Older folks might wonder why younger people never pick up the phone anymore. Meanwhile, younger folks might roll their eyes at long replies full of formal sign-offs and punctuation that feel… The key isn’t forcing everyone to use the same method—it’s designing interactions with variety in mind.
There is also a useful correction to the idea that young employees simply want to work remotely. Deloitte’s 2025 Gen Z and Millennial research points in a similar direction. In India, 62% of Gen Z respondents said they wanted more guidance from managers, while 44% felt they received it.
It is a common belief that younger generations avoid voice calls at all costs in favor of messaging. And if it is, what does the curve look like between Gen Z and Baby Boomers who are apparently more willing to use the phone for what it was originally invented for. The challenge for brands is to adapt their messaging for their audience without appearing patronizing or superficial. Rather than make assumptions about individuals based on their age, brands need to learn about what makes each individual tick. We asked people about the types of communication that they prefer to receive, and once again there were some clear trends between the generations. When it comes to channel preferences, it seems that older generations are particularly keen on receiving communications on their preferred channel.
In summary, the lifespan development perspective offers a number of alternative explanations for the role of age and the process of aging at work that do not rely in generational explanations. Specifically, by recognizing that development is a lifelong process that is affected by multiple influences, this perspective helps to clarify the complexities of development, particularly the processes that lead to inter- and intraindividual changes over time. With a clearer sense of these two alternative perspectives, we next shift our attention to outlining various points of integration between them. In contrast, the lifespan perspective, which originated in the field of psychology, places a stronger focus on individual differences and within-person variability.
Unique Traits Of Generation X
As artificial intelligence technology continues to develop, the demand for workers with the ability to work alongside and manage AI systems will increase. This means that workers who are not able to adapt and learn these new skills will be left behind in the job market. When we take the time to bridge the communication divide, we don’t just improve collaboration—we unlock the full potential of every generation at the table. Set expectations around preferred channels, response times and tone—and revisit them regularly. Establish a response framework and designate communication responsibilities to each team member. When I worked as a mental health therapist (I’m retired now), occasionally a client would share with me a conversation they had with a friend or family member via text messaging.
- They have witnessed significant social and technological change in their lifetimes.
- 88% of Gen Z and 82% of Millennials feel that AI has improved the quality of brand interactions.
- We know it’s not always easy to bridge the gap, which is why we offer Educational Events that make generational differences easier to understand—and more enjoyable to explore.
- They understood the value of hard work, discipline, and thriftiness, and carried these principles with them throughout their lives.
A more seasoned colleague may be concerned when a younger colleague doesn’t use periods while exchanging chats, interpreting the action as a lack of attention to detail. However, younger generations may feel that periods indicate a more serious tone (FlexJobs). Older generations typically use this CupidFeel free version punctuation to create intrigue or suggest a loss of thought, whereas millennials and Gen Z may view ellipses as passive aggressive. In my opinion, it’s helpful to understand the communication styles of each generation, rooted in events, technology and values that were current at that time. In this section we divided questions between personal use and business interactions to see if people’s communication preferences changed depending on who they were interacting with.
In our study, we explored two generations, Generation Z and Generation X and their language use on online social networking sites. We studied different social media posts between the two generations and looked at the differences in how they communicate, especially using text-dominant platforms. We used a plethora of social media sites to validate our findings, but our main areas of study were Facebook and Twitter/X. Our study concluded that Generation Z uses fewer words, more images in their post, and more slang phrases than Generation X does.
The share who strongly agreed that a supervisor or someone at work cared about them as a person fell from 54% to 41%. Agreement that they had opportunities to learn and grow dropped from 48% to 37%. A 24-year-old nurse on rotating shifts and a 24-year-old software developer working hybrid schedules belong to the same generation.
Working With Global Intergenerational Teams
It might be safe to guess that the remaining 12% work in digital marketing. They’re also less app friendly than millennials and zoomers, having been indoctrinated into desktop versions of web applications – or, as they used to be called; “websites.” They share this quality with older millennials. Older Baby Boomers have consistently had a more Democratic imprint than younger Boomers. Older Boomers were born in the late 1940s and early 1950s and came of voting age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, during Richard Nixon’s presidency.
Gen X and millennials were raised with more technology and prefer mostly to speak through phone, email, or text. The mid-age generation will pick up a phone to communicate or email their boss professionally before sending a quick instant message. The outlier is mainly Gen Z which was raised with the internet, cell phones, and social media at the forefront of everything. The younger generation has been using the internet and social media for a large portion of their life and are bringing that technology into the workforce. We recently hired a couple of Gen Z employees at our corporate office. Because the last half-dozen or so employees that we brought on had been Millennials, I assumed that these new team members would prefer to communicate like the previous ones.
