So How to Motivate a Multi-Generational Workforce. This is the third topic in the 2022 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate Webinar Series. I'm Greg Brannan from Deer Oaks. Good to be with you today. For those of you that are familiar with this series, if you take part in all four of the topics we were offering this year-- again, one per quarter. For those of you that are joining today for the first time in this series this year, back on March 28, we offered How to Hire the Right Employees.

On June 26, we offered Creating a Culture of Improved Employee Engagement, and then today, of course, we're talking about how to motivate a multi-Generational work team. And then coming up in November, we'll be talking about advanced coaching skills for leaders. And how the leadership certificate program works is if you attend all four sessions within this calendar year, whether in person or by viewing the recording-- so if you did miss either the first two topics, you can simply request us to send you the recording link to the How to Hire the Right Employees session from back in March, or the Creating a Culture of Improved Employee Engagement session back in June, we're happy to send those to you.

You request those links by hitting Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today, and our staff will just let them that you want to receive the recording link for one or both of those sessions. We'd be happy to send it to you. And then when you view the recording, you'll get credit for it. And then if you have not registered yet for the last session coming up in November, the Advanced Coaching Skills for Leaders-- that's on November 11-- you can also hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today and ask our staff to send you the registration link for November 11, and we'd be happy to.

Because, again, if you, during this calendar year, either view the live version or the recorded version of each of those four topics, you will receive at the end of this calendar year the 2022 Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate. And we have actually had hundreds and hundreds of people that have received it over the years, and so we've really been enjoying providing that resource. So, again, if you need our assistance with getting in touch with some of the past sessions or registering for a future session, again, just ask for that list or those links or to be able to register when you hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today.

All right, so for today's session, folks, I want to make sure our technology is working for us. We've got a really nice turnout. And so, again, we're talking about how to motivate a multi-generational workforce. So if you can please locate the Raise Hand icon in the GoToWebinar software in the upper right-hand corner of your screen, and if you can see my slides clearly and hear my voice clearly, could you please click on the Raise Hand icon now?

That's great, folks. Looks like we're good to go, technology-wise. I also want to remind you that during these educational programs provided by Deer Oaks, participants or in listen-only mode, which means, of course, you won't be able to audibly ask questions during the formal part of the presentation, which really should last today somewhere around 30 to 35 minutes, give or take. But your questions are important to me, so when we get to the end of the formal part of the presentation, I will open it up for question. And at that point in time, please feel free to type any questions you have into the question box in the GoToWebinar software, in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

And so I'm looking forward to that Q&A session here coming up shortly. Let's go ahead and get started, folks. I've got three objectives for our time together on the broadcast. First, I want to help all of us to better understand the differences between the five uniquely different generations that are currently in the American workforce. And for much of history, we've had four generations, but right now, because the oldest generation is living longer and we now have the Gen Z generation-- we've got about five years' worth of the Gen Z generation that have entered the workforce over the last several years-- we now have five distinctly different generations that are working together in the American workforce.

And, obviously, everyone who grows up in a different time period is going to see the world a little bit differently. We're going to be influenced by what's going on culturally during the times that we're growing up, by our peer group, by the current technology, current ways of doing things, and so I think it's really important for us to get along well with everyone in the workplace to really understand those differences so that we can be sensitive to those intergenerational differences and be able to still communicate and get along effectively with people from every generation.

And for those of you that are supervisors, because this is a leadership certificate program-- I'm guessing most of you are-- I want us to have a better understanding of, how do we motivate people from different generations? Again, people who grew up in different time periods have different motivators. Again, they'll think sometimes differently. They'll have different influences and different things that are important to them, different values, and so I really want us to come away today really understanding how to motivate people that are growing up in these different time periods.

And then last but not least, that middle bullet, as I want to talk about strategies for communicating more effectively when you're dealing with someone or interacting with someone that grew up in a different time period, because that's obviously important to being on the same page and working effectively together. All right, let me start with an overview of the five generations. And, folks, I always try to caveat this by saying, I'm going to share some generalities. Now, as we all, every individual, regardless of what time period they grew up, in is unique, right? Every one of us is unique.

