Workforce Intergenerational Challenges Facing HRD Professionals - Essay Example

Workforce Intergenerational Challenges Facing HRD Professionals Organizations and human resource development professional currently face a wide range of challenges attributed to demographic changes, age diversity in the workplace increased and technological revolution. Globalization has contributed to workplace diversity with multinational corporation now recruiting employees from the global job market to capitalize on the large pool of skills and talents. Such developments have triggered numerous challenges that require the attention from human resource development (HRD) professionals. Some of notable challenges facing the field of HDR include stiff competition in the global market, increased workforce diversity, the need to eliminate the skill gap associated with globalization, ethical issues and intergenerational issues in the workplace (Werner & DeSimone 2011). Intergenerational issues are perhaps some of the greatest challenges experienced by HRD professionals as organizations compete to recruit young innovative brains from the global job market. As business organizations increasingly compete in the global economy, many are introducing new technologies that require significant training and development of workers. Technological revolution has had significant implications on the attempts by HRD professionals to manage intergenerational needs in organizations. In order to emerge successful in the increasingly sophisticated market, companies have been compelled to hire highly qualified employees as well as providing knowledge and additional skills to match the changing market demands (McDonald 2008). Workforce diversity challenges require organizations to go beyond skill improvement to empowerment of employees to accommodate intergenerational differences in the workforce. HRD professionals in companies operating in developing countries from the developed countries face the challenge of dealing with skill gap associated with such nations. Workforce diversity has had significant implications for the HRD professionals including the need to address racial, ethnic, as well as cultural insensitivity and language differences (Reid, Barrington & Brown 2004). Buttressing the primary purpose of this study is the imminent workforce heterogeneity challenges facing HRD professionals amidst the increasing changes in the global environment. This essay entails identification of the various workforce intergenerational challenges facing HRD professional in different organizations. Age Diversity problems Age diversity in the workplace poses one of the greatest intergenerational challenges facing HRD professions in most organizations. The increased age diversity in workplace is attributed to demographic changes, efforts to shorten the time spend in education, and changes in the retirement age (Beardwell, Holden, Claydon 2004). Future expectations in workplace diversity have compelled HRD professions to focus on strategies capable of achieving successful age diversity management in organizations in order to meet the changing demands in the global job market. According to Boppel (2010), some scholars have associated workforce age diversity with negative implication on the performance of organization on the basis of basis of social identity and self-categorization theory, inequality and the similarity paradigm. However, effective diversity management has been associated with positive effects on the organizations’ efficiency and effectiveness thereby leaving the challenge to HRD professionals to devise strategic ways of managing all forms of workforce diversity. Changes in different governments’ workplace policies have left HRD professional with the challenge to strategically adopt their organizations to such changes in order to remain competitive within environments affected by such changes. Countries facing the problem of aging populations have embarked on strategies of controlling labor shortages including raising retirement age to allow aged people to work for more years. Increasing of retirement age results in serious implications on the workforce age range and consequent challenges in managing the age diversity. The shortening of education duration in some countries like German further worsens the problems associated with workforce age diversity in such countries (Boppel 2010). Workforce age diversity results in the problem of interpersonal boundaries formation within the workforce which contributes to the negative implications of diversity in the workplace (Giles, Hajek, Stoitsova & Choi 2010). In this case, HRD professionals are faced with challenge of squashing such boundaries to create unity in the workforce as a catalyst to workforce efficiency and effectiveness. In most organizations, employees are categorized as either in the early, middle or late career stages with the different stages presenting various benefits and challenges to the organization. Owing to the growing need for highly innovative employees to help meet the needs of the highly dynamic global market, organizations have staged stiff competition for early career stage employees considered to be more creative and innovative (McGuire, Todnem & Hutchings 2007). On the other hand, middle to late career stage employees are considered to be more royal and reliable in addition to having networks of professional colleagues and clients, experience, strong work ethics and significant turnover rates. Owing to the important workforce traits associated with the different career stages and age of employees, HRD professionals have faced the challenge of trying to balance the different groups’ values in order to promote continuity in the performance of the organizations (Gibb 2007). These groups pose generational differences which may hinder the cooperation and ability to foster teamwork in the workforce hence the need for HRD professional to establish proper control mechanisms to avert the impact