Bridging the Generational Gap: Training Strategies for Multigenerational Leadership
It wasn’t that long ago that organisations were led by the most experienced while younger employees gradually earned responsibility over time. Multigenerational training strategies didn’t exist as a “thing”!
Today, leadership looks very different.
You may have already noticed that in many organisations, especially fast-moving sectors, younger employees may lead teams that include colleagues decades their senior.
This shift can create challenges if not handled with care.
Multigenerational teams – Forbes refers to them as “ageless teams” – bring a huge amount of value. But they also need support.
Here’s our suggestion as to how training can bridge the generational gap in your business or organisation and build stronger leadership across all levels.
This will inevitably lead to improved teamwork and a successful business culture. That’s a plus for all businesses.
1. Training Helps Set Clear Corporate Objectives
When your people understand your organisation’s wider goals and how their work contributes to them, age becomes irrelevant. Everyone pulls in the same direction.
So – make sure your training reinforces:
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Your company’s mission, vision and values
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How your different departments and roles support your strategic aims
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What success looks like for your unique business, and how it’s measured
Induction training should introduce the bigger picture. Refresher training keeps it front of mind. As in all human endeavours, shared purpose helps unify teams of all ages and backgrounds. Think football! Or campaigns and protests.
2. Reward Performance, Not Time Served
Leadership potential should be recognised based on results, not tenure. When promotions and development opportunities are earned through performance, you level the playing field.
This benefits your organisation by:
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Accelerating leadership growth – Gen Z are particularly vocal about earning promotion via ability
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Retaining ambitious talent – in today’s market place, talent is quick to walk if it goes unrecognised
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Encouraging high standards across the board – because all can achieve
External training can help your managers recognise ability objectively on that level playing field and support your emerging leaders, regardless of age.
3. Capture and Share Institutional Knowledge
Your longest-serving employees often hold valuable knowledge that isn’t written down. If they leave without passing it on, your business loses out.
One solution is to have a knowledge database that can be used on a self-service basis by all staff regardless of their age and position. You’ve captured knowledge in a usable format for everyone.
But another key way to preserve crucial knowledge intergenerationally is via training and mentoring. In other words, pairing experienced staff with rising leaders so they learn in action. That would be part of the support for emerging leaders that we mention above.
The act of capturing and sharing your business’s knowledge in these ways will build mutual respect and strengthen ties between the generations.
4. Tailor Training to Real Skills Gaps, Not Assumptions
Avoid making assumptions about what different age groups know or need. Instead, base training on real data from appraisals, feedback and observed performance.
You can support everyone as unique individuals by:
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Identifying their personal development goals – they will never be exactly the same for every person
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Creating training plans aligned with their ambition and role – this helps retain staff who, today, expect a career pathway
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Providing support for both technical and interpersonal skills – wellbeing at work improves when you consider the whole person
So – the key here is to make your training tailored, inclusive and clearly linked to outcomes. When this happens, age stops being a dividing line.
Keystone Can Help with Bespoke Multigenerational Training
Multigenerational teams and leadership is an opportunity to seize. Investing in your people based on their capability and drive helps you build a culture of respect, trust, and effective performance.
At Keystone, we work in partnership with you and design bespoke training programmes that develop your future leaders, support experienced talent of any age – across the generations – to build cohesive, high-performing teams.
Contact the team today to find out how we can help.
Esther Patrick is a Client Accounts Director at Keystone and a member of the Senior Leadership Team. An experienced consultant and management author, she has nearly 20 years’ experience leading client partnerships across sectors from construction to healthcare and designing leadership, culture, and team development programmes aligned with their strategic goals and values. Esther is passionate about creative, human-centred learning.
