Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's Be Diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. Those who have left us will always be in our hearts and will never be forgotten. Our topic today is multi generational workforce. I am so excited to welcome my guest, Jen Caceres. Jen, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Thanks so much, Andrew. I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: We are excited to have you on. Jen, how are things with you? What's going on? What's new in your world? Give us the tea to deets. Give us it all. What's going on?
[00:00:45] Speaker C: All right, things are good. I relocated to Colorado last year and so I am experiencing winter and spring for the first time here.
And it is almost Mother's Day and we had about an inch and a half of snow yesterday. Always something exciting and fun here.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: It is always exciting. Yes. We actually have a long weekend in Canada. It's Victoria Day weekend and in Canada it's been nice. Last weekend was a beautiful weekend. I was outside pretty much all weekend. It wasn't a fun time. I was doing a lot of stuff outside in the yard, but it was nice to be outside and get some fresh air. But usually May 24th weekend, which is coming up, not this weekend but next weekend. And it is always a possibility that we could get some snow, that there's just always that possibility. So yeah, you just never know what you're going to get weather wise, especially in Canada. You just never know.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: But I'm happy to hear that things are going well and Mother's Day coming up. We'll wish you a happy Mother's Day and I'm sure listeners will listen when this comes out. We'll wish you a happy Mother's Day as well. I hope that you have a wonderful day and I hope that they treat you well.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Thank you. They're 20 something, so we'll see.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Yeah, well, they should. They should still be coming to take care of you or take you out somewhere or do something special for you for sure. So they should. So before we begin, Jen, I always have a fun, thought provoking question that I ask my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours today?
[00:02:16] Speaker C: I think so.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: This is a good one. So the question for you is if you could time travel, what is one piece that you would give to your younger self?
[00:02:25] Speaker C: If I could time travel, I would probably Go back to age probably age 17 and invest a little bit more in my travels to Mexico. So I'm, I'm bilingual and I traveled a lot during my late teen years and I messed around a lot too.
And I think I would have had an opportunity to open a private school there and life would have been extremely different. I would go back to that and maybe invest a little more studying than fun, you know.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Well, we're all 17, we've all been there. Jen. I totally get it. I know myself. I was not thinking of career or anything like that or future at 17. I was thinking of vacation or fun or what I was going to do the upcoming weekend, especially when I started getting into closer to Thursday, Friday, what's happening. So yeah, that was the only thing that was on my mind and working to make sure that I had money to have fun or for play, for playtime, I should say. So yeah, so I was definitely looking, I'll be looking at that. But yes. So I, that is a really good answer. And I probably would invest too in some time and some more travel at 17 as well. You mentioned that you were bilingual. So what languages do you speak?
[00:03:42] Speaker C: I speak Spanish fluently. I started going to, to Mexico when I was 14 actually and, and then I've tried done some travel, some international travel so I can ask questions and do some general things in Turkish and Indonesian and French and a few other things. So just fun facts.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Very, very cool. I'm fully bilingual myself so I English and my, I'm fully bellenable in French as well. So I grew up and I could speak both written right in French and in English and speak in both languages as well. So it is pretty cool to have a second language. I definitely think and I've always thought about maybe learning a second language. Spanish was one of them.
So I definitely it interests me. So yeah, who knows, maybe one day, who knows. So thanks for having fun with me, Jen. I really appreciate you doing that. Why don't we start off with you telling our listeners a little about yourself and your. Why sure.
[00:04:37] Speaker C: So as you mentioned, my name is Jen Caceres. I have worked as an executive in HR for almost 15 years now. I did nine years specifically in that corporate space. I was sort of that traditional workaholic climbing the corporate ladder and one day literally woke up in an emergency room. My daughter was sick beyond a place that I had realized and I had to slow down. So that excursion of 15 years kind of took me to a stopping point where I really intentionally got my bearings, got my clarity and started to really look at what we were doing in HR and in coaching. So today I have my own organization. It's called Perpetual Capacity Coaching and Consulting. And I am a workplace strategist. I go in and coach and consult and really focus on what organizations and leaders have outgrown.