You'll have people that grew up in one time period that have characteristics of another time period because they were influenced in that direction. And the reason I'm caveating is I want to give you just a demographic overview of some of the characteristics and some of the values of people who grew up in these five different generations, just to sensitize or resensitize all of us to being more understanding when you're interacting with someone that grew up in that time period. Not to say that everyone is always this way.

Again, I don't want to overgeneralize, but I do want to help us understand in general why people who grew up in different time periods think and maybe behave and are motivated in certain ways based on the time period they grew up in. So the traditionalist generation, they were also called the veteran generation. These are folks born between 1928 and 1945. There are still people right now in their late 70s or early 80s or early to mid-80s that are still in the workforce. People are living longer, as I mentioned at the outset today. So you may be working alongside someone that's an older worker and that grew up in this time period.

And defining moments for these individuals was obviously World War II, which took place in the early 1940s. And then as we got into the late '40s and the 1950s and 1960s, we had the threat communism spreading throughout the world, in different places, that had an impact on people culturally. Characteristics. I think most of us recognize who have parents or grandparents from this generation or know people from this generation, these individuals tended to be very stable. Many of them worked for maybe one or two or maybe three organizations their entire career. It was not unusual for someone to get a job as they became an adult and work for that organization their entire lifetime back then and then retire from that organization with a pension.

That was the way the world really was. It was more that way back then. Nowadays, of course, people change jobs a lot more frequently than they did back then. But as a result, people who grew up in that time period end up being people that are stale-- excuse me-- that are stable, that are loyal, that can be set in their ways, right? That maybe may resist change a little bit. Now, no one is really comfortable with a lot of change, right? Change is hard for everybody, but this generation could potentially, based on the fact that there wasn't as much change when they were growing up, have a little bit more difficulty adjusting to change.

I know my mother is from this generation. She's 82. So she was born in 1940. And so I recognize a lot of the characteristics in my mom. She worked for the same organization for over 20 years, got a pension, state agency, and just very stable, but she's also-- she wouldn't mind my sharing-- very set in her ways. She likes doing things the way she does things and does sometimes struggle a little bit adjusting to new things.

Now, she also has done a great job getting with new technology. She's a she's quite a texter, which I think is great. And so she actually probably texts more often than I do. But just to kind of have us thinking about why people who grew up in this generation may be less excited about changes or maybe are more loyal than you might see nowadays-- because nowadays, as you might know, the millennial generation-- not to pick on the millennial generation. It's a very highly educated, very talented generation. Actually has more advanced degrees coming out of that generation than any other generation in American history. Very well-educated, very bright people who really can make a difference in the workplace.

That generation just demographically changes jobs every 3 and 1/2 years, just on average. And that's not the same for everybody, right? Some people from that generation stay in the same job for a long time. But just the contrast where you might've had the average length of tenure in an organization from the traditionalist generation as 20 years, now you've got, with the millennial generation, as 3 and 1/2. And so just to show you the differences in people growing up in those two different time periods in terms of how long they typically stay in one particular job, and we'll talk more about the millennial generation here in a minute.

Now, some of the things that traditionalists, the veteran generation, value, there's a high respect for authority. Even if you don't agree with the person in the position, there's traditionally a really high respect for the office. Back in those days, there was a lot less in the media, a lot less negativity in the media towards people in leadership. There were certainly stories that were written, and if leaders were doing things that were not popular or were not the right things to be doing, certainly the media would try to cover that and make the world aware of that. But it wasn't the same process as today. It was once in a while, you would read a story about someone in leadership, a criticism of someone in leadership or those kinds of things.

Because, really, the old-school thought about that is that you have to respect the office. I remember growing up-- my parents being from this generation and me being a baby boomer from the next generation I'll talk about-- they I was taught to respect the office. It was respect your teacher, respect the police officer, respect your boss. And even if you personally didn't like some of their decisions or you didn't like how they were doing things, I was taught respect the office because they're in that office. And in a civilized society, you need to respect the office and the hierarchy of that office.

