SAN FRANCISCO — If you've ever griped about your 20-something co-worker who is always attached to her iPod or the 30-something who never seems to be working at his desk, you're probably a baby boomer — and those same workers are probably griping about your penchant for face-to-face meetings.
Thanks to a variety of trends, including technological changes, the disappearance of job security and a new generation of workers whose numbers will rival that of the baby boomers, some workplace experts say generational clashes are occurring with greater frequency than before.
"It is very much a hot topic for us," said Janice Smith, a Denver-based development consultant for Ernst & Young, the New York-based accounting and consulting firm.
Smith holds workshops with Ernst & Young employees on how to handle generational differences, workshops prompted in part by managers who have asked for help. Managers are saying, "We sense that what worked for us even three years ago isn't working now, and we want to be able to understand why," Smith said.
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While it's impossible to generalize about the likes and dislikes of millions of people in each generation, workplace experts tend to point to younger workers' strong need for immediate feedback. Workers now in their 30s and early 40s often demand greater work-life balance and flexibility.
Meanwhile, a common complaint among baby boomers and older workers is that the younger workers need a lot of hand-holding and don't understand the need to simply put their heads down and work.
"A bit of skepticism"
IBM started discussing generational diversity about three years ago, creating task forces last year to better understand the issues and holding its first summit on the topic with clients this year.
"Older people approach younger workers and younger workers approach the more mature workers sometimes with a bit of skepticism," said Ron Glover, vice president of global work-force diversity at IBM. "There are real differences in terms of language styles, in terms of the expectations we see across these generations. If you just ignore them, those may become the source of disconnects in the workplace."
Merrill Lynch launched age-diversity programs about two years ago, and has trained more than 300 senior managers on issues of generational diversity, among other initiatives, said Deborah Tsai-Munster, director of global diversity and inclusion at Merrill Lynch.
Differences among the generations aren't new, but some companies are taking note now in part because the youngest generation, often called Generation Y, is large.
"We have a new generation that's entering the work force that is going to be … as large as the previous big generation" — the boomers, said Subha Barry, managing director at Merrill Lynch. "When the numbers were small, the issues remained relatively small."
The free-agency workplace
Another reason generational issues are more noticeable now: The workplace has changed. For instance, younger generations grew up without a sense of job security, said Diane Piktialis, research working group and project leader on the mature and multigenerational work force at the Conference Board, a nonprofit research organization.
"We've got the free-agency workplace, and I think that causes people, particularly the younger generation, to adapt different attitudes to the workplace," she said.
Noting that it's important not to overgeneralize about such large groups of people, she said, "Boomers are typically very competitive.
"They've been described as the workaholic generation. Generation X wants more work-life balance. They saw their parents (work very hard) and their parents downsized or reorganized out of a job. They don't want to make the sacrifices their parents did."
The youngest workers "often don't want to follow a chain of command," she said. "They want to find the person they need to get done what they want to get done."
Also, rapid technological changes have affected the generations differently.
"The way older, more experienced people are living through these changes in the business world … that's a lot different than the way the younger people are experiencing these changes," said Bruce Tulgan, founder of Rainmaker Thinking, a New Haven, Conn.-based research and management-training firm.
It's not as though generational differences are a major problem for U.S. businesses or workers. But the differences add up to "a day-to-day communication struggle," he said.
By the numbers
Here's how the U.S. work force broke down by age in 2006
• The generation born before 1946 comprises 7 percent of the work force.
• Baby boomers, born from 1946 through 1964, represent 42 percent.
• Generation X, born from 1965 through 1977, is 29 percent.
• Generation Y, born in 1978 and later, is 22 percent.
Source: Rainmaker Thinking Inc.