So those things that are holding them back from growth. And primarily right now, working in construction and manufacturing, that's really my sweet spot as far as industry goes. But people are people. So I say if you're breathing and you're working with others, I can absolutely come in and have a conversation. As you mentioned, I do have a podcast as well. Well, we're not here to talk about that, but I'll just say it's called Stop, Drop and Roll R O L E. And if you are interested, anyone, in talking through various leadership topics at work or at home, those are some of the focuses. Andrew, my why is really rooted in that. Helping organizations and leaders discover what's getting in their way.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: I love that. Why? How? Growing things is one thing, but also realizing that they may not know everything or that they're at a stumbling block and realizing that there's so many things that they don't know. Those are things that I'm kind of seeing. And I always say, and I say it so many times, people will be like, Andrew says, as often is that when you are a leader and when you come to a point when you say, I know everything and I don't need to learn anymore, that's when we struggle. So I myself, as a leader, never ever say that. And I will never, ever, ever will say that. This is why I do this podcast. This is why I listen to podcasts like Ears and Others, and also do a lot of reading and I do some courses and stuff. Because you just never know what you're going to learn by listening to something or taking something or reading something. So. Or even listening to somebody or getting feedback from somebody in a conversation. So I am open to that. And I think just what you're doing is super beneficial to. To many, I'm sure.
[00:07:24] Speaker C: Oh, thank you. Thank you. That. That pause really allowed me to discover what I had outgrown and what had outgrown me. And so just being able to take that in is. Is helpful. Thank you.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: You're very, very welcome. So let's get this show on the road here, Jen. We're talking about multigenerational workforce. So what are the benefits of having a multigenerational workforce?
[00:07:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that is a wonderful question. It is an enormous benefit to have a multi generational workforce, it brings together people's experiences, their perspectives and it really drives that innovation.
So when you have people, I've done a lot of speaking on multi generational workforces actually.
And when you have people from those different generations, it allows for cross development.
You're bringing in that diversity of thought, using those gifts and talents from every generation because the value of learning and flexibility, those values have that sort of, that hinge on, on the multi generational workforce because every generation thinks that they're the greatest. Right from the industrial revolution to creating automobiles to now, you know, the Gen Z's who really have never been in the workforce without technology.
So there's so many benefits. One of the things is your seasoned workers. So people like your, and I'm just going to say the generations, the boomers, the Gen Xers and the millennials have so much of that industrial knowledge. They know the secret sauce, they know the workarounds. They've been doing it. They're sort of those legacy experts and they did the work before Excel was, you know, was a thing. They used typewriters so if electricity went out, it wasn't a big deal and they could, you know, write on paper. Where some people, you know, it's just, that's part of the generation. They don't carry paper and pen around with them. You kind of know what generation you're from if you're taking notes on your phone versus taking it even on paper. So older generations bring in those gifts, those foundational gifts that Google might not even offer to us today. And then the benefits of the younger generation, they bring that tech savviness, those fresh ideas that sort of the interest in creating new things are sustainable and efficient, where we might not be thinking about that, me being a, a Gen Xer. And they just really have those gifts for seeing new, fresh things through a different lens. And sometimes they see things rather than the stories that we tell ourselves. And we sort of use that confirmation bias to say, yeah, this is how we've always done things, this is the way it works. The benefit of that multi generation is that you have someone else coming in and they're really looking at it through a different lens, through a fresh lens. And it's important for us to be able to step back and, and recognize.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: That you talk about what drives innovation. I firmly believe that we have to be open to change. You talked to me earlier, before we started taping about making changes and you had to make some changes in your life. And I think there's A lot of things that happen within our lives and in our careers, but we have to be open to that change. If we're not open to that change and we're going to stick with the same thing and it's just going to circle and circle and circle. So we have to open up our minds and once we open up our mind to that change, then the possibilities are enormous.
[00:10:54] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And I always say you can have change without growth, but you can't have growth without change.
So, so, so spot on there.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: I love it, I love it. So we just talked about the benefits. What are the challenges of managing a multig workforce?
[00:11:13] Speaker C: There are multiple challenges. I would say the top three that come to mind are communication styles, the work, expectations and values. So I'm going to take just a moment, Andrew, and go through what the different generations are just to explain to the audience because some people don't exactly know. Boomers are those typically between 1946 and 1964. They are the folks that love to talk, typically talk on the phone. They want that face to face time.
