Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#123 The Generational Divide and Comms … is it a ‘thing’?

• Season 1 • Episode 123

Share episode

Are generational communication preferences fact or fiction?

This episode of the Less Chatter, More Matter podcast dives into one of the hottest topics from the 2025 IABC World Conference: navigating communication across multiple generations in the workplace. 

From Gen Z to Boomers and beyond, we explore whether the so-called generational divide is backed by evidence or built on unhelpful stereotypes. We unpack why some assumptions may be doing more harm than good and we offer three powerful strategies for communicators to break down generational bias, build psychological safety, and connect more meaningfully with employees, regardless of their age.

Whether you lead teams, create change communications, or just want to challenge the status quo, this episode will shift your perspective on how to truly understand and engage your audience. Plus, it'll give you some insights onto stereotyping and how sometimes, it doesn't do us any good! So, listen in now.


Links mentioned in this episode:

Say hi!
Follow me on LinkedIn
Find out what I'm up to Instagram
Check out my website
Ask a question

Are you a Gen Z, A millennial, or a Gen Xer? Perhaps you are a boomer or maybe one of these newfangled Gen Alphas. There's been a lot of chat around multiple generations being in the workforce right now, and what that means for leadership styles and communication. In fact, it is a hot topic that kept popping up at the IABC World Conference in Vancouver that I attended last week. But what does this so-called generational divide really mean? What does it really matter? And is it really a thing? And what does any of this mean for our communication practices? Well, that's what today's episode is all about. Hello, friend, and welcome to this week's episode of Less Chatter, More Matter. My name is Mel Loy and I'm back on Yuggera and Turrbal Land here in Meanjin, Brisbane this week. And I say back on this land because I've been overseas, speaking at and attending the IABC World Conference in Canada. Now, if you're unaware, IABC stands for International Association of Business Communicators and each year they have their world conference, which brings together around a thousand people from all around the globe. It's pretty cool. It's a truly awesome way to not only learn, but to meet new people and connect with other comms pros from different parts of the globe. And while I was there, it was really obvious that. All this talk about different generations in the workforce was such a hot topic. There was actually a keynote on the last day where the speaker mentioned five different generations, which I'll share in just a moment, and their preferred ways of working and communicating and what that means for leadership and internal comms. And it's not just this conference that this conversation has been taking place in comms and HR circles. This has been going on for a couple of years. So I'm maybe going to be a little bit controversial today and say, I think some of this is overblown in fact. It's trying to fit square pegs into round holes and actually, isn't that helpful at all? Firstly though, let's look at what the conversation is all about. One of the key issues that has driven this apparent need to examine generational differences is our aging populations. In 35 countries, more than one in five people will be aged over 65 in the next couple of decades, and in some cases this is already happening like in Korea and Japan and Singapore. And then somewhere along the line, we've defined different generations by the years of birth as follows. So traditionalists are those people who were born between 1925 and 1945. Baby boomers were born between 1946 to 1964, generation X, born 1965 to 1980, millennials, 1981 to 2000 because millennials and Gen Z born 2001 to 2020. Now then people decided to survey people from within each one of these categories and compare how they feel about things like remote work, leadership styles, how they like to communicate, what they think about the economy, blah, blah, blah. And hey, presto! We have another way to discriminate and put labels on people. Here's why I have an issue with this conversation. It is far too binary. It's far too black and white. These are very broad stereotypes and we're just putting labels on things that have been true since the beginning of time. People adapt their behaviours and their needs to the environment around them, and everybody who's older thinks everybody who's younger is stupid. A 2012 study by Costanza et al found that the differences between age groups is actually really small, and there's a huge variety of opinions, preferences, and values within each group. This study found that individuals experience changes in how they prefer to work throughout their careers. But big differences depending on generation are not there, simply doesn't add up. So the real challenge appears to be, not that there are differences between generations, but that we believe there are differences and that creates problems because we stereotype people based on age. So for example, you might be a Gen Z who assumes a baby boomer is a technophobe without realising that they've spent decades of their careers now working with computers and technological advances. You might be an older person who assumes the younger workforce is lazy or doesn't want to work, or they think they know everything. Do you remember when you were young? We all thought we knew everything. And in fact, many of these younger people are willing to work very hard, but