I chose to focus my research on generational diversity in the workplace. A classmate introduced this topic to the blog and I was immediately intrigued because I feel as though working with others who come from different generations as me will be a challenge I could potentially face in the near future. I have watched several TedTalks now and read several articles about bridging this gap in the workplace and have concluded that the questions guiding my research are: What are the implications of generational diversities in the workplace? How can we manage these conflicts into becoming a successful, multigenerational workforce? How is generational diversity a competitive advantage in a working environment? I want to use this research to understand how others must respect and listen to those who have different perspectives of them while still working efficiently together, especially because growing up in completely times leads to having different outlooks on how to live one’s life.
I want to understand the questions italicized above because the career I plan on going towards is advertising. With advertising, there is no doubt that I have already heard from my professors how much group work there is over individual work, so I am expecting to be working with people of all ages after post-graduation when I find my first job. Not only would I be working with people of different generations, but depending on my position I could also be presenting my ideas and having clients who come from a different generation as me. I want to know these answers to not only better myself as an employee, but make those around me feel just as professional when working with me regardless of my age.
I believe that my professional, internship, and organizational coursework inform the inquiry because even in my current summer job, I have noticed the lack of ability to overcome this generational gap. I work at a local smoothie shop, and the staff is all high school and college students. Some days it gets very disorganized and we’ll be short on staff, or not have enough ingredients, etc. because I feel like our manager and owner, who are Millennials, don’t know how to properly communicate. This is a current example in my life of why I want to explore this topic more; the fact that I don’t even have a professional job yet and I already see conflicts between Gen Z and Millennials happening in such a casual work environment honestly blows my mind so I can only imagine what I will experience in the actual working world. Because of this research assignment, I will be expanding my knowledge on an issue that I will soon be confronted with after my time at SU and into the world of advertising. The fields that matter most to my inquiry are scholarly articles from several SU databases and professional websites such as Forbes.com which I have already gained a few sources from. I think having the contrast of scholarly databases and casual yet academic websites really feeds me detailed information that is also not too difficult to search for.