generation has their own traits and characteristics that differentiate one generation from other. Like it is known for Generation X that they are known for informality and authority whereas the Traditionalist are known for hard work and loyal to their organization (Engleman, 2009). This essay will talk about the Generations working in the workplace and how can a manager be efficient in an age diverse in an organization. The essay will involve a critical analysis on three Generations that are Gen Z, Baby Boomers and Gen Y; the Gen Z will be analyzed through Holly Schroth’s article while Baby Boomers and Gen Y will be analyzed through Chip Conley’s TED Talk. The essay will discuss how an effective manager will work with the employees to accomplish the organizational goals. 

Are you Ready for Gen Z in the Workplace? – Holly Schroth (2019):

Schroth in her article investigated about the Generation Z that what are their personality traits and characteristics. She also discusses how the managers in the workplace can work with them. The Generation Z has been raised with internet, social media and technological advancements like smartphones, laptops and digital media (Singh & Dangmeri, 2016). According to Schroth (2019) the Generation Z are now entering into the Labor force and the managers should be prepared for their entrance. The elements are less work experience, innovation of smartphones, rise of social media and getting raised in a safe community. The role of an effective manager is to know h/her employees and is pretty aware of how to engage employees in productive activities (Adobor, 2006 as cited in Batool, Khattak & Saleem, 2016). Similarly, an effective manager must be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of Generation Z and should know how to engage them organizational functions to accomplish the goals. The Gen Z are not prepared like the old generation (Gen Y) to face the harsh realities in the workplace; it is vital for the managers to understand the elements that have an impact on the Zers. 

What baby boomers can learn from millennials at work — and vice versa – Chip Conley (2018) 

The Baby Boomer generation is the second generation among all of them, Generation Y are also called Millennials. The former generation is called Baby Boomers because of high birth rates after world war (Smola & Sutton, 2002 as cited in Gursoy, Chi & Karadag, 2013). The latter generation was impacted by the introduction of social media (Kaifi, Nafei, Khanfar & Kaifi, 2012). Conley (2018) talked about how he was an outsider when he met with the Gen Y individuals in a meeting room and had no clue what they were talking about. He further added in his discussion that age-diverse individuals can lead an organization to success if they work together and understand each other. He discussed his role as a manager in his company that he learned from his young employees and claimed that “I was a mentor in public but a student in private”. This means that an effective manager has to adapt to new ideas of the market in order to successfully accomplish the organizational goals. 

In introduction to management, we learned different aspects of the Management Theory however, there are some aspects that I think were the important ones. Through digital forums managing of information can be easy and the managers encourage the workers to enhance their performance in the organization. Digitalized workplace can help the organization to achieve greater outcomes and help to increase the overall productivity of the organization. The managers can play a key role in allowing the employees to learn new things in the market. They can do so by committing their time in teaching the employees or creating an environment to teach the workers. As the workers will learn additional knowledge and will apply in their everyday lives, it can help the organization to grow and prosper.

Conclusion:

In a nutshell, all the Generations are distinct in their own way and can work together to enhance the productivity of the organization. Schroth in her paper discusses about the new Generation that is Gen Z, she claims that this generation has some traits of Gen Y however, they are inexperienced in the workplace and the managers need to understand them to work along with the Gen Zers. Chip Conley discusses in his TED Talk that the managers need to adapt to new ideas in order to successfully accomplish the organizational goals. The managers should have a know how about the digitalization of new information and with their commitment an organization can be efficient and effective.