perhaps seeing burnout happen left to right and center in the generation before them, they aren't willing to go to that extreme. And can you blame them? And then of course, the younger person worries that the older person thinks they're lazy and the older person worries that the younger person thinks they're now inept and things just get worse. There was a 2015 study by McCasland Etal where they asked participants to train someone else on a computer task using an online chat. Other participants listened to the training, then performed the task. Now it gets interesting because the researchers varied whether the trainer and the trainee appeared to be older or younger, just by using photos and modifying their voices. And what they found was that stereotypes about older people's ability to learn new tasks interfered with the training they received. So basically, younger trainers who thought they were teaching an older person not only had lower expectations of the trainee. But they also provided worse training compared to when they thought they were teaching a younger person. Now, essentially, when we think about someone based on their age or a parent generation, we tap into a bias. We make assumptions that can really impact the experience other people have. So instead of assuming things about your audience or your workmates based on their age, what should you be doing? Well, this is the world according to Mel, of course, which is the beauty of having your own podcast. But I'm going to share three things that I think you can do instead of focusing so much on the hard and fast rules around these apparent generational preferences, number one. Check before you choose. So like all communication, know your audience. And when I say know your audience, that's not what you think you know, but what they've told you, and here's what I mean. You might have a segment of your audience who are older people, maybe what we'd call baby boomers. You might assume that therefore you should stick with email or team meetings as a primary channel for your project comms. And just ignore teams or Slack or WhatsApp, whatever. But how do you know that to be true? The fact is older people have been using mobile technology for a very long time now, the first mobile phones were out around in the early nineties, so they've progressed with the technology and they could very well be savvy users. In fact, given how busy everyone is, they might actually prefer a short text message to a longer email. But you will not know unless you ask. So perhaps you could set up a comms advisory group with people who represent a cross section of ages, as well as represent different roles, responsibilities, and teams so you can test your ideas with them. Maybe there is engagement survey that you can get data from, or you can look at the analytics of the channels you already have. Whatever approach you take, just make sure it's a fair and accurate representation of your audiences and you're not making assumptions based on age. And speaking of assumptions, this isn't just about channel use, it's also about the preferred voice of the communication and the content itself and how it is presented within these channels. Perhaps there's this assumption that older people prefer longer form content because that's what they grew up with, but again, the world of work and our business environments are constantly changing, so people do adapt with them, and once again, it really pays to check before you choose. The second tip is be aware of the potential biases creeping into your work and the work of others who you support. So as comms practitioners, we have a duty to make sure our work is fair and accurate, and that means being aware of our own biases and how they might be showing up in the work that we produce. It's part of being ethical. Now, of course. We all bring biases into our work. We are human beings, and I promise you, every single one of us is subject to our own biases. To be human is to be biased. The key is being aware of when these biases show up and what they might cause, what the problems might be. So there's obviously a generational bias that can show up, like assuming a certain age group wants comms delivered in a certain way or won't understand a technology change. So we have to provide them with super duper idiot proof instructions. And honestly, you should be doing that anyway. Or we believe that younger people won't understand why the company wants people to be in the office at least two days a week. So we have to work really hard with that particular cohort to get them on site. Identifying this bias popping up is key, but there's a few other, perhaps more subtle or more insidious biases that reinforce these generational stereotypes in our comms and in the way we work with others. So the similarity bias, which basically means that we like people who are like us, and that means we place more credence on the things they say or do. So from a generational perspective, for example, a younger person might really agree with a message about hybrid work sent by somebody else who's close to their age because it's similarity bias. But they might vehemently disagree if it comes from someone in their sixties. We don't tend to trust people that we can't relate to as easily. Then there's confirmation bias. This is a big one. Confirmation bias means we tend to put more credibility into information that supports our beliefs and discount the evidence that goes against our beliefs. There's a lot of research and there's some really interesting experiments, which we don't have time to go into today, but what this means is, for example, if you hold a really