And, again, that was a value from back in those days. And so now this group also wants respect. You may meet some folks that are in their late 70s or early to mid-80s who don't want to be called by their first name. They may still want to be referred to as Mr. or Mrs. or Ms, and so we have to be aware of that. I remember when I was growing up in the neighborhood-- and I grew up in a suburb of Buffalo, New York-- I didn't call any of my neighbor's kids. And we had a typical suburb, with a lot of kids, a lot of homes. And I didn't call any of the parents of the children that I played with growing up in my neighborhood by their first name. That was something you didn't do.

And nowadays, those things have loosened up a little bit, and there's more informality in that. But, again, that was a traditional way of handling things back then, and it is respectful towards that generation's desire for respect. And so if you're working with an older colleague, make sure that you're not discounting them because they're older-- remember, they've got a lot of experience and can share a lot of life knowledge with all of us-- and to make sure that we're being respectful towards them and including them, making them feel an important part of things. And so we'll talk more about that here in a moment.

And then baby boomers is my generation, born between 1946 and 1964. And I'm on the early end of this, so I'm a younger baby boomer. The defining moments for my generation was the Vietnam War. I grew up with the Vietnam War on TV every night. And I grew up in the 1960s. And then into the '70s, I was in high school, or middle school and high school, and every single day of my life, from as long as I can remember, the Vietnam War was on TV at night on the 6 o'clock news.

And so I almost had the assumption that I was going to grow up and go to war because I watched that happening with the older kids in the neighborhood. They would grow up and go off to Vietnam, because that conflict went on for a long time, right? And it really kind of covered my life span. I was born right around the time the Vietnam War was starting, and it really did have a profound impact on-- I thought I was going to grow up and go to war, and I was fearing that. I remember sitting in elementary school thinking, well, I guess in another seven or eight years, I'm going to go to war, not knowing any different because that was the world that I grew up in.

Now, other things that were more positive, growing up in that time period-- space exploration. I remember the excitement of my neighborhood when Neil Armstrong took his initial steps on the moon back in 1969. It was a huge deal in the world back then. Obviously, the civil rights movement was really getting up to speed in the 1960s, and that was something that had a big influence on us back then. Characteristics for my generation-- very ambitious.

Now, one of the changes in society and in the world of work back then was, when the traditionalist generation was coming up back in the 1940s and '50s, there were a lot of factories, a lot of manufacturing. We didn't have the technology base and the service base that the world has now where there's more job options, but when I was growing up-- and I graduated from high school in the late '70s and then went into the workplace in the '80s-- there were a lot more opportunities for people in the services and technology sector than were ever around when my parents were growing up.

Entrepreneurism. People were always somewhat entrepreneurial. You had people starting their own businesses 70 years ago, but there weren't as many opportunities. My generation ended up having a lot of opportunities. Some were entrepreneurs starting their own businesses. People were really, really becoming more and more ambitious. And along with that came a desire for more things.

I remember when I was growing up, we had one car. We lived in a tract home in a suburb and had one car. And I remember my mother got a second car when I was 10 years old. I was like, wow, this is huge. But when I was growing up, everyone had a car, right? And we were thinking a lot more of wanting to climb the corporate ladder and wanting to get ahead financially and materially. At least, I was a lot more oriented to that and my peers were than my parents were and my grandparents before me, where the world was a little different, and there weren't as many options.

But I do see that with my baby boomer contemporaries. We're still an ambitious group. I still have a lot of work left in me, and I'm still very interested in doing well and achieving. And that's sort of wired into me from growing up in that time period. Our values, we also like stability and structure because we grew up in a world where there was more stability. Huge on hard work. The best thing my wife can say to me is, thank you for working so hard for our family. That motivates the heck out of me, is when she recognizes how hard I'm working.

Because a good work ethic was a really important part of both the traditionalist generation and the baby boomer generation. And I still, to this day, love recognition. I love it. I just it keeps me going. I love that. And I'm working in a great environment at Deer Oaks that provides a lot of positive feedback and recognition for us, and so it's a great environment for me to work in.

