Shyamal Majumdar: The generational divide

THE HUMAN FACTOR

Most of the older staff had to take the stairs to the top, but GenNext wants the escalator.

While in college way back in the eighties, I had worked with Union Carbide as an intern in Kolkata, and saw first hand how the generation gap in the workplace leads to tension at all levels "" almost every day. And not managing it on time can blow up into a major crisis.

There was this young MBA who was sent by the head office to the company's factory to give a project report on how to improve productivity. He was asked to report to the production manager, a man in his mid-fifties, who had stayed in the organisation since his trainee days.

The MBA moved around the shop-floor and suggested sweeping changes in the production processes, which he thought had too many loose ends. However, the production manager, an otherwise rational person, would have none of it and shot down almost all his suggestions, leading to constant tension between the two. While the frustrated young executive moved back to the head office within two months and often cribbed about the inflexible attitude of his boss, the production manager told me one day: "The young think the old are fools. But the old know the young are idiots."

The tradition continues even 20 years later and the incident is symbolic of the widening generation gap in the workplace. In fact, in many offices now, people in their mid-fifties are being perceived as dinosaurs, as companies are trying hard to reduce the average age of their employees.

K V Kamath, ICICI Bank's MD & CEO, hits the nail on the head when he says his bank is trying to reduce the average age of its employees to 27. "These young people speak a different language. Who can manage them in future: will they be 35-year olds or 45-year olds? That is the question we are grappling with," Kamath says.

S K Goel, chairman & managing director of the Kolkata-based UCO Bank, has an interesting story on how the generation gap is assuming crisis proportions. A majority of the people in public sector banks are in their fifties, and his bank is no exception to the rule.

Hear what Goel had to say about his experience in a branch office in Bihar: he found a well-dressed person serving him tea and was really glad that the service staff in his bank was so well-dressed and well-mannered. After some time, he wanted to meet the probationary officers (POs) in the branch. Two POs came and one of them happened to be the same person who was serving him tea! Questioned, the PO said his branch manager "" a man close to retirement "" wanted him to learn the ropes slowly. And he was told that serving tea to the chairman would do a world of good to his learning curve.

Goel says he was livid and told the branch manager that had he been in the PO's place, he would have slapped him and walked out. Not surprisingly, the PO left the bank soon after and joined a private bank as a senior manager. To minimise the damage due to such generation gap issues, UCO Bank has now brought all the POs directly under the secretariat of the Chairman. "I have to take care of the younger lot who are the future. In my bank, they are the Chairman's children," Goel says.

Leading HR managers say one of the ways to minimise the generation gap in the workplace is to learn how to give more space to the people who report to you. There is no point in trying to micromanage the young who crave autonomy. Give them direction and then allow them to figure out the best way to get results.

Also, the older employees may think they worked 72 hours a week to get ahead and had to wait patiently for their turn to move up. But the younger generation obviously thinks otherwise. Most of them are believers in a healthy work-life balance and typically don't want to spend that many hours in the office. That is hardly a reason why they can't get ahead.

It's also true that Generation Y does come with its own quirks and characteristics. But according to a recent study done by HR consulting firm Watson Wyatt, the best way to handle the generation gap in the workplace is the good old management practice: the ability of the top brass to demonstrate leadership and strategic direction that build confidence in the prospects for long-term corporate success; effective rewards programmes; and frequent two-way employee communication. There is simply no other way to bridge the gap.