strong belief that all millennials are entitled. But I share research with you that shows this is a big and unhelpful generalisation. There's a good chance you'll ignore that research because it doesn't confirm your preexisting belief. There's the halo effect. So this is kind of related to the other two biases. The halo effect means we tend to judge a person's attributes by our first impression of them. So if someone is really kind to you when you first meet, you tend to think everything else they do is amazing. The opposite can also be true. We can be tainted by our own limited experiences of our interactions with people from another age group. So perhaps you had a poor experience once with an older person at work, and now you assume all older people behave like that. And the final one I wanna mention here is in group bias or social proof. And this is essentially that everyone else around your age is saying "the other age groups are terrible", so therefore you are more likely to go along with the crowd because if you didn't, you'd be on the outgroup. And being part of the outgroup isn't good for us. It's harder to feel safe to speak up at work, to get things done and so on. And this is a little aligned with social proof where we base our behaviours on what we see others doing. So these are the main biases that show up in our work, and it's really about being hyper aware of them and being able to recognise whether they might be showing up in your planning and strategies and writing, et cetera. But it's also about being able to identify these biases coming through in the work of others that you support, like the C-Suite, for example, and being able to have those conversations to start to help them recognise the potential pitfalls of making generational assumptions. The third tip is a bit of an extension on the first tip, and this is draw on everyone's experiences and find the common ground. So again, it's about really listening to your audiences of all shapes and sizes and understanding what works for them. Because while you might have teams of people who are older or younger. That doesn't necessarily mean that these generational assumptions will apply, and much of their behaviour and communications preferences can actually be very heavily influenced by their leaders. We need to dig deeper sometimes to get to what people actually want. But more importantly, apart from finding out what people's differences are and tailoring our work to suit, it's also finding the common ground that works for most, if not all, people in your audience. Maybe people in your business really love the opportunity to directly chat with the CEO during small group round table events, or perhaps they really enjoy a very candid ask us anything virtual session. The common ground is the path of least resistance and something you can really build on. One thing that is common across most audiences is stories. Like I've said previously on the show, no matter if you're young or old or somewhere in between, your brain is wired for stories. So use this to your advantage. Find the stories that help to amplify or even simplify your message, and importantly, find the stories that help to break down these stereotypes, particularly if you've observed them in action in your own organisation. Now these could be really simple stories like engagement survey results that bust common myths, or maybe younger people are working really diligently to find a solution to an organizational problem. Or maybe there's older people who are drawing on their experiences to support and mentor younger people in adapting to new tech. Whatever it is, I promise you these stories exist and they're important to share. Ultimately though, all of this is about how communication can help create a workplace that's psychologically safe and inclusive, where diversity of values, preferences, needs, skills, and experiences are not only expected but highlighted because it's in that diversity where there are strengths that all businesses could be harnessing more effectively. All right, team. It is time for your episode recap. So today's show opened with me doing a bit of a rant about why I am sick of hearing about generational differences in communication preferences and why assuming those differences exist is a problem. In short, it's a stereotype that is untrue and unhelpful to everyone. I've offered three ways to overcome this as professional communicators. Number one, check before you choose. This is about really getting to know your audiences and their preferences for channels, message, voice, et cetera. Instead of making assumptions based on age, test your thinking and draw on the data. Number two, be aware of biases. So these are your own biases that you could be bringing into your work and the biases of others that you work with. When you can identify these red flags, you can help to work to remove them. And number three, draw on everyone's experiences and find the common ground. Ask for people's input and ideas instead of making assumptions, and then find the common ground between your audience members. The common ground helps to bring everyone together and also helps you get your message across much more easily. All right, team. I would love to hear your thoughts on today's show because I'm sure there are people who disagree with me, so get in touch. Send me a message either by email or dms, all the links are in the show notes. I'll be back next week with another fresh episode of Less Chatter, More Matter, and in fact, we've got a couple of cool guests coming up, so stay tuned for those episodes. In the meantime, keep doing amazing things and bye for now.