Many workplaces have seen some sort of clashes between the senior employees who are more experienced and fresh-out-of-college hires. Imagine a clash between an elderly manager and an intern over a new project. Both come in with different viewpoints that are shaped by their unique experiences. This can lead to opportunities being missed and increasing frustration among team members.
However, this same age difference can be your strength. If these viewpoints are brought together, then this harmony can be one of your company’s superpowers. You will be able to create a happier work culture where employees have healthy relationships with each other.
According to Gartner, having a diverse range of age, ethnicity, and gender in the workforce encourages high performance. To make the best use of diversity, utilize an HRMS, which boosts teamwork and forms a more inclusive work environment. But what can you do with your HRMS? Let’s find out.
Strategizes to Utilize Age Diversity with HRMS
1. Make Onboarding a Cultural Experience
To create a collaborative atmosphere, make the onboarding process an engaging experience. This ensures that the recruits are familiarized with other employees from the get-go. You can team up new hires with seasoned employees from different age groups, so they can help the new guys get up and running. All of this, and more, can be done with an HRMS, like greytHR. It gives you the details of all employees in a few clicks so you can match them up. Due to this, new hires can not only get comfortable quickly, but also get to learn from experienced employees and their perspectives.
This is one way to promote open communication among employees of different age groups. It also helps in encouraging a supportive and collaborative team environment.
2. Intergenerational Mentorship
Different age groups could be united under mentorship programs. But you need to plan it out carefully and avoid random pairing with unclear goals. Base the pairing on skills and personality, and not just age. Give them specific goals and deadlines to follow to keep them on track.
For example, a senior manager and a young intern are paired based on their personality, skills, and interests. The goal of the pairing is to allow the exchange of knowledge between two generations. The manager provides strategic insights, while the young intern comes in with digital trends and social media statistics. The performance of this duo could be tracked using an HRMS, like greytHR, where clear goals and deadlines can be set. This helps the company monitor and evaluate its progress. By aligning their performance with strategic goals, overall productivity and engagement of the company can improve.
3. Remove Age Bias in Performance Reviews
Offering unconscious bias training can be helpful. This is where people are taught how bias impacts their behavior and how to change that. The point is that the review process has to be fair for everyone. The criteria to evaluate employees should be clear, objective, and unbiased.
For the evaluation process, equip your managers with greytHR’s performance management tools. These consider details like completed projects, total time taken, and goals achieved, but not the employee's age. The latter helps in reducing the age bias. All of this aids the managers recognize the employees’ strengths and also the areas of improvement.
4. Make Everyone Feel Included
Every employee brings a different perspective and skill set to the table. They should be encouraged to put out their thoughts for everyone to see. This way, no employee feels left out or ignored. For example, if a new hire in the finance department has a solution to streamline the entire process of payments to vendors, he shouldn’t be ignored. Maybe his idea has a few issues, but these can be fixed with the help of experienced employees. Their joint effort can result in a solution that could save valuable company time.
Sometimes, the opinion of older employees about a social media campaign might be ignored. It’s crucial to have the technical knowledge to be good at social media. However, it is equally important to understand people. You require the knowledge of what people might like, and dislike, what makes them take action, and so on. Employees can possess this knowledge regardless of their age. This is why the opinions of elderly employees should be given equal importance. This is a great way to make individuals from different age groups interact with each other.
Receiving validation for a task well done is something every employee values deeply. Recognize and celebrate employees and teams that have demonstrated great collaboration and showed results by utilizing their age diversity. With greytHR, you can put a spotlight on these success stories and let the entire company join in the celebration.
5. Rotate Employees Across Projects to Enhance Engagement
Sometimes, departments end up having almost all employees of similar ages. To prevent stagnation and keep morale high, regularly rotate employees across different projects. This approach not only breaks up the routine but also ensures that employees with diverse skills have the opportunity to contribute to various areas.
Give the responsibility of managing smaller tasks to young hires so they feel valued and get a chance to prove their capabilities. Evaluate the success of this strategy not only by completion of the task, but also by looking at how well the team collaborates and helps each other.
6. Create Benefits That Help Everyone
Depending on their age, employees can have different needs and expectations when it comes to company benefits and policies. The ones that suit a 50-year-old employee may not be helpful for a 25-year-old. Your company’s perks, rules, and benefits also show how age-inclusive you are. So identify the gaps in your offerings and make changes wherever required to welcome people of all ages. The best way to find the gaps would be by asking your employees what they require.
Use greytHR’s features like polls and feedback forms to know what your people have to say. Maybe your older employees need more health benefits and younger ones need career development opportunities. When armed with the right information, you are ready to bring in the required changes.
Summing Up
Age diversity can be used as a powerful tool that can drive innovation and help the company grow. However, to fully utilize its potential, a proper strategy must be put in place to reduce any biases. HRMS tools are invaluable in this regard as they improve the onboarding process, review process, and employee engagement without keeping age as a factor. The other important takeaway for you would be to help create a culture in your company where knowledge sharing is encouraged between employees of all ages and backgrounds. By building an inclusive environment and using the right tools, you can turn age diversity into a competitive advantage.
FAQs
1. How Can We Promote Age Diversity in the Workplace?
Bring people together by setting up social events that include everyone, or encourage your team to have lunch together. Hire from a diverse group of candidates and work with recruitment agencies that focus on diversity, offer apprenticeships, and help people return to work.
2. How Do You Manage Workforce Diversity in HRM?
Manage workforce diversity by encouraging open talks, leading by example, and having clear policies. Make it easy for employees to report bias, ensure everyone has equal opportunities, and provide training to reduce misunderstandings.
3. What Are the Best Strategies for Working with Diversity?
To work well with diversity, tackle unconscious bias, include DEI (which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion) in hiring, and respect different backgrounds. Also, support Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), set up mentorship programs, get feedback from employees, and mix up teams to create an inclusive and innovative workplace.
