Within the corporate world we now see three different generation cultures working side-by-side. Progressive mangers are expected to understand these differences and make peace with the different mindsets and traits that come along each age group. In order to retain top talent and build solid working teams rewards and assignments should take into consideration the personal likes and dislikes of each of the groups.

Culture plays an important part of successful management. For example, older executive managers have a different culture than their younger subordinates. Today there is four different cultures co-existing at once; traditionalists who were born before 1945, boomers who were born between 1946 and 1964, generation x born between 1965 and 1977, and finally generation Y born after 1977 (Sachs, 2006).

An interesting article by Dana Kyles outlines three of these differences with clarity (2005):

Baby boomers are seen as competitive, political and hard working. They hold the majority of management level positions are results orientated instead of the method. They want the status symbols that come with higher pay, special parking spaces, titles and perks. There is approximately 80 million in the workforce.

Generation X