Professor Bobby Duffy
Appearances
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
That's a great question. And it shows, you know, great self-awareness and humility. My initial reaction is, don't be too worried.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
There is definitely a more general perception that boomers are generally greedy. The kind of theme is a sense of selfishness. And for the younger generations, like Gen Z... The most entitled generation, the most difficult generation in the workplace, that they can't be bothered to check emails, having breakdowns about the difficulty of a nine-to-five job.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
You can go all the way back to the Industrial Revolution where things were changing fast and there was a sense that younger generations had a better understanding of the technology that was coming through. Older generations were becoming a bit obsolete.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
But I think it's worse today in many ways because we also do have a much more stereotypical view through our social media and media environment of what are the very exaggerated technologies view of the differences between the generations or the characters of individual generations.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
What I do is I look at very long-term surveys going back to 50s and 60s. So really big studies like the General Social Survey in the US, massive annual study that gives you measures of all different aspects of attitudes and behaviours. And the key thing is to do it over a long enough term so you can see that this is something to do with this particular generation being different.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
No. Very often they don't at all. The gap between young and old today is very similar to the gap between young and old in the past. So baby boomers were also much more comfortable with different changing social norms when they were young compared to their parents and grandparents.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
And grandparents, in fact, when I look across decades of this data, there is no particularly big divide between young and old today compared to the past. Although it feels like that partly because our media or social media really emphasize and exaggerate the differences between the generations.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
it kind of refers back to firstly the change in our information environment and particularly in media and social media boomers really are the most out of touch and entitled generation there is and it's not even close sick day okay you're you don't sound terrible um do you mind just turning on your camera so i can see that you're actually sick
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
I think that context of we've created this information environment where these are shorthand labels for stereotypes does get, does imbue itself into our general understanding of these generations and that leaks into the workplace.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
But then I think there's an important second element to this is that people can make money out of these divides. And you can see, you know, on LinkedIn, there are people who call themselves millennial consultants. This vast swathe of the population that they have particular insight in. So it's kind of creating a problem to solve the problem and charge you for it.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think this is a growing area of study and interest because there are some great examples of individual organisations setting in place schemes that deliberately bring different generations together around a particular problem or strategy. or open up competitions across generations.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
And you can see that those organizations who start to do those types of things end up being more innovative, coming up with more ideas. They're more resilient and adaptable. And I think the key to that is connecting people, getting over those stereotypes. And the only way to get over those stereotypes and think of each other as assets to the business is to have more contact.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Yeah, I think the first bit of the tips on this, I think, is to not be overly worried about the difference, that people aren't as different as the stereotypes that you'll have seen. Then the second point is that we are living much more separately across the generations than we have at any point in human history. We've kind of sorted young people into cities, older people outside.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
We've got digital lives where different generations are doing very different things on different platforms. to different intensities. So the workplace is one of the few places where we're pushed together. Connections across the generations benefit both the older and the younger side of that equally.