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Overcoming the challenges of the multigenerational workplace

Redbridge Education Partnership

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	BOOMERS�Loyal \| Experienced \| Resilient	GEN X�Independent \| Practical \| Flexible	MILLENNIALS�Competitive \| Collaborative \| Growth-Oriented	GEN Z�Pragmatic \| Diligent \| Apprehensive
WHAT THEY VALUE	Stability, respect, and a meaningful legacy	Freedom to work independently and efficiently	Growth, flexibility, & doing purposeful work	Money + meaning + wellbeing = happiness
HOW THEY LIKE TO WORK	Clear structure, steady pace, proven systems	Self-led, results-focused, no micromanaging	Collaborative, fast-paced, mix of remote & in-person	Flexible, async, tech-enabled, with clear expectations
HOW THEY PREFER TO CONNECT	In-person or phone calls with clear direction, formal tone	Email, direct and efficient	Casual (chat) & quick video check-ins	More scope for synchronous that imagined, regular check-ins
WHAT THEY APPRECIATE MOST	Recognition, retirement plans, healthcare	Autonomy, clear expectations, space to deliver	Career growth, wellness, hybrid freedom	Transparent career paths, clarity of values and actions aligned with them.
HOW THEY WANT FEEDBACK	Scheduled reviews, respectful tone	Straightforward & tied to outcomes	Frequent, coaching-style convos	Weekly, precise, actionable with clear next steps (not just praise)
WHAT MOTIVATES THEM TO STAY	Feeling respected, job security, contributing experience	Being trusted to figure it out & own results	Purpose, progress, meaningful challenges	Being who you say you are, learning opportunities, feeling valued

Adapted from and inspired by Justin Hills

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Experienced educator
Leadership coach (one to one and leadership teams)
Author – The Snowflake Myth
Speaker – multigenerational workplace with a Gen Z lens.

About me

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Generation Alpha	2013 – 2028	13 max

Years of Birth Current age

Silent Generation	1925 – 1945	81 – 100

Baby Boomers	1946 – 1964	62 – 80

Generation X	1965 – 1980	46 – 61

Millennials	1981 – 1996	30 – 45

Generation Z	1997 – 2012	14 – 29

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Education context
What is a generation?
Characteristics of Gen Z
Solutions for recruitment & retention
Multigenerational workplace challenges
Q&A

TODAY

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What issues are you facing?��Recruitment?�Retention?�Older/younger working together?�Motivating?�Anything else?

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Education context

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(In thousands)

2015 2020 2025

May 2022 – 1.3M

Nov 2025 – 729K

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Latest figures

10% quit after just one year of teaching

27% after three years

33% after five years

43% after ten years

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Teacher retention rates in England by years after qualifying

cohorts 2005 to 2023

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Numbers returning to teaching - England

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2025

2035

UK working age population by generation

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What is a generation?

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Generations

Approximately 15 to 20 years
Social construct to analyse change over time
Focus is ‘cohorts’ not ‘time of life’
Differences within generations much bigger than between
‘Western’ concept

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Who are the different generations?

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Generation Alpha	2013 – 2028	13 max

Years of Birth Current age

Silent Generation	1925 – 1945	81 – 100

Baby Boomers	1946 – 1964	62 – 80

Generation X	1965 – 1980	46 – 61

Millennials	1981 – 1996	30 – 45

Generation Z	1997 – 2012	14 – 29

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1965

1980

1997

2012

Gen X

Millennial

Gen Z

Years of birth for generations

Not different species
Not a guillotine.
Treat people as individuals
Groups of siblings you will see changes over time.
There will still be much more variety of outlook and personality within a generation than across them.

Let’s look at the most recent three. Again want to emphasise that I am talking about a construct here. No guillotine.

Everyone born within this period of time, as one example, is still homo sapien. We are not talking about different species here.

The end of one generation and the start of another is not a guillotine. If you and your siblings and cousins were born in the orange section during the late 70s and early 80s it is likely you had a much more common set of experiences than those at either end of a generation. It’s not as if the siblings born in 1978 and 1981 had entirely different childhoods.

I also recommend strongly that you treat people as individuals. Don’t lose sight of that. There may well be trends and common challenges, but stereotypes are not a good idea. There will still be much more variety of outlook and personality within a generation than across them.