They may not understand using FaceTime on an iPhone. Right. Like why do I have to look at you? They may appreciate the in communication, they may appreciate training in, you know, in person basically rather than, and rather than just doing it online. And they might also like something printed out, tangible that they can touch and actually write on. The boomers usually will take a job or have typically taken a job and then they stay in it because that's what their parents did. It was sort of this, you know, past generational thing. They'll stay in it, get that gold watch or whatever it might be when they retire. And then the values of boomers are really about loyalty and hierarchy. So following those directions again because it goes back to their family or previous generation Gen xers. So between 1965 and 1976, roughly that's the smallest generation of people that exists today. Those were the latchkey kids who went home in the 80s and there were just smaller families. People weren't having as many kids. They're usually more flexible, they're comfortable with all kinds of communication. Sort of stuck in the middle between, you know, some of us like the paper, some of us like having it digital. But communication for them is pretty flexible right now. That generation is sort of stuck. So if we think about what some of those challenges might be, as you have people in the Gen X generation that are caring for their family, so their parents who are getting older, but they're also still taking care of their kids. So that could be a challenge for that generation. And then their work expectations are really dependent on kind of what they've been taught. So they get a lot of that from the boomers as well. But then they are adapting things from the millennials. Millennials are 19, 1975.
They have communication styles that are similar to Gen Xers. And what you see that sort of this challenge, if you will, the communication styles, it's really about just asking what do they like. You know, not every generation is going to fit in a little box.
So asking what they like. Millennials, we all have probably heard a lot of things about millennials. They got a really bad rap a while ago about being the generation of trophies and they need prizes. And that's really something that we've sort of conjured up there. They get a lot of misunderstanding, unfortunately. And they are the core right now of leadership. They have grown into that space in their 30s and youngies. So millennials are really running the space right now. And then lastly, I'll just follow up with the challenges or ideas around the Gen Z's. So it's interesting. We don't really change. I don't think our concepts change necessari of where generations are because we're all aging. But we don't think about the quote unquote kids that are coming up underneath us. But Gen Z's, the oldest ones right now are in their late and. And so it's kind of hard to think about that when we think we. You know, if you're older, you might quote them as being kids, but they're not. They're functioning adults in their late 20s. So that's the generation that if you are capturing, especially the younger end of the Gen Zs. And we can talk about some of this, but in recruiting and how do you keep that talent? How do you engage that talent? So they are responsive to video. Their values are. They want to be purpose driven. They want to know that they're there for a purpose, on purpose. And they've had the world at their disposal since they were being pushed in their strollers.
So we've just got so many things that could challenge us, but it really is just about the understanding.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: I love everything you said there. One thing that kind of jumped out at me when you were talking about the boomers and the loyalty and the higher hire.
I can think of my parents, both my late parents, when they were working, I could, I remember being young and I can hear them talking about their day and how it went. And both of them would be like, how was your day? And oh my God, this, this, it can believe this.
And then my father saying the same thing. Oh my God, this thing. And my, this, my boss.
And you could tell that they didn't like what they were doing. But it wasn't like you said the key that you said there, I love when you said loyalty. They were loyal. Even though they did not like where they were working, they were loyal and they stuck it out. Whereas today were talking about some of these things that they were dealing with way back when, and people are more vocal about it and vulnerable about it, and they're talking about it more and people are making those changes when they need to or finding out how they can do that. So was definitely interesting to me when you talked about the different types of boomers. And like I said, what that jumped out at me is my parents and thinking about how they were and how they hated or disliked where they were working in some places and, but they stuck it out. And for like, I mean, my dad worked for a television company and an assembly line, and he worked there for 11 years. So if you would think about that today, how many people would you say worked at a company today for 11 years? Something that you just don't hear anymore.
[00:17:19] Speaker C: You really don't. And it's, it's so interesting. Higher education actually encourages young professionals to move around. That's how you get diversity of experience. But we've never thought of it that way. To your point, your parents and their parents, you were loyal. That, that was key. Right, Right.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Whether they hated it or not, they were just, they were so loyal. And especially my dad, my dad was working. He was part of a union. So there's always continuous stuff about salaries and union stuff and stuff they didn't like and whatever type thing until a company got fed up and they said, okay, well, we're, we're out of here. And, and that's that. So. But they struggled with it like this whole time. And you'd think that, oh, you know, they would have just said, okay, well, I'm out of here, I've had enough, I'll find something else. But I guess they had it in the back of their mind that we need, I, we need to stick this out because we need to put food on the table for the kid and kids and pay the bills. That was their high priority. So they, they, they suffered with it, I'd say, and dealt with it for that purpose. Whereas now, which I guess is kind of good, people are not suffering or dealing with these heartaches. Anymore. When they feel that it's time, they, you know, they, they move on.
