As my frequent readers know, I have been bemoaning the myths that are thrown out as facts at conferences, by podcasts and in books and blogs that at best mislead hospitality leaders and at worst lead to discrimination based on birth year.
Generationism is harmful, just like racism and sexism. Worse yet, many of those spewing these falsehoods are making a handsome profit by doing so.
Seems like just about every conference I speak at lately has another high-paid keynote speaker addressing some topic related to what Gen Z or millennials want out of work and life, including what they are looking for in a hotel workplace.
Hotel tech companies have used generational myths to oversell the need for the latest and greatest shiny new tech toy they claim are must-haves for the rising generations of hotel guests.
I certainly understand this is an entertaining subject and there is anecdotal value in personifying the demographics of various age groups for discussion purposes. Yet lately it seems to me that this is being taken too far.
Hotel brands have been launched, amenities have been changed, training programs have been altered, HR recruitment methods have been influenced — all to meet the needs of these imaginary generational groupings.
What’s worse though is there seems to be an awful lot of what I call “generational bashing” taking place in conversations around the workforce these days. As I travel nearly each week conducting training throughout North America, too often I hear managers bemoaning younger colleagues as lacking work ethic, being snowflakes who cannot handle criticism (because they received “participation ribbons” in grade school) and being disloyal to their companies.
At the same time, generational bashing also impacts the older baby boomer generations, such as the disparaging term “OK, Boomer,” calling people a “Karen” or a “Ken,” or claiming that this age group fails at using workplace technology.
It’s time to pull back and recognize all these terms — also including Gen X — for what they are: creative names that were dreamed up to personify the psychographics and demographics of imprecise age groups. Let’s treat people as individuals, not as birth-year groupings.
It seems the term millennials was first coined by William Strauss and Neil Howe in their book “Generations,” which was published in 1991. They are credited with what many now call the “Strauss–Howe Generational Theory.” Meanwhile, the term “Generation X” was popularized by Canadian journalist Douglas Coupland, and soon after the Gen Z label became commonly used.
Until recently, my ardent pushback has been based on my own firsthand experiences. Albeit anecdotal, I feel uniquely qualified to bust these myths in the hotel industry, based on my job.
Nearly every week, I conduct one to five days of on-site training for the front-line and supervisory staff of a huge diversity of hotels. You learn a lot about people when you spend four or eight hours interacting with them on topics such as hospitality and sales. Each week I meet ambitious, hard-working young 20-somethings who are so eager to learn more; many of whom have both a full-time and part-time gig. I also meet so-called boomers who are embracing change and mastering new tech that’s required in sales and operations, and many of them are launching entirely new “retirement job” careers.
Since I grew up in the era of the fight for civil rights and for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, I’ve always been one of the first to fight discrimination based on any classification, so I suppose it’s not surprising that I’m offended the use of the innate characteristic of birth year in a discriminatory way.
In this article, I could go on listing anecdotal examples and even name individuals whom I’ve had in my workshops who completely smash these workforce myths. But instead, I’m excited to announce that there’s finally empirical research, done by those far more qualified than me, that backs me up.
Recently, I came across several new articles by Dr. Martin Schröder, professor of Sociology at Marburg University in Germany, who has also done work at Harvard and Oxford. If you're skeptical, I suggest you check out his blog post from January for yourself, or if you really want a deep dive, check out his open access white paper that published in October 2023.
As Dr. Schröder explains in the blog: “I came to this subject wanting to find out the opposite. A literary agency offered me the prospect of a lucrative book contract if only I could show that Generation Y ‘is different.’ But I just couldn’t find anything.”
He points out specific examples of generational stereotypes that are contradictory.
“If you take into account the effect of different life stages and different interview times, then there are hardly any generational effects that could explain work motivation or any other work-relevant trait. This means that, yes, young people think differently about work than old people. And yes, we all think differently about work than we used to. But no, some generations do not think systematically differently about work when asked at the same age and at the same time,” he wrote in his white paper.
Let’s fight back and put aside these negative stereotypes and remember to look at each colleague or guest as an individual personality and not a homogenous grouping based on anything, be it race, gender, geographical origin or age-based demographics.
Today’s younger workers are really not that much different than previous generations. Rather than reinforcing negative stereotypes, let’s refocus our efforts on mentoring, coaching and training them. Chances are that when you look back at your career, there was someone who saw something in you that you did not yet see in yourself, and who made it their job to mentor and coach you along. Let’s pay it forward.
Doug Kennedy is president of the Kennedy Training Network, Inc. Contact him at doug@kennedytrainingnetwork.com.
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