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Key markers

Baby Boomer	Generation X
Post WW2 Moon landing Swinging sixties First TV Mass media develops Civil rights	End of cold war Big bang Dial up internet Handful of TV channels Workaholics Latch key kids
Millennial	Generation Z
9/11 Globalisation Social media Internet emergence Multiple TV channels Work smarter	Global Financial Crisis Automisation Broadband/streaming Gig/sharing economy Internet commercialised TV apps/YouTube

Key factors affect outlook. The oldest Gen Z grew up in an era where economic growth was slow, ‘age of austerity’
Also in an era where the initial impact of the pandemic was last in, first out.
Cost of property/rent and so on.
Climate change – where I know all I have spoken to are bewildered as to why there is still so much to do in resolving this issue.

I don’t want to create the idea that key events or technological advancements only affected one generation.

Who did these developments affect the most?

Certainly true for the pandemic. I don’t want to create the idea that everything just advances and advances because as we are aware fossil fuels run out, as can space.

Generation Z has inherited the world left to them from before. They have made their own sense of it and formed their own response.

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��Gen Z

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NEWSPAPER HEADLINES

GEN Z WORKERS ARE TERRIFYING BOSSES WITH WOKE DEMANDS, OTHERS ASSIGN TASKS TO THEIR BOSSES, AND DEMAND PAID TIME OFF FOR ‘ANXIETY’

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Need positive ones!

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The Gen Z job crisis is real: 1.2M recent grads in the U.K. competed for just 17,000 open roles

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UK Birth Rates 1995-2024

Oldest Gen Z

Young professionals

Secondary school population

Primary school population

GEN Z

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Key characteristics

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1. Pragmatic

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Generation Z pragmatism

75% of Generation Z want their own business
Approximately 400K Gen Z are running their own business
Concern about long-term prospects
Multiple streams of income out of necessity

https://www.hazlewoods.co.uk/insights/financial-planning/financial-planning-update-number-of-entrepeneurs-selling-their-businesses-increases-23-in-one-year-2/

This is what you are up against OR need to complement

That second point has gone up by over 40% in one year. Was 170000 a year ago.

1. Go through each point – I see these primarily as examples of pragmatism.

2. Don’t get to own your own property – may not get to move out and even have a house share either – or to save

3. So what can you have control over?

That top figure is growing rapidly - https://www.internationalaccountingbulletin.com/news/survey-shows-majority-of-gen-z-aspire-to-be-their-own-boss/ - double any other generation.

Potentially the trend is growing over the course of a generation, assisted by the pandemic. Let’s not forget, one issue from the pandemic is we saw some professions and trades were hit far more than others. The same applied to ‘casual’ employment or those who had not worked long enough in an organisation to have a greater level of employment rights. Those who could go online did so. Many could not.

It’s also about a necessity. My generation turned up for police ID parades, or volunteered for medical experiments

Some of these businesses might not work, or may not work well enough to pay a mortgage

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LinkedIn job titles

Actual titles used in 2012

Digital Overlord

Creator of Happiness

Retail Jedi

Wizard of Light Bulb Moments

Dream Alchemist

Chief Chatter

Change Magician

Accounting Ninja

Chief Biscuit Dunker

Direct Mail Demi-God

Generation X/Y

Agile Coach

Enable teams to achieve remarkable results

Inspiring leaders to discover their brilliance

Strategic thinker

I help…

Generation Z

Chief Executive Officer

Founder

Chief Finance Officer

Executive Director

Group Director

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2. Diligent

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Degree Classifications

	2009-10	2018-19	2023-24
First	14%	28%	29%
Upper Second	48%	48%	48%
Other	38%	23%	23%

This is with an increase (17%) across the decade too
Hard to read much into figures in the early 20s due to the pandemic, but in 2022 first class up further.
I could show you figures about how A level results have risen, even in the face of grade boundaries being raised. GCSE not so easy to compare as grading system changed.
The debt incurred from university is reason enough to get best value out of it. The same is true for a generation coming through with an uncertain economy and a much greater sense of international competition. They work hard.

This might be English universities, but the pattern is the same across the UK.

Even more first class degrees in 2022. Around two thirds of ‘other’ is lower second and the rest an even split between third and not passing.

In the mid-90s, when it was still Generation X who was graduating, the combined figure for first and upper second alone was less than 50% (around 48%).

I’ve used 2018-19 as the most recent year rather than the last two affected by the pandemic where the numbers of first class degrees went up a lot further to almost 40%.

In the mid 2000s, Millennials, it was in the mid fifties for a few years but over the course of the 2010s as Generation Z started to graduate it has been a very steep climb.

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2018 survey in USA

13-17 year olds

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3. Apprehensive

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GEN Z APPREHENSIONS

Reputation management from a young age

Less

happy

Impact

of social

media

Rise of

artificial

intelligence

Risk

averse

Digital,

asynchronous

communication

Fewer romantic relationships

Fewer

physical

workplaces

There are reasons why the Generation Z cameras have been the ones turned off on the call.

