Four Generations in the Workforce

Posted by Karl Kapp on July 25, 2007

Here is a great article titled Mixing and Managing Four Generations of Employees by Greg Hammill. It does a great job of explaining the tendencies of four different groups all currently working within organizations and all required to work together even though they have different outlooks, experiences and expectations. The groups are:

Veterans, Silent, Traditionalists (born between 1922 and 1945)
Baby Boomers (born between 1946-1964)
Generation X, Xers (born between 1965 and 1980)
Generation Y, Millennial, Echo Boomers, Gamers (born between 1981 and 2000)

There are a number of really great charts in the article and some interesting comments. Here is Hammill’s take on the core values of each group.

Veterans, Silent, Traditionalists—Respect for authority, Conformers, Discipline
Baby Boomers—Optimism, Involvement
Generation X, Xers—Skepticism, Fun, Informality
Generation Y, Millennial, Echo Boomers, Gamers–Realism, Confidence, Extreme Fun, Social

And here is how he sees each group dealing with money:

Veterans, Silent, Traditionalists—Put it away, Pay cash
Baby Boomers—Buy now, pay later.
Generation X, Xers—Cautious, Conservative, Save, save, save
Generation Y, Millennial, Echo Boomers, Gamers—Earn to spend.

So do you fit any of the categories? Is he “right on” or off-base?
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Leave a Comment (2) ↓

Natalie August 1, 2007

I feel that I do fit into the Categories for Generation X… and some of the Y characteristics apply to me as well except for maybe “Xtreme fun.’ When I think of “Extreme fun” the MTV outrageous stunt shows and Youtube antics come to mind.

BARTON July 25, 2007

I’m not sure I get the “realism” piece with the gamer generation. There’s a trend in games towards realism with each jump in hardware power, but gamers spend a lot of time in fabricated, fantasy worlds.

The “extreme fun” quote is somewhat comical. What seperates “fun” from the Gen X folks and “extreme fun” from the gamer folks? I’ve found more and more literature coming out on the “net generation”, which most of these characteristics seem to align with. I think this author just worded a few differerntly.