THIRD SEMESTER 2019/2020 SESSION

BSMH 5013
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT 4: GROUP PROJECT

CASE STUDY 2
BRIDGING THE COMMUNICATION GAP BETWEEN
GENERATION Y AND THE BABY BOOMER GENERATION

LECTURER NAME:
DR. ZURINA ADNAN

PREPARED BY:
1. AZMIRA BINTI ISMAIL (826419)

2. SURAYA BINTI MIZAR AZMI (826415)

SUBMISSION DATE : 11 JULY 2020

REVIEW THE ARTICLE AND DISCUSS HOW NEW GENERATIONS CAN BE
ASSIMILATED TO THE COMPANY’S EXISTING CULTURE.

ARTICLE REVIEW
The article basically elaborates on the types and levels of communications between the two
generations where the gaps are substantially more than 40 years, and of course the method and
outcome exhibit at a different degree. Baby boomers are generations born from 1946 to 1964
while Generation Y or Gen Y are generations born in 1980’s to 2000. How to close the gaps?
But at the same time to allow them to have a meaningful interpersonal communication. The
context of upbringing of individuals, historical background and socio economy status may also
contribute to the factors of the efficiency of the communication.

Whether one speaks of written or spoken communication; verbal or nonverbal communication;

face-to-face or digital communication, the process of communication involves humans making
meaning together (Stewart, 2002b, p. 17). However, baby boomers could be our grandparents
or parents where they prefer to have a face to face contact, telephone, or email to communicate
to one another, be it a formal or informal situation. On the other hand, the face to face method
may lead to time consuming and require a proper planning to be at a certain place for a meeting.

Face-to-face interactions allow people to communicate verbally and nonverbally – with spoken
and body language. Communication does not, however, only occur face-to-face – telephone
conversations, text or instant messages and participation on social networks suggest a personal
connection with another person (Solomon & Theiss, 2013, p. 6), although more through verbal
cues. As for this generations, their preference is physical contact where they can see the body
language and a direct facial reaction. It is essential in making a decision especially on business
matter related. In the family tradition for instance, our grandparents would love to see and hold
their kids and grandchildren in their own hands and physical hug, it is how they can show their
warmness and show how much they care.

This generation has a strong work ethic. Their career is of utmost importance to them and they
believe in stability, sometimes staying in one career and using opportunities within this one
career during their lifetime (Helyer & Lee, 2012, p. 568). In short, baby boomers learned from
the hard way in getting something or earning for the living. They are competitive and used to
work with large numbers with manual operation task. This generation gone through the blood

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and tears in getting the work done and may sometimes felt unsecured of the new generations
and career pressure due to lack of technology knowledge (Glass, 2007, p. 100). They are often
to be loyal, committed, reliable thus they also expect the same loyalty from people around
them. If we observed these generations, they tend to keep something for themselves rather than
taught every single thing to their peers especially their peers are from Gen Y. Perhaps they
want to them to learn from scratch hence they will learn more effectively.

Generation Y was born between 1980 and more or less 2000 (Hartman & McCambridge, 2011,
p.22) and some authors call them millennial (Howe & Strauss, 2000). Some people tagged this
generation as “born with a silver spoon in mouth” since the technology is ever ready with a
blink of an eye. They are fortunate, less effort but expected to be more aggressive than the
previous generation to carry out the duties with superior results as they have better facilities
and opportunity. Gen Y are more feasible with Computer-mediated communication (CMC)
where sometimes the message could be misunderstood between the two generations, reason
being lack of social presence as Baby Boomers more appreciate the body language and facial
expression. This also could lead to lack of enough appropriate nonverbal communication cues
where also could lead to misinterpretation of the original message. Obviously, these days the
solution is to have a video communication as an alternative to the physical presence. Moreover,
in the new norms, everyone must adhere to the physical distancing awareness and minimize
the risk of meeting in a group.

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INTRODUCTION
Communication is one of the most important issues in the workplace. It is critical to create and
maintaining the quality of working relationships in an organization. According to (Waggoner,
2013) Smart business leaders know that happy workers are productive workers and ultimately
benefit their companies. Studies have shown that different aspects of effective organizational
communication, such as high frequency, openness and accuracy, performance feedback, and
adequacy of information about organizational policies and procedures are positively related to
employees’ feelings of happiness in the workplace and job performance. Effective workplace
communication ensures that organizational objectives are achieved. Workplace
communication is tremendously important to organizations because it increases productivity
and efficiency. Ineffective workplace communication leads to communication gaps between
employees, which causes confusion, wastes time, and reduces productivity.

