Generational Diversity Assessment 5 Essay

Generational Diversity Assessment 5 Essay

Generational Diversity Assessment 5 Essay

Generational Diversity

Four generations are occupying the American nursing workforce, each bringing different work styles, values, ethics, and expectations. The four generations in the labor force include The Veterans (born 1925–1945), the Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964), the Gen Xers (born 1963–1980), and the Millennials (born 1980–2000) (Coulter & Faulkner, 2014). Though it possesses managerial challenges, multi-generation workforce combines new skillsets and business savvy to create a more innovative, collaborative, and productive work environment. Therefore, nurse managers are required to know and understand the distinctive characteristics of the four generational groups that form their workforce. This awareness gives them the capacity to capitalize on the strengths and skillset of each generation and help to eliminate any anticipated conflicts.

Characteristics of Each of the Four Generations Working in Nursing Today

Veterans

Veterans are the most experienced personnel in a nursing team. Most of them have families, and therefore their attention is divided between work and the family. These nurses are dedicated, loyal, and hard working. Veterans are also devoted to following the set policies and procedure. In addition, they have relevant work experience, as aresult, they perform their duties with minimal supervision and within the shortest time possible. Most of them understand rules of working, and more often they maintain interactive communication with other staffs and the managers. They prefer formal communication methods to electronic means. They also value interpersonal communication skills through verbal and non-verbal messages. Moreover, Veterans are less adaptive to change, and therefore, they may not be comfortable with the adoption of new technology in the workplace. 

Baby Boomers

In most cases, this is the largest group in the workplace. These people are committed to financial increments and work promotions, so most of them are very passionate about their work. Research has proved that this is the most productive group compared to the other generations (Genovese, 2013). They are optimistic, skeptical of authority, and prioritize spending most of their time at work other than promoting personal life. They also maintain healthy communication patterns with the managers, although they may cause conflicts trying to negotiate better terms of their job. Most of them prefer face-to-face group meetings, telephone calls and others opt formal means of communication.   When it comes to technology issues, they are relatively adaptive. Most of them fall into the category of late majority and laggards, in the lifecycle of technology adoption. They may also have divided attention between work and family since most of them have families. As a result, they strive for work/life balance.

Gen Xers

Gen Xers is the smallest group in the organizational workforce. This group is considered very innovative, and most people in this category seek to grow in their career. They are also hard-working and passionate about their job. Most of them value free time more than money. In addition, most of them do not have families, and it is the stage when most of them want to start families. Those who are already married give their families maximum attention. So their concentration in work may often face distractions. Since Gen Xers are innovative, they are quick to adopt the technology, and most of them can fall into the category of either innovator, early adopters or early majority. Their communication and interaction with their seniors or managers is often good, although some of them may create conflicts when trying to negotiate for better compensation and conducive working environments (Genovese, 2013).  They prefer digital communications, mostly through email and prefer on-point messages other than long discussions.

Millennials

This group comprises of the youngest personnel in the workplace. Most of them are recent graduates who are seeking to begin their work life. Their personal characteristics include optimism, confidence and expressiveness. Most of them are also self-indulgent and consider social networking in their career. Research prove that this generation is highly educated and team-centric, racially diverse, and least religious (Genovese, 2013). Most of them do not have families. In addition, Millennials prefer short and fragmented messages, especially through social media. They highly embrace technology and adopt any technology that comes to simplify their work.   

Particular skill that each generation brings to a team

Each generation is suited to bring a unique skill to the workplace. The veterans perform best in less demanding schedules or lesser workload. They may be useful in offering guidance to younger generations or patients. They can motivate, train and intervene in solving some problems that affect the healthcare organization. The boomers need recognition for their excellence and active work. They can be useful for consultancy services and also in offering critical services such as counselling patients. They are younger that the veterans and so most of them are continuing with higher education making them more resourceful. The Gen Xers are younger and active, and they can be suitable in offering medical and therapy services to patients. They have more time to interact with the patients, and so they can be useful for follow-ups and administering regular treatments.  The Millennial generation is less experienced, but they are very active, readily available and with fresh minds. They are also innovative and good in socializing. They can offer services that involve one-on-one involvement of the patients and also services that require technical and computational skills such as implementing of pain management technology, monitoring of dialysis, and data entry.

Types and Causes of Conflict

Some of the reasons for the conflicts in a multigenerational workforce emanates from differing individual preferences, age gap, stereotypes, working style and behavior. For example, the millennials may want a particular type of technology to be embraced in the workplace while the older generations are against it (Hillman, 2014).  Secondly, competing interests can also cause conflicts especially if the older generations realize they are being treated equally as the young generation. Competition for resources can also lead to conflicts mostly because the resources are limited. When some staff fails to follow the norms of organization correctly, there may be conflicts if the older generations feel agitated over younger generation’s actions or vice versa (Hillman, 2014). Poor communication in the workplace is also known to cause multigenerational conflicts. 

Strategies A Team Leader Can Use to Help Build Cohesiveness

The first thing the leader can do is to focus on generational aspects of the conflict. Leadership should seek to understand the big picture patterns that lead to generational differences. By ensuring that there are respective lines of communication across different age groups, the leadership demonstrates its effort of promoting coexistence in the workplace. The leadership should also pay attention to personal matters that affect individuals. The older generations may want time to be with their families and failure may cause discontentment and a feeling that the older generations are treated fairly. The leadership must also take into account the generational differences. Each generation has its interests, and if they are not met or attended partially, this will lead to conflicts. It includes matters of compensation, and the compensation must regard experiences of the people.

To maintain high employee retention rates and job satisfaction, nurse managers must recognize that each generation requires different incentives to create motivation. For instance, while older nurses may opt the conventional career ladder, this may not satisfy most Gen Xers or millennials, who consider flexibility and work/life balance on their list of preference. Therefore, to appeal to most generational groups, nurse managers must consider implementing programs such as succession plans and professional development portfolios.

Benefits of A Multigenerational Nursing Team

The multigenerational nursing team provides many advantages in the workplace. First, they mobilize mixed-age workforce to value knowledge and experience and so there is an environment of learning, especially for the younger generations. The senior staff mentors the young ones, and so there is sharing of knowledge across the organization. They also foster specialization of tasks. Each generation has unique skills which they can offer the organization. The millennials, for instance, can handle technological tasks in the best way.

Multi-generation workforce combines new skillsets and business savvy to create a more innovative, collaborative, and productive work environment. Another benefit of the team is that it helps the organization to maintain its traditions. The younger generations keep learning, and as they grow, they impart the culture to the new upcoming employees. They also ensure continuity of particular age demographic, which is at a risk of becoming obsolete (Coulter & Faulkner, 2014). The team also help in creating cohesion by embracing multigenerational blending.  They help the patient to access specialized services from the caregivers with certain skills. Hence the patient benefit from the diversity of competencies that promote their safety, learning, recovery, and follow-ups.

Conclusion

Generational diversity plays a critical role in promoting quality care and improving patients experience. In the healthcare organizations just as in any other organizations, employing staffs with diverse education and expertise help to create innovative, collaborative, and productive work environment. The four generations (Veterans, Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Gen Xers) offer a unique type of skills based on organizational needs. For instance, the veterans have more experience and can provide advisory services while the millennials are more informed and conversant when it comes to technology use. Therefore, healthcare organizations capitalize on the pool of skills offered by the generational diversity and the management ensured that there is a profitable blend of the generations.

Generational Diversity Assessment 5 Essay