Gen Y and Baby Boomers have plenty in common and these generations’ shared principles and preferences will drive the corporate agenda. By Susan Radojevic, April 08, 2010

Susan Radojevic

In September, I had the pleasure of attending the second annual Education and Industry Advancing Together (EIAT) conference. EIAT’s mission is to ‘create a platform of best young leaders in the tourism, hotel and meetings industry in the Balkan Region.’

The stand-alone student conference, hosted in my hometown of Belgrade, Serbia, attracted 180 students, academia and industry participants from Europe, South Africa, Russia and North America. The event also provided a platform for IMEX and MPI to host its first Southeast Europe Future Leaders Forum (FLF).

As part of the one-day FLF programme, students were challenged to present a conference bid. Working all night to meet their deadline, each team successfully created and delivered strategically designed bids. This was an amazing accomplishment, considering that prior to the conference, most of them were very new to the meetings and events industry. One team showed true ingenuity by using visuals, set to music, to pitch their ideas.

Participating in the EIAT conference made me realize that Gen Y and Baby Boomers are not as different as we sometimes believe. In fact, these two generations, whose birthdays span 1946 to 1994, account for the largest labour force in the workplace today. This is a meaningful statistic, because it is the shared professional and social principles and preferences of these two generations that will drive corporate agendas. So what, exactly, are these shared values?

Value #1

Both generations have a need to make positive social change and will select careers and jobs where they can do that. Research shows that recent university and college graduates are deferring full-time employment to perform community service or acquire new skills.

At the same time, organizations like UBS, an American financial services firm, are retooling their recruitment programmes. For pursuits UBS considers worthy, it offers to pay half the base salary associated with the accepted position, while holding the promised job open for their new hire.

At the other career spectrum, Time Warner’s Digital Reverse Mentoring programme addresses the challenge senior executive Boomers may face embracing and using rapidly evolving social media tools. The programme engages savvy college students to mentor its senior executives on digital trends and technologies like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other Web 2.0 applications.

Value #2

Work/life balance is important to both groups. Flexible work options, and being able to work remotely, are on the wish list of roughly two thirds of both generations. While having the freedom to choose when and where to work is high on their list, both groups value being on a team, part of a community and enjoying the social connections they build from collaborating.

Value #3

It’s not just about the money. In fact, Gen Y and Boomers will not join an organization solely on the basis of a high salary. Indeed, both generations rate interaction with excellent people, being challenged by their work, a variety of experiences and frequent and insightful performance feedback and recognition as important as financial compensation.

Shared vision and values are key components in achieving success and will ensure that the meetings and events industry has a bright future.

This is my final installment of Open Channel. It has been great fun and I truly appreciate having the privilege of sharing my observations and viewpoints with you. And thank you for sharing yours with me.

The channel is open!

— Susan Radojevic, president of Toronto-based The Peregrine Agency Ltd., is a leading authority on strategic event alignment. Weigh in by sending Susan a message: susan.radojevic@theperegrineagency.ca or visit Susan’s blog at www.theperegrineagency.ca