[00:18:35] Speaker C: Sure. No, absolutely.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: So we talked about a little bit, but I kind of want to dig in this a little bit further here and get your opinion. Do leaders understand the significance of multi generational workforce?
[00:18:47] Speaker C: You know, Andrew, I think some of them do, but, but I also believe that still many of them underestimate the complexity and the opportunity that it brings. Because too often generational dynamics are seen as people issues. Right. I've got to fix this person. They're moving around too much or they're googling how to do something when they could be watching the training I've assigned. And so we, we look at that as people issues, really. Leaders that are intentionally creating things like mentorship, pipel, they invest in that cross generational training, which is, it's just invaluable what that adds. And then they're building inclusive cultures. And what that means is it just gives everybody that chance to really voice their methods. It builds that culture of safety to be able to bring things up. Because if something happens, and we know this, if something happens and I'm a boomer or Gen Xer, I'm probably going to stand around the water cooler, I'm going to vent to my friend or I'm going to call my significant other and, and like your parents did and go home and talk about it. But if I'm a Gen Z, I might be putting something on TikTok or Instagram and I'm telling the world what a great or not so great place this is. And so just understanding that it's not a people issue. It really is understanding of the generations.
So back to your question. You know, others, some people are really still playing catch up when it comes to generational things, especially, especially where tradition outweighs transformation. If I could take this into the construction industry, for example, where I work a lot, there's a lot of tangible things that just don't change, right? Rocks are rocks, concrete, that's concrete, wood. It doesn't necessarily change. But the reality is that even those things that are changing, even those things are changing with environmentally new products. So things like 3D printing, things like, you know, just more sustainable products that are, that are environmentally friendly. And a lot of those folks that have been there for, you know, 20, 30, 40 years, they're just not really thinking about that. So they simply don't know enough about it to trust it. And we evolve, we're evolving with technology, but not fast enough.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: You talked about it earlier and you mentioned Communication and I think one of the things I'm noticing specifically with leaders is the communication factor and how to communicate with different individuals and not just multi generational in a situation like that but also just in general. It's just they're not understanding the importance of communicating and I think they're missing the opportunity of that communication factor. You've seen stuff that I've put out there Jen, and we've had a conversation about that. I'm a huge proponent of rapport building and I think that rapport building factor in a multi generational setting, understanding in each individual and knowing how to communicate with that individual for me is paramount.
[00:22:07] Speaker C: It is, it's so interesting too. I think that's where that kind of, that cross generational just, just sort of training if you will or understanding. Right. So I said we were maybe talk about this a little bit but when it comes to the significance of the workforce and people really understanding it, let's think of how we attract Gen Zs as talent. You know, they want something that's really fast, that's mobile native, it's going to work directly on their phone. They don't have to go to a computer because God forbid they have to, you know, and I'm not trying to be, you know, any which way but they don't carry around computers, they carry their smartphones. Right, right. They want those opportunities to grow. They want that mobile friendly technology where if they're going to learn that's what they're going to do. And so it really is significant that, that we just understand again it's not a people issue, it's really understanding the needs and expectations of what people are just used to.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Right, for sure. So is leading a multigenerational workforce a valuable skill? The reason why I asked this Jen is because there's a lot of situations where people are moving up within a company. So you're going to have someone that is a worker B and then they're going to say oh you're really good at your job. We're going to move you up to a management position and then from that management center, okay, you're really good at this management position. You've been really good, you've helped the department. We're going to put you in a leadership. You talked about training. They feel like they are taking this position because they deserve it, which I think most cases they do. However, they're not taking the time to learn what that entails. So it's not just a title, it's not a pay bump. It's a responsibility.
So that's why I'm asking about do they, do you think that they value it?
