Age-based generations at work: a culture-specific approach

Shore et al.’s (2009) annotated review of diversity at work concludes that relative to other forms of diversity such as race and gender, age-based diversity has been an under-researched area. This was partly related to the fact that unlike race and gender, organisations were rarely found to take age-based initiatives (Shore et al. 2009). However, in more recent years, this situation has changed. The impending retirement of more than 75 million older workers has created a crisis in organisations as they strive to attract, retain, and ultimately assimilate a comparable number of young people who purportedly hold significantly different values, attitudes, and expectations from the generations of workers who preceded them (Ng et al. 2012; Twenge et al. 2010). As a result, leading organisations (i.e., Marriot International, Sodexo, Tata Consulting Services) have begun implementing interventions to appease the perceived high demands and expectations of the incoming generation of the workforce.