Linda Schweitzer Tracks Generational Career Shifts
A fresh-faced CEO slides into the lobby for the televisions cameras, two programmers are shooting pool on break and the communications staff are meeting over lattes brewed by on-staff baristas.
Companies have pulled out all the stops in the race to attract millennial talent, but have they alienated other demographics in the process? Is any of it what workers really want?
Well, that depends.
What we value most changes as we age. Plus the three generations currently in our workplaces have had vastly different career trajectories and value different things.
“Everybody wants meaningful work,” says Linda Schweitzer, associate professor and interim dean at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business.
Schweitzer co-authored Generational Career Shifts: How Veterans, Boomers, Xers and Millennials View Work, with Dalhousie’s Eddy S. Ng and Guelph’s Sean T. Lyons. The book examines career trajectories and workplace values of current workers and “veterans” (older retired workers) over the first 10 years of their careers, considering the first 25 years of the latter three.
“Everybody wants information to do their jobs, and to be doing the job they expected. It’s about managing expectations and being transparent. “
And they want work-life balance, but what exactly that means varies.
Read the full story in the Carleton Newsroom.