Next is Gen X, or Generation X, born between 1965 and 1979. As most of you know, one of the defining moments of this generation really is the explosion of information technology. This is the first generation that grew up, really, on technology. I get my first computer until I was in my mid-20s, and this group, this generation, really grew up on computers. The internet really took off in the 1990s, the mid- to late 1990s when this group was really moving forward and growing up. And as a result, they're very technology-oriented, very entrepreneurial.

Now, this is a very independent group. There's something I wanted to share that was happening socially. Back when I was growing up in the 1960s, divorce was not very prevalent yet in America. I think the divorce rate in 1960 was somewhere around 15%. But through some changes in law and through the evolution of society and how people started to make decisions differently, the baby boomer generation, the divorce rate increased a lot, increased almost 50%, back then, and a lot of the Gen Xers grew up in single-family homes, which did not exist very much when I was growing up.

When I grew up, most of the kids in the neighborhood, myself included-- my mom didn't work-- they were one-parent homes. I'm sorry. They were one-working-parent homes. We had one working parent, one parent at home with the kids. At least that was the majority back in those days in my area and in a lot of areas back in those years. But as the divorce rate increased, there were more and more two-income families that were in the workplace, where both spouses were working. Or if there was divorce, out of necessity, both parties had to work.

And there became the phenomena of what was called latchkey kids. You might remember that term. This generation was really the first to experience that in a significant way in terms of numbers, where they had to come home at the end of the day to an empty house because both parents were working or, if it was a single-parent home, the mom was working. My parents divorced when I was 12, and so I became a latchkey kid. I kind of fall between the younger baby boomer and the older Gen Xers.

So I came home to an empty home all through high school, and so I can totally relate to this, becoming very independent. Because when you're coming home to an empty home and you're fending for yourself, it causes you to be more independent, right? You've got to take care of yourself. And sometimes you assist with your younger siblings, which was something that I had to do as well.

But that was more prevalent in this generation, and so, as a result, a lot of these folks grew up to be very independent, which is a strength. Very independent adults that really like to have a lot of choices, like to have flexible schedules. This is the generation that really advocated for work/life balance, that telework could be a reality. I'm very grateful because I've been working remotely since 2009 after having a really long commute for a long time in my career. I love working at home, and I a lot of you during the pandemic, transition to working at home or in some sort of a hybrid situation where you're working part of the time at home.

Well, the Gen Xers were the ones that really advocated for more telework, for more work/life balance, more flexible schedules, and so better benefits. And so I'm grateful to my brothers and sisters from Generation X because they really created a better lifestyle for many of us in the workplace. Next, we've got the millennial generation, born between 1980 and 1995. My daughter, who's 35 now, my adult daughter, she's a millennial. And so I've been living with her. She moved back in with us last year.

She went through a divorce, so she and my grandkids moved in with us. And so I've been living with her again now for a while and really seeing the impact that her generation has had on her and how she thinks and what motivates her, which has been really interesting. And now I've got my grandkids coming up behind her. And yet another generation. But the defining moments of this generation obviously was the growth of the internet, the explosion of the internet.

But global terrorism, right? September 11th had a profound effect. My daughter still talks about that. That was earthshaking for her and for her contemporaries. And that made the world feel less safe, right? Because of that. I think we can all relate to that. But it particularly had an impact on those folks because they were young when that happened.

Characteristics. Obviously, these folks are known as digital natives, and that's a term that people refer to people who grew up online, that are really tech-savvy. And so most of the millennial generation is pretty tech-savvy, right? Because they grew up with technology. Very collaborative. Being online and having access to the internet most of their lives, they're more global-thinking, more connected.

And many of them, to their credit, really embrace diversity, which I really admire, because they really are used to being part of a global world. Very good at multitasking. My daughter can be online-- I would see this when she was a teenager. She'd be online, texting with somebody or IMing with somebody, if you remember that, when that was real popular back in the day and doing a paper, a Microsoft Word for school and being on her cell phone, talking to somebody else. Because that's the world that generation grew up in. And people utilize what they have access to.

