
A. Generational Differences

B. Workplace Incivility/Bullying

C. Work-life Balance Initiatives

Baby Boomers – Individuals born between 1945 - 1962

Generation X – Individuals born between 1963 - 1981

Millennials – Individuals born between 1982 – 2000
 Sometimes, this group is referred to as Generation Y

The Boomers
Strong work ethic (their job defines them –
workaholics)
 Driven (focused)
 Consensus builders
 Optimistic
 Strong relationship skills
 Excellent team players (understand roles)
 Buy now, pay later


The X-ers
Strong work/life balance (they might say, life/work
balance)
 Versatile (flexible)
 Techno-literate
 Skeptical/cynical
 Multi-taskers
 Value individual contributions
 Save, save, save


The Millennials
Self-confident/believe they can do anything (use to
praise)
 Determined (focused)
 Techno-dependent
 Hopeful
 Conditioned towards an entitlement mentality
 Team oriented (everyone is a winner)
 Earn to spend


The Boomers






Hours = Badge of Honor
Loyal to the firm (if the firm is loyal to them)
Respect authority (within reason)
Love meetings, analysis and reports
Look for role models and mentors
Prefer face-to-face communication

The Boomers (continued)
Task/process focused
 Uncomfortable with a challenge/question to their
authority
 Prefer to avoid conflict
 Will not openly challenge/disagree with peers
 Feedback only required once a year
 Do not handle criticism well


The X-ers

Hourly mentality difficult to accept
 Their credo is: hours are unimportant, results/outcome
are important.




Tell them what to do, not how to do it
Want autonomy they have not earned
Flexibility/freedom is integral to their productivity
View work, employment and the firm as a “contract”
 It is the firm’s responsibility to keep them engaged

Highly efficient

The X-ers (continued)






Embrace paperless and the use of technology
Have difficulty with authority
(rulebreakers/stretchers)
Challenge everything (routinely ask why)
Impatient when change is not immediately
implemented
Want to be managers/partners now
Mentors should be “advocates”

The X-ers (continued)





Poor people skills
Openly critical/confrontational
Believe their skill set will protect them (and define
them)
Understand the staffing dilemma (leverage this to
their advantage)
Need positive feedback on a regular basis
 Welcome “constructive” criticism

The Millennials

Tracking hours makes no sense to them
 Willing to work if they are told why and/or if they make the
commitment to the task or project
 Very receptive to the concept of value billing for services
provided
They expect their work environment to be fun,
stimulating and collegial
 They wonder why more of the mundane tasks (entry
level tasks they are asked to do) are not done through
technology
 Generally, they have unrealistic expectations related to
their careers and the timeline for their career
advancement


The Millennials (continued)
Mentors must be proactive and involved (they are
essential for their success)
 They expect and demand training
 They have poor communication skills

 Except with each other
 Too dependent on e-mail and frustrated with face-to-
face

Want to feel that they are contributing and thrive in
a team approach/environment

The Millennials (continued)



Want feedback constantly and need to know what
they are doing right and what needs to be corrected
They are more like boomers in terms of work ethic
and attitude towards work
They are more like X-ers in terms of technology
utilization and career expectations


Website/Internet
Colleges/Universities (Liberal Arts/Smaller)
Alumni
 Current employees
 Faculty and programs
 Internships




Electronic newsletters
Young professional organizations
Large regional








Interesting Work
Variety
Flexibility
A teamwork approach to engagements
Training (especially on “soft skills”)
Involved mentor programs
Clear career paths and options
An understanding of the firm’s differentiation







Pigeonholing (no evaluation of the best fit for
them)
No explanation of the firm’s work/life balance
Working for a workaholic
Partners not being consistent
Not learning from mistakes
Too much emphasis on “busy season”
To end up like their parents








Rotate assignments (industries)
Provide a training calendar (with course
descriptions)
Involve them in Practice Development early
Ensure a team approach/concept
Involve them in planning meetings
Communicate career paths and options
Utilize employee recognition programs
Provide a mentor/advocate program






Establish and utilize an alumni program
Involve seniors and supervisors in your efforts
Establish both formal training programs and a
rainmaker academy
Overhaul your current mentor program
Revisit your website (from a recruiting
perspective and have new employees critique
it)
Explore flexible schedules

Defined as: “Characteristically rude and
discourteous behavior” (Andersson and
Pearson, 1999).




