Age at work study:
a view beyond generational clusters

17 different organizations, 20 months of re, 4,000 days of interaction with basic groups and1.000 questionnaires have shown how today’s organizations reflect a complex cultural richness that the most common definition of generational clusters, struggle to express.

Human resources to be capitalized on to produce competitive results within complex scenarios.

There is a group of people often forgotten in whom it is important to invest to improve corporate performance—the organizational “guts”. Figures show that the people who suffer most at work are those between the ages of 30 and 55, and their suffering is expressed in different ways.

Workers say they are oriented towards the future, adventure and altruism, the dominant styles of approach are the Conquerors in the Mirror and Opportunity Tourists, approaches that are irrespective of age.

These are just some of the results of the AGE at WORK study of lifestyles at work, which demonstrate that the traditional definitions of Millennials, Baby Boomers, Patriarchs and Generation X do not fully reflect the complex cultural richness that is found in today’s organizations.

From an analysis of commitment to the job, individual aspirations, orientation towards others or oneself, orientation towards the future or the past, and proximity or distance from the current digitalization process, we have profiled 8 styles of approach to work. They are the result of a combination of direct observation by our team members over the last 20 months, with 4,000 days of interaction with basic groups and literature regarding generational diversity and the various schools of thought.

We examined the key issues of work orientation, age differences and professional longevity in 17 companies that chose to work with us more closely during this study. We created 5 discussion round tables with participants from a range of companies and themes (communications, compensation, attracting and managing talent, welfare and development, specific aspects of the sales function). We led focus groups with participants of different ages, corporate seniority and responsibilities in the company. We distributed 1,000 questionnaires and analyzed 724 responses.

The Age at Work study compares the findings from a representative sample of Italian workers with the international context through a synthesis of the results of the Talent Survey of the Sloan Center of Boston.