Now, one of the things I wanted to share is I want to remind us that everything we're talking about today is just to sensitize us to some of the general values of each generation or characteristics of each generation. But everyone's different. Every individual within these generations are different. And nothing's better or worse. It's just different, and just for us to better understand people that we're working with that might be from this generation or the other generations. And so just be thinking about that.

Now, some of the things that have come out about this generation is maybe they can be, at times, less patient and less loyal, because, again, they don't, statistically, on average, this generation doesn't stay as long in jobs as previous generations. But, folks, let's be fair about that. There's a lot more choices now. When I was growing up, just to give you an example-- and you're talking about my first job out of college in the 1980s, right-- there weren't a lot of options for jobs. If you want to know where the job opportunities were, most of us were waiting for the Sunday classified, the Sunday paper to come out every Sunday with the classified ads where the potential employers were advertising their positions.

Of course, nowadays and throughout the lifetime of the millennials, they can go online 24/7 and look at and see job postings, right? Multiple job postings. So they have a lot more opportunity. I have to believe that if folks in the traditionalist generation grew up now, they would be like-minded. They would take advantage of all the opportunities and move around a little bit more frequently.

So, again, we end up responding to the environment that we grow up in. And so it's not that this group is a little bit less patient. It's that they've got more opportunities. They don't have to wait. If they're not happy where they are in the present, they can just go online tonight and find, usually, many other potential opportunities. Values, though, they have some great values. A highly educated generation, like I mentioned. Really desires to learn and grow, really looks for opportunities to learn and grow, want new opportunities but really want quality.

They want a good working environment. They're very team-oriented. Again, some of that's coming from growing up online and being part of a global world and being connected with others more readily, 24/7. And so we'll come back. We'll circle / and If you're managing people from this generation, as most of you probably are, if you're a manager, we'll come back and talk a little bit more how to motivate this group.

And then last but not least, I just want to remind all of us that the youngest generation in the workforce now is Generation Z, born from 1996 to present. There will be another generation that's going to be identified underneath that. I think it's already started to happen. I just haven't focused on it yet because they're not in the workplace yet. But right now, we've got Generation Z folks that are somewhere in the area of early to mid-20s that are in the workforce now.

Now, this group is a little different from millennials. Some people I've talked to try to lump millennials and Gen Z generation folks in the same category, but there's differences. This generation actually needs even more immediate access to services and information and feedback than the millennial group. Think about it. Millennials we're growing up, and when they were renting movies, they had to go to Blockbuster and rent a video, right?

Where most of the folks in Generation Z, their entire lives, have never gone to Blockbuster. Or, at least, they haven't since they were a kid when their parents went and did it. And when they want something, they can stream it. I'm blown away by the entertainment options now on Roku online or on any of the streaming services, right? It just blows me away. Because even before, I was watching movies before VCRs, right? If you member of VCRs, right?

And so it amazes me that I can flip on my Roku on my TV, my smart TV, and I can, within 60 seconds, be choosing between dozens and dozens and dozens of entertainment options. It just blows me away. Well, this group grew up with that instantaneous access to information, and as a result, they want information right away. And so very tech-savvy. Again, digital natives, grew up with technology, but a need for immediacy. A lot of feedback, a lot of access to information and services.

And also, to their credit, very accepting of diversity. One of the things I love about the younger generations, because they grew up online, really accepting of interpersonal differences because they're used to being part of a global world. And I love that. I love that about those two generations. Some of their values, they absolutely want to have meaningful work.

This group has already been identified as very intolerant of rotework. So if you're supervising one of these folks, you don't want to be giving them a lot of rote assignments that don't have much meaning. They may not stay around very long, right? Because if they're bored, or they don't feel challenged, or they don't feel like the work has any meaning, they'll probably be looking around for another option pretty quickly.

All right, folks, so just a couple of different things around potential areas of misunderstanding and conflict. Again, this is high-level. This is general. just to sensitize or resensitize us to the differences. So in terms of approach to authority, you could have-- I remember sitting in a room with people from three different generations. I'm pretty sure. I think I was the lone baby boomer in the room. There were several folks from Gen X that were in their 40s and 50s. At that point, it was probably early 50s, mid- to late 40s And then there were a few folks from the millennial generation that were probably in their late 20s or 30s.

