March Chapter Meeting Recap – Take it from a Millennial: Generational Differences in the Workforce
Brief Synopsis by Shea DeWald, Account Executive, LONG Building Technologies, Inc.
This month we were fortunate to hear a wonderful presentation from Pam Duffy, Senior PM for Lennox, regarding how generations interact with one another in the workplace. Duffy described common personality traits and working habits from the 5 generational groups (Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennial, Gen Z), as well as how each generation might have been raised, the major historical events that each generation grew up with and how that may effect their working habits. All of this information was then used by Duffy to suggest the best ways to interact with each generation within the workforce. Once each generation had been presented, the audience was shown trends on topics such as what percentage of each category is currently in the workforce, the percentage of each generation that actually identifies within their category (i.e. 60% of millennial don’t identify as a millennial), etc.
My Thoughts: As someone who falls into the “millennial category”, has Gen X parents, and Baby Boomer Grandparents, the March ASHRAE chapter topic really did hit close to home. Because of my experiences I was able to reference both colleagues and family members that fell within each generational category and I often found myself laughing at the truth behind the traits described for each generation. Duffy did an excellent job of opening my mind to new ways to interact with my coworkers who I do share some generational gaps with, and I also was able to take away a few new goals for myself after hearing what generational stereotypes I fall into, such as trying to make more phone calls instead of using email for most of my communications.