[00:24:07] Speaker C: I would hope so. The thing that I've discovered kind of to those points is here's what we do. We find Andrew is a great employee. He, he moves Widget A from, you know, from A to B. He moves his widget back and forth all day, and he's great at what he does. So we promote him to a people manager.
And now he has a team of multiple generations who maybe at one point he was peers with. And we don't prepare Andrew to actually lead those people. He was great at the widget job. Right. But we've promoted him based on that, not based on how he leads others. And so a lot of it really stems from the very top, unfortunately. And I've talked about this a lot with others and in other podcasts, it comes from the leadership at the top and their sort of antiquated ways. Sometimes of, you know, it's trial by fire. If Andrew can't figure it out, he shouldn't be here.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:07] Speaker C: That's not really fair.
Right. So it really does start at the top and it starts at taking different approaches. Everybody's different. It doesn't even matter what generation you're from. We have to also think about how you're wired. How did you grow up? Where did you grow up? Are you a only child? Did you lose your parent? You know so many things, right? So I think it's an exceptional, exceptionally valuable skill for leaders to understand.
We have to understand too that this isn't it, that the Alpha generation is coming right up behind the Gen Z's. And if we were scared of, of Gen Z's and not knowing how to communicate with them or recruit them or engage them, the Alphas are totally different. They've never had a world without technology.
And AI will be their work partners before they ever have their first job. So we have a lot of value in understanding the generations in the workplace.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: So I'm thinking of expectations. So you talked about, okay, Andrew, we're going to be put in this position, what have you, and you're going to be working. You mentioned talking about your peers, so there's lots of training. But also I think I might go into it thinking I'm going to be the manager of this department. I'm going to be managing my co workers. We've gotten along for over the years, we have lunch together, we get along great. But I don't know what the expectations are of that. And I Don't realize, hey, it's going to change. You may still get along with those team members, but they may not invite you to lunch anymore or if they're going out for supper as a team on a Friday or they're doing as something all together on a Saturday evening or going bowling on a Saturday afternoon, they may not invite you because you are now management and you just have to adapt to that. And if you don't expect that or if you don't realize that that's coming, that is the job of you as the individual to figure to realize that and to make sure that you know how to communicate in those situations. But it's also the organization to make sure, hey, we're putting you into this, but we're not putting you in a and a hole here. We're putting you in a situation. We're moving you up, but we're going to make sure that you have all the tools needed to get you through this for sure.
[00:27:34] Speaker C: Yeah, very, very good points. It can be very isolating for new people managers because they do not have those expectations.
And good managers, they'll buffer all of those things from their teams below them. But if you don't have that training like you said, then emotions are on overload because you don't understand. You've gone from peers to now they have to ask you for the day off and you don't know how to, how to really behave in that situation. So the training and the leadership development is so crucial and quite often missed.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: Certainly is. So in closing, what is one takeaway, Jenna, you'd like our audience to get from this episode?
[00:28:17] Speaker C: I think the biggest thing to take away from multi generational workforce is that the diversity of generations is not something we need to solve. It's actually a power that we can harness. We can bring it in and use it to our advantage. If we can move beyond some of those stereotypes and really start building the understanding, we can have stronger teams, safer teams depending on what you're doing and really the future of your hr, your business models, all that stuff depends on people educating themselves on the generations and to your point, expectation and just stop telling ourselves those stories so that we can sort of, you know, open our minds and get some clarity that these are people, they just work a little differently, they have different habits.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: This has been such an amazing conversation. To those who are listening, I'd love everybody to like share and follow this episode. I wanted to take the time to thank you also for coming on today. Jen, I think very, very highly of you. As an individual, as a professional. You're such a kind and compassionate individual and I've really enjoyed having conversation with you and getting to know you and getting to know what you do and listening to all the stuff that you're doing as well. You're doing some amazing things and I really admire that about you and I hope hope to continue to to have these great conversations with you and who knows what the future holds for the both of us.
[00:29:48] Speaker C: Yes. Thank you so much Andrew. It was a real pleasure to work with you and I'm so thankful to have a voice into some of your listeners. Thank you.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: You are welcome. It's my pleasure. On behalf of myself and my guest Jen, I'd like to thank you all for listening today and until next time be safe and remember everyone that if we all work together we can accomplish anything you have been listening to.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout to stay up to date with future content, hit Subscribe.