It was really interesting. They were talking about authority. And the younger folks were really bashing authority. And I'm not being critical about this. Just an observation of how different people handle things differently. Really being very vocal about not liking the people in authority. And then you had the people that were the older folks that were in that room, and they were looking kind of uncomfortable.

When I was growing up, we didn't just kind of sit in a room and really-- we respected the office even if we didn't like the person. So you had some discomfort there between the generations. I remember seeing that and just recognizing that it's just a difference. Again, it's not better or worse. Nowadays, you can go online 24/7, right? And as you're scrolling through different things, social media, different websites, you can find tons of information that is criticizing people in leadership.

And that just wasn't done that much, or at least as often, 40, 50 years ago. And so it's just a different level of comfort. So some people who grew up years ago sometimes are not as comfortable with that, where people who grew up in the younger generations, now, this is kind of the world. It's the way the world is. It's just a different way of doing things.

And people have to, instead of judging each other, saying, you're not doing it wrong, or, you're not doing it right, just understand, OK, this is what you're comfortable with because this is what you grew up with. This is what I'm comfortable with because this is what I grew up with. Also, use of negative language in public is another potential difference that I know some of you can resonate with, right?

I distinctly remember being in a supermarket growing up-- and I was probably, who knows, 9 or 10 years old. I remember being with my mom and my brother and in the grocery store, right? And I remember someone yelled a curse word. And it was one of the big ones, right? And that just didn't happen very much back then. And so it was like the whole store stopped, and everyone stopped to find out who said that. My mother was trying to cover our ears. And it was interesting because that didn't happen very often back then. It was kind of an expectation that you didn't cuss in public.

Now, people certainly cussed back then for sure. There were cuss words, and people used that in language at different times. But it wasn't as out in the open and out in public as it is nowadays. I was at the fair with my grandkids a couple of weeks ago, and there were two guys that were just cussing back and forth right in the middle of the fair and just communicating that way, and we were trying to get the kids away from them, the grandkids away from them.

But I wasn't shocked because I hear people sometimes cussing in public, and I don't think it's that big a deal anymore. Certainly, you want to be careful when there's kids around and be respectful. But it's different now than it was when I was growing up. Business dress is the last difference that I'll share that some of you can resonate with. I have a great story about a Gen X professional lady. Asked one of her technology people from her team who was in his mid-20s-- so she was mid-40s and he was mid-20s-- to go on a business trip with her and help her with the presentation. She needed his help with technology.

She was telling me the story. She said, I never thought that I needed to tell them what the dress code was for the client presentation. And so she showed up wearing a business suit, a professional business suit and heels, and he showed up in jeans and a T-shirt. Now, this is, again, 45-year-old going on a business trip and doing a presentation with a 25-year-old. And she was shocked, but then she quickly realized, that's on me, because I did not coach him. She said, I didn't tell him how to dress. I just assumed if he knew it was a client meeting, he would know to dress nice.

But she said she learned something from that, to not assume that everyone understands how to dress for particular environments or particular business meetings. But that's a great example, because she dressed the way her contemporaries dressed when they were growing up for business meetings, and he was dressed in the way that his contemporaries sometimes dress for business meetings. Much more casual environments nowadays.

So, again, those are examples of how sometimes there are differences in how we interact with each other and how we behave together or behave in the workplace when we've grown up in different generations. Now let's remember that, also, people have different communication approaches, or they favor different communication methods. And I know most of us are aware of this. Most of you recognize that the younger generations are very tech-savvy, very comfortable, typically, not 100%, but very comfortable, typically, using electronic communication, virtual communication, whether it be Microsoft Teams, emails, a lot of texting, a lot of using social media to communicate with their contemporaries, with their colleagues, where people that are from the older generations, generally more old-school.

I pick up the phone a lot because that's all I had. When I got into the workforce, there was no email, so I had the phone. And there weren't even fax machines yet when I started. Fax machines came a few years after I got into the workforce. And then I got my first cell phone in the mid-'90s.

