There is a paradigm shift in office management as Boomers retire from the workforce and the large cohort known as Millennials moves in.
Gen-X remains the generation of managers, many having grown up as latchkey, self-reliant kids who ran households while mom worked, but Boomers and Millennials are finding ways to adapt to one another around them, many of those people in their 20’s and 30’s taking over the corner office and calling the shots. “Obviously the staff person has to be somewhat deferential,” says business adviser and author Fred Parrish of the changing guard.
In the recent movie “The Intern,” starring Robert DeNiro as a former business executive interning for entrepreneur Anne Hathaway, he is asked in his first interview where he imagines himself in ten years. “When I’m 80?” he asks.
“It is incumbent on both parties to be respectful, to tap into the strengths of the other person,” says Parrish. Millennials bring a natural ease with technologies that change rapidly, Gen X an ease with management, Baby Boomers a work ethic and sense of loyalty that hasn’t returned. Combined and coordinated, it’s a powerful workforce.