Examples: Being interrupted when speaking; not
being thanked; intentionally not holding open a door
for someone, etc.
Intentional or unintentional
Causes: Power dynamics; procedural
unfairness; organizational structure
Effects: Decreased job satisfaction, turnover,
violence


Workplace violence, incivility, and bullying all
have their origins in the study of organizational
citizenship behavior, more specifically,
workplace deviance
Workplace Deviance is “voluntary behavior
that violates significant organizational norms
and in so doing threatens the well-being of an
organization, its members, or both” (Robinson
and Bennett, 1995, p. 556).

Four quadrants of workplace deviance:
 1. Production Deviance (Behaviors that directly
interfere with work)
 2. Property Deviance (The destruction of property)
 3. Political Deviance**(Mild interpersonal
behavior)
 4. Personal Aggression (Harmful interpersonal
behavior)

Incivility is a negative issue and has varying degrees of
intensity

Mild examples:
 Not making another pot of coffee after last cup has been poured
 not opening doors for people
 not thanking someone

Extreme examples:
 Rude comments
 Verbal abuse
 Harassment

Usually starts with some sort of change (i.e. new
employee, change in ownership, new work groups)

Causes:
 Crowded working conditions
 Excess stress
 Power dynamics

Occurrence:
 92% of current employees reported at least one incident
of incivility in the past three years (American
Management Association)
 80% of victims are women (Jones, 2006)
 Of those 80%, 50% are women over the age of 45
 Incivility perpetrators are usually (77%) women
between the ages of 20 and 45 (Namie, 2003)


Sometimes referred to as “Escalated Incivility”
or “Generalized Harassment”.
Workplace bullying refers to highly negative
verbal and nonverbal communicative behaviors that
are characterized by:





Repetition/frequency /duration(persistent)
Intentional
Escalated
Power
Adverse Effects




Both men & women engage in bullying
(women tend to bully more than men)
Men are bullied by men/women are bullied by
women
Bullies are typically identified as managers or
those with a higher org rank than the target
Targets self-report they are college-educated
(84%) & veteran’s of the org (7 years)(Namie,
2003).

There is a large gap in research on workplace
bullying:
The HR (ombudsman) perspective
 The bully’s perspective
 Varying definitions
 Overlap in the construct


Salin’s (2003) comprehensive review of
literature identified three necessary
organizational antecedents to bullying in the
workplace:



1) enabling structures and processes
2) motivating structure and processes
3) precipitating processes.
Individual:
 Psychological trauma
 Severe stress
 Physical health issues
 Negative self-identity which requires
remediation
Organizational:
 Toxic organizational culture(recruiting issues,
etc.)
 Absenteeism,
 High turnover
 Lower productivity
 Costly employee health effects
 Legal countermeasures by employees



Defined WKB similarly to targets and
academics but with important differences
Complicated to identify and pin down bullying
due to the myriad of behaviors associated with
it, its subtle nature, and its varying degrees.
Varying degrees: Based on repetition and the
actual behaviors associated with the bullying.


These HR professionals made sense of how and
why bullying happens in organizations in a
variety of ways.
Roles:



The HR profs. felt they played a progressive, changing
role in bullying situations, emotional laborer, powerful
vs. powerless.
The HR profs. felt UM saw their role in bullying
situations as: 1) a partner/resource, 2) “take care of it”,
3) objective, third party, 4) and as a nag.
The HR profs. felt targets saw their role in bullying
situations as: 1) “fix it” and 2) trusted listener.

Do U.S. orgs use policies to address bullying?
1 had an anti-bullying policy
 16 had policies they felt covered bullying (without
labeling it as such)
 17 did not have a policy that covered bullying or did
not know if they had a policy.



What did these policies seem to be
communicating?
What did the HR professionals feel the policies
communicated?