But today, because I grew up as a baby boomer with that technology, I'm most comfortable today, to this day, writing-- I love an email. An email is like an electronic-- excuse me, an electronic letter. That's how I treat it, with a salutation. And I'm formal in the way I write an email, like when I used to do letter-writing back in the day. And I like picking up the phone.

But a lot of my contemporaries are-- excuse me, a lot of the younger colleagues I work with do a lot of virtual communication. I'll never forget when I emailed one of my younger colleagues. He texted me back. I emailed him again. He texted me back a second time. We went three days without talking because we were both using the communication method that was comfortable for us. When I finally responded to one of his texts, we were communicating.

So just be aware that different people from different generations-- I know most of you are-- are going to use different or be comfortable with different modes of communication, and be sensitive to that and strategies for communicating with different generations within your work team. Be sensitive to individual people's communication preferences. If you're working with an older worker, and you're a younger worker, you can ask that person, "how can I best communicate with you?" and vice versa, and be willing to tailor your approach to the other person's comfort level.

One example I got from an older worker who was frustrated with a younger worker is he was trying to get her on the phone, and he left multiple messages. And she kept responding to his phone call with an email. He's like, I want to talk to you. I don't want to trade emails. I want to talk to you. And she was not picking up the phone because she was more comfortable-- she thought she was doing fine because that was her comfort zone, but he was frustrated because she was returning his voicemails with an email.

And so I think it's important, if you want to communicate effectively with people from other generations, to be mindful of how that other person likes to communicate. And a lot of times, you can ask them. Because, again, let's not overgeneralize, there are some older workers that are very comfortable with virtual communication and some younger workers that are very comfortable just picking up the phone, right?

Strategies for group communication. For those of us in leadership, let's remember that not everyone likes the same modes of communication. So maybe we send out all employee messages in different formats so that everyone receives an important message in a format they're comfortable with. I know there are some people who don't check their emails very often. I've got a guy that I work with on a somewhat regular basis that said, please text me if you need me right away. I don't check my email every day.

And I couldn't think of that. I'm attached to my email. And so I got it on my phone, like a lot of you do, or most of you probably do. But we need to find out what's comfortable for the other person. And if you're a leader, have a "how do we communicate with each other?" conversation and a team meeting from time to time. So you go around the room and have everyone talk about how to best communicate with me, and so people will be more mindful of adjusting their communication approach to what's comfortable for the other team members.

All right, so last but not least-- and I open it up for questions, folks-- is motivating the different generations. I'm going to go in the reverse order. Let me start with Generation Z. And so, of course, if you're leading these really bright, tech-savvy younger workers, we want to create a fast-paced environment that gives these folks access, through the latest technology, to information and services as quickly as possible and then give them a lot of feedback quickly. Some supervisors aren't very proactive in giving feedback, and younger workers, they want immediate feedback. They're used to that, and that's what they're looking for.

Regular one-on-one meetings work well for the younger generations. They work well for every generation. There's a lot of research around that. It gives people some dedicated time with their supervisor on a regular basis, so they can get regular in-the-moment or in-real-time feedback about things. And then make sure, folks, you're giving them flexibility. You're allowing them to multitask.

I used to be very uncomfortable when a younger worker would have earbuds in, listening to something while they were working, but I've come to realize that's the way they're comfortable. So I'm fine with it now. I've adjusted to that. But make sure that you give these folks meaningful assignments, again, because they don't tolerate, at least in general-- a lot of folks in those generations don't tolerate rotework that doesn't have much meaning. It gets boring for them quickly. And they may not stay long term in your organization if they don't feel challenged or don't feel like what they're doing matters.

Same thing with the millennial generation. Give them a lot of opportunity to learn and grow. These folks, again, very well-educated, very upwardly mobile. Give them fast-track opportunities. Give them opportunities to try new things. Give them a lot of feedback and praise. Again, consider regular one-on-one meetings to stay connected.

