I love millennials. I’ve built my career on helping companies successfully integrate younger generations into their workforces. I’ve defended millennials against those who seek to bash them, and I deeply admire their drive to improve the workplace for all of us. I am happy to be a contributor to the many conversations—at conferences, in the media, and inside organizations—about “best practic...

There’s no question that the multigenerational workplace encompasses a host of styles—from Gen Xers like me who love email, to Gen Z which is just as happy communicating via Slack. And although I believe we can learn from one another’s differences, I am always on the lookout for unifying commonalities that all the generations can agree on. Thanks to Capital One’s 2018 Work Environment Surveyresul...

When the concept of reverse mentoring burst on the scene in the multigenerational workplace, it was all about having cool 20-somethings teach the older crowd how to use “the Facebook.” Now most generations are pretty savvy—in fact their takeover of Facebook has sent Gen Z scurrying to Instagram or Snapchat. But that doesn’t mean that they still can’t learn a thing or two from the younger gener...

You’re probably already aware that millennials are currently the largest generation in the U.S. workforce. But while many companies have been focusing all their attention on building a millennial-friendly workplace, they may have overlooked the fact that Gen Z is the newest cohort taking the multigenerational workplace by storm — about 17 million members are now adults and entering the U.S. workforce. Gen Z i...

For the first time in history, we now have five generations in the workforce, with employees ranging in age and experience across six decades. How do you manage multigenerational teams with such diversity and possible differences? The good news is that it might be easier than you think, since most generations want essentially the same things in a workplace, including camaraderie, interesting work and respect (and I am be...

We all know the “it” words for leadership qualities today, those buzzwords that pop up over and over to describe the qualities leader aspire to. Frankly, I’m totally over words like “ninja” and “guru.” But there are several words that are common in today’s management vernacular that really do describe great leaders. If you’re a leader or aspiring to be one, I hope you&rs...

Last year I started answering common questions I hear from my consulting and speaking clients about Millennials in the workplace. Here I’ve collected the best of this advice into a handy “Guide to Managing Millennial Employees in 2018” that I hope is helpful for all generations. Question 1: Why are millennial employees such slackers? They don’t seem to want to work as hard as I did.” Fi...

Let it go. If you are a parent of a young child like I am, those three little words immediately conjure images of Elsa, Anna and the 900 times you’ve listened to the Frozen soundtrack over the past few years. But I think they are also words that we non-Millennials need to embrace when it comes to managing the younger generation. This post was inspired by a conversation I recently had over coffee and eggs wit...

There is a lot of buzz right now about millennials’ desire for “purpose” in their work. The truth, however, is that a desire for meaning is remarkably intergenerational. Strikingly, the 2016 Global Purpose Index found that 48 percent of Baby Boomers and 38 percent of Gen Xers were purpose-driven, compared to 30 percent of millennials. The importance of purpose is also, not surprisingly, a shared desi...

The concept of helicopter parents buzzing around the workplace, just like they hovered and swooped on the elementary school soccer field, sounds like a joke. No doubt you’ve heard of this phenomenon — parents sitting in on interviews or calling to re-negotiate a child’s compensation package. NBA recruit Lonzo Ball has recently received a ton of attention for his dad’s, um, involvement, in the draf...