Bridging
the
Workforce
Gap
by brooke chesnut
The demographics of today’s workforce are
changing rapidly. What happened in May 2015
was historic: for the first time in history the
population of the Baby Boomer generation was
surpassed by the population of the Millennial
generation not only in the workforce but in society as well.
What does this mean for the future of our
workforce and how will the other generations
adapt to this changing demographic? Right now
there is a new phenomenon taking shape in the
workplace: there is a reverse accumulation of
knowledge; that is younger Millennial workers
entering the workforce have more knowledge
about how things work in business than the generations before them. 1 The opportunities for these
new workers entering the
workforce are enormous.
Brooke Chesnut will be presenting
multiple presentations at the 2016
Education Conference.
generations in technology and relationship skills
have a great opportunity to build cohesive teams
within their labor force. The challenge is, how does
leadership get these two generations to share their
respective knowledge base and help each generation
improve upon their unrefined skills?
The challenge can be daunting because of the
communication conflict and disrespect between
these two generations. The senior level workers
believe the Millennials are entitled and “haven’t
paid their dues”, while
the Millennials believe
the seasoned workers are
outdated, technology
challenged and too slow.
The result is a “GAP”
that grows like a glacial
crevasse dividing these
generations and swallowing all the productivity from your workforce.
Now is the time to invest in a company wide
program to leverage
these important generational skillsets, including
the leadership to embrace the program and
bridge the “GAP.”
“Younger employees not
only
understand
technology, they have been
providing their parents
with technical aptitude
while growing up... They
are the most educated and
tech savvy generation
ever.”
Remember, these
younger employees not
only understand technology, they have been providing their parents with
technical aptitude while
growing up. Without
question they are the m