Traditionalism In The Workplace Essay

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Something unusual is occurring in today’s workforce, it has become very diverse in terms of the various generations in it. Generations are groups born during the same time who experience similar cultural experiences (Campbell, 2015). Most organizations now have a workforce of four distinct generations, creating a multi-generational workforce. Due to the struggling economy in the United States over the last several years, people are delaying retirement and working longer than ever before. Concurrently, there are 100,000 new workers joining the workforce monthly. Never before have so many generations worked side-by-side in the workplace (Hannam, 2011). Although the names and ages of each generation slightly vary depending on the literature, the consensus seems to be that there are currently four generations in the workforce.
The oldest generation in the workforce are the Traditionalists. They were born between 1927 and 1945. About 95% of Traditionalist have retired and those that still remain in the workforce are close to retirement. Traditionalist grew up during difficult times and consider work a privilege. They tend to have strong work ethic and believe in getting ahead through hard work. Of all four generations, they tend to be the slowest to change their work habits and are less likely to adapt to new technology (Kane, …show more content…

The Baby Boomer generation is much larger than the Traditionalist generation since the number of children increased substantially following World War II. Due to this population growth, Baby Boomers had to deal with college overcrowding and competing for entry-level jobs. Baby Boomers grew up in a time of middle-class affluence. It was relatively easy for them to advance in their careers. Their generation fought for the rights of women and minorities. It was during their time that women joined the workforce in large quantities (Monahan,

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