Does what happens in your personal life affect
your work life and vice versa?
Should organizations help us manage the
relationship between work and home?
What kinds of initiatives have organizations
adopted to help achieve better balance?
How has the relationship between paid work
and home been viewed historically?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Diaries
Family letters
Tombstones
Sermons
Publications
Legal Documents
Institutional records (school,
hospital, business records)
• Songs
• Household architecture
A Worthy Matron of unspotted Life
A loving Mother and obedient wife
A friendly neighbor, pitiful to poor
Whom oft she fed, and clothed with her
store
To Servants wisely aweful, but yet kind
And as they did, so they reward did
find
A true Instructor of her Family
The which she ordered with dexterity
The publick meetings ever did frequent
And in her Closet constant hours she
spent
Religious in all her words and wayes
Preparing still for death til end of dayes
Of all her Children, Children lived to
see
Then dying, left a blessed memory
What does this
document say
about women’s
roles in colonial
America and their
power in the home
and the
community?
What was the household
composition?
How were roles divided?
How did they intersect?
What were the rhythms of the
day? When did work start and
stop?
What were the main barriers to
“success?”



Prior to the Industrial Revolution, work was
carried out by the entire family together,
including children—this blurred the line
between work and family
Shared responsibility for work
Women, however, were still also carrying the
double burden or working and being the sole
caretaker of their children


Wages become the family economic lifeline.
Demise of cottage industries in exchange for factories and
assembly lines

“Unemployment” becomes a new concern.

Time replaces tasks as the system of organizing work.



Work became physically separated from the home Emergence of ideology of separate spheres
Family interests were seen as competing loyalties
Entrenchment of segregated
gender roles

The mark of manhood
became the ability to
bring home a wage


Women’s work
became defined as
“non-productive”
Cult of domesticity
and new visions of
femininity
What were the benefits and costs of this arrangement for
women?
How about men, were their interests advanced or harmed by
this arrangement?







Boundary Management (separation/integration)
Spillover (open systems perspective)
Compensation (offset dissatisfaction in one role by seeking
satisfaction in another role)
Segmentation (intentional separation of work and family
roles)
Conflict (simultaneous pressures from work and family that
are mutually incompatible)
Balance (equally involved in and equally satisfied with work
role and family role)
Border Theory (work/family constitute different domains
but they always influence one another—flexibility and
permeability)

What challenges face working families today and
how do they depart from the challenges faced at
the mid 20th century?
Changing
 Changing
 Changing
 Changing

family structures
work opportunities
economy
demographics
Source: Moen, P., Sweet, S. & Bickley, T.
(2001). How Family Friendly is Upstate New
York? Ithaca, NY: Careers Center, Cornell
University.








Industries/Sectors
What is being produced
Occupations/Jobs
The tasks involved
Organization size
Small vs. large companies
Employees
The types of people performing work
Contractual arrangements
Compensation, security
Schedules
When work is performed
Geography
Where work is performed
Corporate Campuses
Help or hindrance with work/life balance?




Do you believe that companies treat employees differently if they leave
work early to address family concerns (e.g., pick up a child) as opposed to
personal concerns (e.g., leave early to go to the gym)?
Why might organizations be more supportive of family reasons? Is it the
value society places on family? Or, is it because obligations that involve
children are seen as necessary?
If two obligations are seen as "necessary," does it change the way that the
organization treats family vs. non-family obligations? (For example, a
person leaving early for a medical appointment vs. leaving early to pick
up a sick child).
Do you think organizations should treat family concerns (e.g., picking up
a child from daycare) and non-family concerns (e.g., leaving early to
further one's education) in the same manner?



As mentioned in Cowan & Hoffman (2007),
organizations need to articulate what they mean by
“work-life balance” and how employees and
managers alike, co-create these meanings (i.e.
flexibility is not about telecommuting, flextime or job
sharing but rather it’s in reference to time, space,
evaluation and compensation)
Researchers studying work-life/family should not
impose constructs on the study but rather, allow
participants to define the relationship
What does the term “work” really mean in 2010? Is it
a place? A period of time? An activity? This needs
further clarification