This is an important contribution, because simply pointing out the obvious pitfalls of generations and generational explanations can only go so far toward changing the way that people think about, talk about, study, and enact practices that involve generations. Just advising people to drop the idea of generations without providing alternative models would be counterproductive to the goal of enhancing the credibility of organizational science and practice. Thus, our hope is that by providing workable alternatives to generations, researchers and practitioners will be encouraged to think more carefully about the role of age and the process of aging when enacting the work that they do.
Communication preferences can vary by generation, but they also vary substantially within each generation. Role, career stage, work environment, personality, technology access and manager behavior can be more useful predictors. Managers should establish common communication standards and ask employees about individual preferences. Communication preferences can vary across generations, but age should never become a fixed rule for how someone receives information. HubEngage’s multigenerational workforce communication resources provide further guidance on communicating with different generations and engaging employees across age groups. Our findings demonstrate clear online communication trends within both generations that are not shared by the other generational group.
Bridging geographical divides is a familiar hurdle for global and dispersed teams. However, an equally pressing yet often less addressed challenge lies in navigating the complex maze of intergenerational communication. As Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z professionals converge in the workplace, their distinct communication styles, preferences, and expectations introduce a unique set of obstacles. An age cohort spanning years will necessarily include a diverse assortment of people — and often there are meaningful smaller cohorts within these generations. Changes in political circumstances, societal mores and economic conditions over a period of years can lead to people within a cohort having different formative experiences.
For example, generational stereotypes suggest that relatively older workers would struggle with technological changes at work while relatively younger workers would thrive. These changes create a diverse set of advantages and disadvantages for individuals of all ages. Rather than blaming those of younger generations for disrupting work and life more generally, societal trends and events are a more appropriate, fitting, and ultimately addressable explanation (i.e., through non-ageist interventions and policies). An alternative that has been employed by some researchers (e.g., Twenge, Konrath, Foster, Campbell, & Bushman, 2008) is a cross-temporal approach, often employing time-lagged panels or cross-temporal meta-analyses (discussed further below). The logic of cross-temporal methods is to compare groups of similarly aged individuals (i.e., to “control” for age by holding its value constant) across time and then argue that cohort effects are more likely the cause of any observed differences than period effects.
After all, communication only works when both sides feel seen and heard. With no exposure to the drawbacks of v1.0 chatbots, younger generations have therefore had much more positive experiences, and this is reflected in the data. Paying in person by card was most popular with Baby Boomers at 23% and it seems that the cliché of the older person paying for items with small change is not valid. Only 5% of the oldest generation prefer cash compared with 15% of Gen Z, the highest figure in the study. We can theorize that these are younger Gen Z’ers who are spending pocket money, or cash earned from doing chores or other informal work.
Baby Boomers have spent decades adapting to new workplace technologies, including personal computers, email, smartphones, video meetings, cloud software and AI-assisted tools. Ask Baby Boomer employees how they want to communicate instead of assuming they dislike digital channels, want more meetings, or resist workplace change. Gallup found in May 2025 that only 23% of remote-capable Gen Z employees in the U.S. preferred fully remote work, compared with 35% among older generations surveyed. Gen Z employees often need communication that reduces ambiguity about expectations, progress, development and their relationship with their manager. There are observable differences in what age groups report wanting from work, but managers should treat them as starting hypotheses rather than communication rules. It can be useful to talk about generations, but generational categories are not scientifically defined and labels can lead to stereotypes and oversimplification.
By recognizing and appreciating these differences, we can build a more inclusive and harmonious society, where each generation’s strengths are celebrated and utilized to create a better future. When accommodating the whole team, try to find an approach that everyone can adapt to. You won’t always be able to cater to every person’s preferred mode, but you can identify their preferences and seek to balance communication styles that suit everyone. On the other hand, younger generations, especially Gen Z, tend to be more outspoken about issues of race and social justice, bringing discussions of equity, diversity, and inclusion to the forefront. At the core of these tensions lies communication—or rather, miscommunication.
This is the generation that heard, or saw, the moon landing from their living rooms. From what I’ve observed, this generation’s learning style tends to be more auditory—they want people to talk to them, in person or on the phone. But similar to the Silent Generation, they tend to have a healthy respect for hierarchy, are loyal and think everyone should pay their dues. The political climate of early adulthood may continue to influence the political tilt of a generation throughout its life span, as noted in a 2011 Pew Research Center report on generations. For example, members of the Greatest Generation, who came of age during the Great Depression and the Franklin Roosevelt administration, carried strong Democratic tendencies throughout their adulthood.
As the organizational sciences move toward the ideals of evidence-based practice, generations and assumed differences between them are quickly becoming yet another example of a discredited management fad (see Abrahamson, 1991, 1996; Røvik, 2011). Another example comes from data showing that high school and college students are less likely to hold summer jobs today than 20 years ago (Desilver, 2019). This is not a generational effect, but rather is attributable to contemporaneous economic conditions. As a final example, after 9/11, there was a modest increase in the number of people enlisting in the United States Army, which is an example of a period effect (Dao, 2011).