of such differences (Ware, Craft & Kerschenbaum 2007). Such challenges are exuberated by perceptions and stereotypes of different generations among the HRD professionals, a problem must be addressed among them in order to achieve successful management of intergenerational workforces. Communication and Transfer of Knowledge Challenges Training and development of employees involves communication and transfer of knowledge and skills from the older workers to the newly recruited workers and vice verse. The process greatly depends on effective communication and exchange of knowledge and skills from the employees in their late career stages to the early career stage in the workforce (Joshi, Dencker, Franz & Martocchio 2010). However, the generational or age diversity impacts negatively on the human resource development process if such diversity issues are not well managed in the workforce. In this case, HRD professionals are expected to develop strategies capable of encouraging free flow of information and exchange of knowledge between the two generations in order to foster efficiency and effectiveness in the organizational workforce. HRD professionals are expected to know the workplace abilities of the different groups and focus on assigning employees workplace role according to their qualification and skills to avoid work-related stress, and integration of employees into semi-permanent project teams (Bell 2008). The professionals are also required to establish strategies for improving the exchange of experience and intergenerational communication in the organizations. They are particularly faced with challenge of eliminating intergenerational and interpersonal boundaries bound to emerge in workforces characterized by increased intergenerational diversity issues. Since young employees are considered to be highly creative and innovative, HRD professionals are faced with change of creating a free environment where the young employees can share their creative ideas and innovations with the elderly employees (Crumpacker & Crumpacker 2007). This opens opportunities for the workforce to be able to work together to meeting the changing customer demands in the market. Owing to the labor problems faced in organizations locate in area experiencing increased demographic changes such as increased age populations, HRD professions are expected to make strategic use of professional competence of the elderly staff, facilitate the informal transfer of knowledge, and to improve inter-generational communication. According to Venneberg and Versole (2010), some organization have attempted to separate generations from working together on different tasks, but with 78 percent of such organization reporting failure of the approach to elicit desired results. The Challenge of Baby boomers HRD professional in most developed economies continue to experience the problem of baby-boomers which significantly impact negatively on their human resource development roles. This problem has particularly contributed to significant conflicts between them and the early-middle career stage employees dubbed the Millennials (Gavatorta 2012). The baby boomer phenomenon has particularly thwarted efforts by HRD professional to promote sustainable human resource development and continuity in the advancement of the workforce efficiency and effectiveness. Employees in the millennial group have the problem of independence grounded in self-promotion which in turn undermines effectiveness of the employees’ development strategies in organizations. HRD professions face the problem of early career stage employees associated with believe in taking risks or gambling with their careers (Bell 2008). In this case, HRD professionals face the challenge of deterring the early retirement behavior in the workplace. This can be easily achieved through devotion of significant time to help the young generation to change its beliefs through citing of potential problem that may result due to such mindsets including poor interaction with the experienced elderly colleagues in the workforce. Therefore, HRD professionals require significant focus on initiating strategies aimed at influencing the poor mindsets of young employees in order to limit turnover rates and the baby boomer phenomenon. Differences in Generation Values HRD professionals face a great challenge in managing the differences in the intergenerational workforces. Every generation brings different values in the workplace introducing the challenge of balancing such values to achieve harmony in the workforce. One of the clear differences in values within the workforce revolves the ability to balance work and family. Owing to the experiences of baby boomers in hard economic times, they have emerges better placed to balance job and work compared to the millennia generation employees (Gavatorta 2012). HRD professionals are faced with the challenge of managing such differences especially the new generation which has to move in and out of the workplace to attend to family issues. Despite this generation having positive values in the workplace such as hard work and aggressiveness, they present various challenges including the need to be continually stimulated at their jobs and their feelings and opinions should count. In addition, the young generation shows no reservations towards job change and great dependency on handheld devices. Elderly workers face significant challenges in trying to adapt to the demands of the new generations. Consequently, HRD professionals continued to face the challenge of meeting the different demands of the new generation as well as helping them adapt their values to the existing organizational values and culture (Ramsey 2011). Owing to such challenges, organizations expect HRD professionals to establish strategic mechanisms capable of reconciling their values and demands with those of the organization. Current workplaces face conflicting voices, learning styles, views which require special attention from