Tag Archives: generational diversity

PSU, Generations and Culture

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Today’s guest post is from one of my online friends in the HR Vendor world, Chris Capozzi. Chris and I have been connected online for awhile now, engaging and so forth, and had the chance to meet IRL at this year’s Illiniois SHRM State Conference. Take it away….

Are there lessons we can learn from Penn State?

Is there a generational consideration that should be given to Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky and others involved in the allegedly horrific crime committed on the campus of Penn State University?  Did the perspective on life that is shown from their generation lead to the actions of the alleged cover up in this case?  Could we learn more on what this teaches us about similar situations?

The answer is yes.  The generational perspective in this case comes from a generation known as the tradionalist group.  This group is from the WWII era and Coach Paterno, born in 1926 falls right in the middle of this group while Coach Sandusky born in 1944 is on the edge of the baby boomers. Let’s examine the key characteristics of this generation and see if this sheds some light on the relationship between these two individuals.

The tradionalist generation are loyal to the employer and expect loyalty in return; possess strong interpersonal skills, enjoy flextime so they can work their own schedule; believe promotion, recognition and raises should come from job tenure. They build a legacy – expect a lifetime career with one employer or at least in one field and have a sense of personal responsibility to work.

Coach Paterno was the leader of this program for over forty years and developed a culture of loyalty from those involved. The corporate culture within the system was solely directed by his life experience.  He has built a legacy but regardless of all the good will that he has built over the years his moral judgment will be forever in question.  While we may never know the truth and circumstances in this tragedy, what we do know is if the culture were different within this team all of the cases that occurred after 2002 could have been prevented.

What would this legacy look like in the corporate world?

The leader that has been in place for decades setting a culture of “this is the way we have always done it” and expects everyone to fall in line with the culture the leader has built as his legacy.  In this company if a scandal was brewing we would see the leader take care of it and expect that he can handle the situation in the way he knows best.  The leader would know that if such a scandal was public his reputation and legacy would be destroyed.

Can we learn from this?  Sure we can. Has this happened before in the corporate world and a different direction taken?  Yes it has.  Think back to 1982, potassium cyanide was placed in Extra-Strength Tylenol throughout Chicago. Seven individuals died from this form of terrorism. Johnson & Johnson (the makers of the pain reliever) could have simply taken Tylenol off the counters in the Chicago area. Instead, the company immediately recalled Tylenol from the stores nationwide. Consumers, advertisers and other businesses praised J&J for its swift actions. Today the company is one of the most well-liked companies by consumers (Bickel, 2011).

Will Penn State University be able to recover from this scandal?  Yes, if they put safe guards in place to ensure this can never happen again.  The school must work to create a safe environment for all staff, students, and visitors. PSU will need to carefully create a standard of operation procedure in reporting and handling such situations in the future.

Future leaders of the institution will need to have a greater understanding on the impact that child safety and the handling of this situation will have on the future enrollment of students and families supporting youth camps on campus.  A policy is not enough.  A culture change is needed and respect for people should be at the foundation if they indeed want to return happy to the valley.

About the Author:

Chris Capozzi is the Director of Business Development for Legacy Business Cultures whose workshops, train-the-trainer programs, and employee climate surveys have touched thousands of organizations, millions of employees, managers and leaders across the globe. Legacy Business Cultures and its partners have been the experts in helping shape organization culture Worldwide for over 14 years. Connect with Chris on twitter @chriscapozzi.

Generational diversity; The patchwork quilt

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Yesterday morning I sat in on a session entitled “Addressing the Global Talent Mismatch in the workplace” at SHRM 2011. When the speaker asked the attendees (most of them in Human Resources or some kind of Human Capital Management role) “How many of you in the room know what to do when it comes to addressing the generational diversity in the workplace, especially with the older generation?” I admit, I wasn’t too shocked to see only a few hands go up.

Hmmmmmm……… Our workforce diversity is forever changing and we don’t know how to prepare for that? Well, I’m sure that is why they were sitting in that session at 7:00 in the morning so they could get some answers.

Some of the information discussed was of course the generational differences;

  • Traditionalists – 65 and older (not really open to changes and feel they have made it this far on what they have experienced)
  • Boomers – Like the Traditionalists they feel that getting rewarded in the workplace is all about having done their time” ( a different mindset) – they even think in terms of their loyalty toward their employers as counting for something
  • Both Gen X and Y are of the mindset that they are “entitled to change and break the rules” and possibly think that it’s up to them to come in and be the change
Traditionalists and Boomers are more adherent to policy and procedures where as the younger generation question policy and are constantly pushing the envelope, (why do I have to do this?) – they feel a sense of entitlement and believe that is it part of their job to continue to question.

Now don’t get me wrong, we did talk about performance in this session and we decided that it goes across all four generations – but in different ways. We also discussed that  sometimes if you have an older (55) super performer they are usually not perceived as “old” in the workplace, by their peers. I know this even when I look at my husband who is about to turn 57. He is definitely the overachiever and is constantly being told that he does not look or act his age. (Sometimes I tell him that he doesn’t act his age but in a different manner :) )

How do we attract and retain experienced workers? The stats given during the presentation are that (14%) of businesses are even trying to do anything about attracting older workers, and only something like (23%) are knowledgeable of how to retain older workers. (Please don’t blast me with emails on where to find these stats because they were up on the power point presentation by the presenter and I really don’t have a clue).

Older workers NEED MORE WORK LIFE BALANCE. This seems to be the theme for the SHRM conference this year – Work, Life – Flexibility. When it comes to older workers we find that they want career choice and they’re needing flexibility practices in place to take care of parents and are also planning for retirement.

Using flex as we have with nursing mothers (working mothers) and using it in the same manner, making a strategic plan of how we can translate this same practice with older workers and elder care, is certainly something to consider and is one companies strategic plan. By using the same guidelines in helping working mothers and changing it up a bit when it comes to aging parents, they noticed they went from a 40%  turnover rate down to 14% – Now that is ROI. By the way, half of their employees were over the age of 45.

Here are a few creative approaches suggested by members of the audience:

  • Some companies are taking older workers and making them contract and some part-time.
  • Some suggested using older workers to train / sponsor the high potential project team. Having the younger generations train the older on new technologies within the workplace to be more productive and valuable within the organization (okay, that was my suggestion that I offered to the group).
  • Interns coming in (especially with attracting new talent for the future and in strategic planning) and utilizing technology such as videos geared toward their long-term strategic planning of how to attract and retain their workforce.
I imagine the generational diversity in the workplace to look something like that of a patchwork quilt – knitted together and all working for the common good. I do believe it can be achieved.