Chapter 10: Intergenerational Learning in Organizations: A Framework and Discussion of Opportunities

A higher average age, longer lifetime employment, and a decreasing share of younger workers characterize today’s workforce (McGuire, By, & Hutchings, 2007). Employees need to develop new technical and self-management skills to work efficiently in a world characterized by technological revolutions, fast innovation cycles, and unprecedented customer orientation (McKinsey, 2015). As a result of the worldwide demographic shift and technological changes, organizations are challenged to ensure young and old employees’ knowledge transfer, knowledge sharing, knowledge creation, and knowledge restructuring (Orzea & Bratianu, 2012).

Politicians have become increasingly aware of the potential consequences of demographic shifts for workforce composition and economic productivity (Gordo & Mertens, 2010; Lerman & Schmidt, 1999; Winkelmann-Gleed, 2009). However, a focus on fostering intergenerational learning as a strategy to develop employees from different generations and prevent company-specific knowledge loss is far from prevalent in contemporary organizational practice (Ropes, 2013). To date, most studies on intergenerational learning were conducted in familial or educational settings (Fair & Delaplane, 2015; Fiebig, 2014; Karasik, 2013; Kenner, Ruby, Jessel, Gregory, & Arju, 2007; Kropf & Burnette, 2003). Organizational research on intergenerational learning remains rather fragmented, with limited efforts to integrate previous studies and a lack of theoretical grounding. In an attempt to map the territory, this chapter presents a framework to classify organizational activities that explicitly or implicitly allow for intergenerational learning in organizations. Moreover, we identify and discuss success factors at the (1) individual, (2) task/program, and (3) work environment level to support an effective knowledge exchange between generations.