Not just reputation management, but also doing it without parental guidance as they didn’t know how.

This is not the selfie generation. (L.A. magazine source 25) narcissism is down, thinking of yourself as above average is down, life satisfaction is down. Gen Z has not just lived life through a screen, but through screens. They see more images of themselves and each other on camera, or through their icon images on social media than anyone else.

Only 52% of 19-21 happy according to a U.S. survey

Intellectual self-confidence is strong (two thirds judged they had higher than average), and much stronger than social confidence (half). My perception, is that there is a much weaker correlation between the two than used to be the case.

Checking a phone 100 times a day is not uncommon (source?) neither is leaving it by the bed. Online also a source of support.

Talking on the phone not so popular, although facetime is favoured more than other generations. For the friends you have that you will never meet, that’s pretty important.

I’m not going to equate mental health with social confidence but will show you figures in a second which I thought were really shocking.

Everything quantified and tracked - how many friends, how many people liked your picture, how many steps you took, how much sleep you got and its quality. The same can apply to how well you are doing at school, whether through online tools or the speed of turnaround from the nation’s teachers. Generation Z is very used to knowing exactly how well they are doing on a wide range of metrics all the time from a young age. Step count, sleep quality. There’s an implication for the workplace here too.

Risk averse - Gen Z has grown up in a world where, in theory, a lot of risk has been designed out of it as so many areas are designed by algorithms (created by humans). There’s an expectation that these things have been thought about, things should just work. Yet alongside that bad things like wars, a pandemic continue to happen. At face value thousands of young people starting their own business and calling themselves the Founder/CEO is entrepreneurial but there’s a dichotomy in doing so when living in an increasingly algorithmic society.

Difficult to avoid ex-friends on social media but also very easy to be cut out of a conversation. The whatsapp group you are not in and which may have existed for a long period of time, which turned out to be a sub group of the main group of friends. FOMO exists because there is so much more to Miss Out on, so many reminders that you have and so many opportunities for suspicion that you might have done.

Or the bittersweet digital reminders you get of friends or relationships you used to have. Automated badly placed nostalgia is not an issue Gen X had to deal with in their twenties.

There might be a rise in online dating, although I’m told it isn’t accompanied by everyone telling the truth, but it hasn’t meant a rise in romantic relationships. The pressure to display the relationship, and maintain that display, is not conducive to those relationships existing in the first place.

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This is from The Economist for USA, 13-17 year olds

Note the date, two years or more before the pandemic.

I don’t have the equivalent of 10 or 20 years before.

I’m sure we have all heard the phrase snowflake. I am not a fan. These are significant figures.

Well being and happiness are clearly valued, but attained less often.

Loneliness is a real issue. May have got worse through Covid but didn’t start with it. There is also an irony is having, in theory, access to everything and everyone yet with increasing degrees of isolation.

The mental health issue is real for this generation, and they have little time for employers who don’t take it seriously.

I also hope it is transitional and generational. I suspect the youngest Gen Zs and the generation below that (just started secondary) arrived in their smart phone years a lot more clued up and judicious about what they engage with. I don’t think we are stuck with this from now on.

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Anxiety diagnoses by age group and gender, UK

Women 18-24

Men 18-24

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Q&A

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Recruitment & Retention�Solutions

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1. Make it easy to apply

You are likely to get feedback whether you asked for it or not in this day and age, so you may as well ask!
You are more likely to be asked for some one to one time so be clear on boundaries for what you will offer.
It’s more than this though it is a sense that you want them to contribute to the overall success of the organisation, not just areas that are specific to their team or job description.
Get them involved in the bigger picture, and get them collaborating in doing so.
Be prepared to ask them questions where you might feel uncomfortable with the answers. Has their experience lived up to what you advertised?

Your employees may well have chosen to apply for you on the basis of your values and policies, and how you said it was run. There are benefits to asking them if their experience has lived up to what you advertised. If it hasn’t it may be a matter of perception or it may not. It may tell you something about your organisation and the people in it that you really needed to know. Just because they aren’t happy with everything does not mean they will instantly leave.

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That data has now evolved and we are seeing in some cases, increased application numbers of up to 150%, depending on location and role requirement.

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2. Be clear, be thorough

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Clarity & Detail

Job descriptions

Person specifications

Degree of flexibility

Workplace culture

Hours of work

Values of organisation

Video testimonials

How appraisal works

Benefits

Future opportunities

Training opportunities

This is why we do x,y,z

The purpose of the work is…

I’m talking primarily about recruitment to a school, rather than recruitment to the profession per se. It is a slightly different question.