And then you want to make sure your team culture is as positive as possible. Remember, from what we talked about earlier today, this generation in particular, everyone is team-oriented in one way, shape, or form, but this generation is very, very much so and really values having a really well-connected team and work family. So try to make sure you provide that for folks from the millennial generation. Now, folks, within five years, 70% of the American workforce is going to be millennial generation and Generation Z. So, folks, to be a successful leader moving forward in our world, we really need to be skillful at motivating and supporting folks from the younger generations.

Generation X, remember that this generation, one of their characteristics is they tend to like independence. Give them independence. Give them some space. Let them work alone instead of on a team if that's what they prefer. And, again, this is a Generality not everyone is that way within the generation. But if possible, give flexible work hours, give them a lot of recognition.

My generation, baby boomer, give us a lot of recognition. I want to hear a "good job, Greg." It's wired into me. Mark Twain once said, I can go a whole year on a good compliment. I love getting positive feedback from my team and from my boss. I love it. I just really enjoy it. I love it when my wife gives me positive feedback. It's kind of how I'm wired, and I love that.

But make sure you show appreciation for their work ethic, willingness to work long hours. Part of where I get my value is what I'm doing. My self image is very connected to what I do. And so I'm very connected to that, and so that's important to me. And I love to get appreciation of that, appreciation for working hard, appreciation for putting in long hours, for going above and beyond. I love having challenging work.

My boss oftentimes asks me for my advice, which really makes me feel respected and valued, which I really appreciate. And then the veteran generation. Remember, let's not treat them like they're older and kind of on their way out of the workforce. Treat them with respect. They want to be valued and respected like everybody else. Show a lot of respect for their knowledge and experience. Pull them aside and say, I know you've seen a lot in your lifetime. Can I pick your brain about something? That makes people feel really good at any age, but it's particularly important to the veteran generation and the baby boomer generation that the younger workers appreciate our experience and value that and ask us for advice from time to Time

All right, folks, I know we covered a lot in a very short period of time today, and so we have plenty of time for questions. And so if you have any questions, please type them into the question box in the GoToWebinar software, in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. Oh, gosh, I just opened the question box. We got a ton in there already. So I can tell you already, we may not be able to get to everyone's questions, but I promise I'll get to as many as we can here this afternoon.

I also want to remind you before I go into the questions, because I know we have hundreds of people on the call today, and we had some people join after we started today, remember, folks, this is the 2022 Leadership Certificate Series. If you attend all four sessions this year, either in person or virtually-- what I mean by that is by viewing the recording, which we can make available to you if you missed one. Back in March, we did How to Hire the Right Employees.

In June, we did Creating a Culture of Improved Employee Engagement. We're doing Motivate a Multi-Generational Work Team, of course, today. And then in November, we're doing Advanced Coaching Skills for Leaders. If you have any questions about those sessions, need a description, need a registration link, or need a copy of the recording to the ones that we've already done, the first two we did earlier this year-- so you can get credit for them.

Because if you attend all four of these within this calendar year, you will receive the Deer Oaks Leadership Certificate. We've awarded that, actually, to a few thousand people over the past bunch of years, and so looking forward to having a lot more folks earn that certificate this year. And so if you want to reach out to us and ask for any of the previous sessions or the registration information for a future session in November, all you have to do is hit Reply to your GoToWebinar invitation for today, or your reminder for today through GoToWebinar, and that goes right into the inbox of our administrative team. And let them what need from us. We'll be happy to send you that information. Thank you.

All right, so, folks, let's see how many questions we can get through. We had hundreds of people on today, so we'll get to as many as we can. I've got a colleague here from Buffalo, who said-- they are from a suburb of Buffalo from Kenmore. I'm from North Tonawanda. Thank you for sharing that. And I'm wondering if you're sad about the Bills game yesterday as I am. Let me go through here.

Yeah, someone said, "There's an assumption in your presentation that single parents are all mothers." And I didn't intend that at all. Thank you for bringing that up. I did not intend that at all, folks. There's a lot of single parents that are dads as well. And so I apologize if I said that in a way that made that seem that that was my opinion. It's not. I totally respect that there's a lot of single parents that are male and female, and so thank you for pointing that out.