the HRD professionals in order to promote successful intergenerational workforces. Different generations have diverse views on what qualifies an attractive working environments and the concept of teamwork. Intergenerational Attitude towards Technology The greatest challenge faced by organizations in embracing current technological advancements revolves around attitudinal issues associated with increased generational workforce diversity. Different studies have revealed a strong relationship between generations and attitude towards new technology. The older generation shows limited positive attitude towards introduction of new technology in the workplace and higher new technology anxiety (Crumpacker & Crumpacker 2007). With current technological advancements in the global markets, HRD professionals are faced with challenge of influencing the attitude of the order generation towards technology in order to promote positive technological embracement in the working environment. Increase in the retirement age in some countries has exasperated the challenge in introducing new technology as increased number of order people continue to account for a significant portion of the workforce. However, the recruitment of baby boomers back to the workforce in some countries facing significant demographic changes present limited need for training owing to their previous exposure to technological dependency in the workforce (McGuire, Todnem, & Hutchings 2007). On the other hand, despite the positive attitude towards technology among the new generations, they pose another great to HRD professionals and organizations due to their overdependence on handheld devices and other forms of technology to execute their duties. The continuing increase in the number of millennial generation employees in organization’s workforce exerts significant pressure on the organization on moving with the current rapid technological advancement. The increasing number of the new generation workers and the retirement of baby boomers pose a great challenge to HRD professional due to expected technological and training demands. On the other hand, replacement of the baby boomer managers with the millennial managers provides another challenge for HRD professions as such managers find no offence in frequent changing of employees. Such changes are driven by the need to get employees on board who can share their ideas and provide them with humble opportunities for growth and development. Nevertheless, the frequent changes of employees and high turnout rates present HRD professional with challenge of developing workers capable of meeting the demands of the millennial managers. Organizations are compelled to allocate increased resources in developing newly recruited employees as the previously trained ones exit the workforce (Harrison 2002). Conclusion The current dynamism in the working environment associated with demographic changes, age diversity, and reduction of the education duration and increase in retirement age in some countries present increased intergenerational challenges to HRD professionals. Age diversity in the workforce ushers in conflicting demands among workers as well as establishment of generational boundaries in the workforce. The intergenerational phenomenon further triggers other challenges as ineffective intergenerational communication and difficulties in the transfer of knowledge which require the attention of HRD professionals in different organizations. HRD professional also face significant challenges in dealing with the baby boomer beliefs that result in many retiring before the stipulated retirement age in the development nations. HRD professionals further face the challenge posed by different values brought into the workforce by the different generation groups’ values in the workforce. These professionals have a great challenge in try to balance such values with those of the organization and the culture. Amid the technological advancement around the globe, HRD professionals and organizations face problems associated with intergenerational attitude towards technology. Finally, dependence on handheld devices and other technological tools among the new generations in the workforce exert significant workforce pressure on the organizations and the HRD professionals. References Beardwell, I, Holden, L, Claydon, T 2004, Human resource management a contemporary approach (4ed), Pearson Education. Harlow. Bell, E 2008, Multigenerational workplace performance: generational similarities and differences in employee perception of the work environment, ProQuest, London. Boppel, M 2010, From grey to silver: managing the demographic change successfully, Springer, London. Crumpacker, M & Crumpacker, J 2007, ‘Succession planning and generational stereotypes: should HR consider age-based values and attitudes a relevant factor or a passing fad?’ Public Personnel Management, Vol. 36, no.4, pp. 349-369. Gavatorta, S 2012, ‘It’s a millennial thing’, T+D, Vol. 66, no. 3, pp. 58-65. Gibb 2007, Learning and development processes practices and perspectives at work, (2nd ed), Palgrave Macmillan, London. Giles, H, Hajek, C, Stoitsova, T & Choi, C 2010, ‘Intergenerational communication satisfaction and age boundaries in Bulgaria and the United States’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, Vol. 25, no.2, pp. 133-147. Harrison, R 2002, Learning and development (3e), CIPD, London. Joshi, A, Dencker, J, Franz, G & Martocchio, J 2010, ‘Unpacking generational identities in organizations’, Academic of Management Review, Vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 392-414. McDonald, P 2008, ‘ The multi generational workforce’, Internal Auditor, Vol. 65, no. 5, pp. 60- 67. McGuire, D, Todnem, R & Hutchings, K 2007 ‘Towards a model of human resource solutions for achieving intergenerational interaction in organizations’ Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol 31 no.8, pp. 592-608. 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