Many angles here

1. Assume nothing. Avoid polish.

2. Go for maximum transparency

3. Be clear what you really want – you might have to compromise less than you think

4. Show you have thought things through – it gives the impression you are likely to survive when the next economic crisis/pandemic/constitutional crisis hits

5. Make sure your documentation is crystal clear and is what you really want in each component part.

6. If you need them to undertake tasks for which they may not be best suited or could be automated elsewhere, explain why.

7. Gen Z understands the need for efficiency, so if something on face value presents as inefficient be clear on the value you see it adds.

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3. Be who you say you are

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Do you anticipate leaving your current employer in the next 18 months?

Boomers 29%

Gen X 28%

Millennials 38%

Gen Z 50%

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Always. Be. Retaining.

Be ultra-clear – repeatedly – on who you are, your values and where you are going. ��Don’t just say it once when they join….��Keep saying it!

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What would your teachers say?

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4. Personal & Professional Development

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Personal (and professional) development

Ultra-detailed onboarding
Work etiquette
Potential imbalance between qualifications and soft skills
Give them the ‘real world’ skills you want them to have

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52% of Gen-Z professionals don’t want to be middle managers
72% Gen-Z would choose an individual route over managing others
69% of Gen-Z say middle management is too high stress, low reward
89% of employers still think that middle managers play a crucial role

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��Turning multigenerational workplace challenges �into strengths

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Context

The challenges of running any organisation are becoming ever more complex and difficult.
The pace of change required to meet these challenges continues to rise.
Age diversity can be an incredible asset in resolving the most significant problems.
A fully engaged multigenerational workforce is the best way of harnessing the power of any organisation.

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Percentage of 65+ who are employees in the UK

Feb 2001 – 4.6%

June 2025 – 12.7%

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1. Expectations & Values

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What must everyone have in common?

Shared goals?
Core values?
Non-negotiables?
Our mission?
This year’s priorities?

Keep the list small!

How many staff members could name your list?

In other words – determine what you want to be the same, but do it with your workforce

How meaningful is all this material on your company? To how many people? What are you for?

‘Integrity’ in huge white font on a black background.

Go quite hardline on this – the world of phones and social media has meant we communicate a lot more with our peers than others who may not share the same interests or see the world in the same way.

If you asked around your organisation about what were the main goals or core values – to what extent would you get the same answer?

Are there elements that you assume everyone understands and accepts but the reality is different? A team has to have common elements.

I would recommend opening this discussion up to everyone else – because if you want them to be committed to it they need to be involved in it. But I’m not saying turn it into a democracy either – you are in charge and there may be certain things that you want whatever anyone else says. But you will think carefully about them.

I am saying it is not OK to have everyone on different pages. Whether born 20, 40, 60 years ago there are some things that everyone must have in common.

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2. Collective responsibilities

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How many ways can the team meet?

11

57

247

In how many ways DO you meet?

1013

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Collective responsibilities of a workforce

Everyone should know their colleagues and seek to understand their perspective
Combine accumulated experiences
Learn and work together to solve problems

Senior leaders have to set the culture, model it and hold others to account.

How strong is the sense of collective responsibility in your workplace?

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Staff room ‘seating plans’
Age diverse project/problem-solving teams
Training sessions
Co-design social and informal spaces
Ongoing engagement activities

Opportunities

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3. Communication boundaries

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Communication breakdown

Gen Z	Millennial	Gen X
Sends WhatsApp message to team Expects immediate responses Wants real-time problem-solving Frustrated when older colleagues don't respond quickly Sends follow-up messages across multiple platforms	Checks email first and misses the WhatsApp notification Asks for a video call to ‘discuss it properly’ Overwhelmed by notifications across too many platforms Wants to be responsive but also structured.	Waits for a formal email or to discuss it face-to-face the next morning. Urgent matters need a phone call, not a text message WhatsApp notifications turned off. Wants written, and possibly printed, documentation before making decisions Dislikes multiple channels

The team is given a medium-sized task with a deadline of two days’ time. And then…

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Communication boundaries

Email

Whatsapp groups

Social media

Use of emojis

Formality (or not) of verbal language

Written language

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4. Innovate from the bottom up

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Innovation from the bottom up

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What is a generation?
Characteristics of Gen Z
Solutions for recruitment & retention
Multigenerational workplace challenges
Questions

TODAY

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www.alexatherton.com

alex@alexatherton.com

www.linkedin.com/in/alex-atherton/

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