Being a HR personnel in organization it is critical to identify any problem arise that will affect
individual, team, and company performance. Based on the case study we understand that HR
plays a critical roles to bridging the gap between baby boomers and Gen Y. Human resource
development (HRD) is a major human resource management (HRM) function that not only
consists of training and development but also individual career planning and development
activities, organization development and performance appraisal that was the activities that
emphasize T&D needs. Training and development are the heart of a continuous effort of the
organization that was design for the purpose to improve the employee competency and the
organization performance (Mondy,2012). Training and development are processes that attempt
to provide the employee with information, skills and understanding of the organization and its
goals. In additional, training and development are designed to help person continue to make
positive contributions in the form of good performance. Training comprises learning activities
which improve an individual’ performance in a particular job or occupation. Development is
the process of helping individuals to develop and fulfill their potential. It includes education
and training but also involves counseling, performance planning and review and career
discussion.

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SUGGESTION & DISCUSSION

Referring to the article, we understand that the main problem between the baby-
boomers and Gen Y is lack of effective communication. Workforce education and development
in the 21st century is “to promote individual opportunities by making students more competitive
in the labour force, thus allowing them to pursue personal career goals, and to make a nation
economically strong and firms internationally competitive by solving human performance
problems of incumbent” (O’Lawrence, 2016). According to (Maimunah, 2011) all training
programs are designed to either change the attitude, develop skills, and impart knowledge.
Through a proper and systematic learning and development framework we want to suggest a
few options to bring down the gap between these two generations. This framework covers all
type of learning process in organization.

Identify Training Needs

Set Training Objectives

Design the Training Programme

Implement the Training Programme

Evaluate Training Programme

Figure 1: Framework in Organizing Training Programme

Technology Advancement through Training Programs

Technology has shaped the way we communicate, live and work. The importance of
technology is widely spoken over the world, to ensure the baby-boomers are well updated with
new technology, the company should conduct series of training that related to technology. It
can be hands-on class on how to use computers, smartphones with features that could help

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them to minimize the time they need in handling their work. With involvement from IT
department, Gen-Y together with training provider/consultant that manage to tackle the baby-
boomers interest to learn about technology, assuredly, they will able to work in-hand with Gen-
Y to work and achieve towards company strategy. A future ready training skills and
development has contributed to the new equal opportunity to these generations to further
develop their gaps not limited to time and place since the technology has an advantage to touch
the users anytime, anywhere also accessible as and when they required.

Team Building
Team building is about imparting the skills, training, and resources that employee need, so that
they can work in good working culture and environment. Effective team building should be a
continues process, embedded into the team and organization's culture also spirit. The purpose
of team building activities is to motivate your people to work together, to develop their
strengths, and to address any weaknesses. It shows that team building exercise should
emphasize on collaboration rather than competition between these two generations. For
instance, in this case baby-boomers and the Gen-Y should be able to identify the similarities
and differences and how to transform that into mutual understanding to work toward the
strategic goals, while develop new skills and increase knowledge to perform better. As part of
the engagement which assists an open communication from different angle, created a positive
bonding and relationship building through the activities, indirectly uplift the team synergy.

Mentor Mentee
Mentorship program are great approach to develop strong bonding and connections between
baby-boomers and Gen-Y. Working as a small team of two or three definitely will ease the
communication and to deliver any feedback or message, apart from that this exercise will make
them understand each other better and give a better results in delivery the task. This is not
necessarily have to be formal type of communication, it can be informal or casual where having
lunch together to loosen up any stiffness between mentor and mentee and to portray that the
baby-boomers are able to listen to Gen-Y. In a formal arrangement, mentor mentee can also be
conducted by quarterly basis, recording the assessment in the Key Performance Indicator
achievement, and monitoring of the progress and development of each participants hence to
have an impactful conversation. The improvement will be demonstrated in ones performing
daily task and the level of maturity in handling a situation, as part of talent development

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succession planning and pipeline. The impactful candidate could also be as prerequisite for the
potential successor for a critical position in the organization.

Management Role
Management must continuously evaluate the way of their employee. Generally, people in an
organization should be self-sufficient and perform without having a person to lead them
through every step, and at least with minimal supervision. Management role is not focus by
forming the team and giving instructions, but rather guiding the people to work well with one
another more effectively, both internal and external stakeholders. An effective communication
between the two generations can improve the level of understanding to achieve the common
goals. As a team become comfortable with one another, their efficiency and productivity will
improve as they build trust and confidence in each other. This must be a clear communication
from the management to the subordinates as to maximize the full potential of the employees
regardless all levels and generations. The strategic planning must be transparent enough for
everyone in the organization to understand the management vision to achieve the competitive
advantage.

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CONCLUSION

Despite the pros and cos between the two generations, they still value regard of what they do,
human beings with own personalities, values, notwithstanding generational differences. Key
to effective communication is to be open mindedness for both generations, acknowledge the
facts and existence to live in harmony and abreast with changes by learning from one another.
Additionally, to respect each other, openness, contribute for enhancement, make conversation
more meaningful.

Recently the global pandemic issue of Covid-19 was really impacted our social system, the
enforcement of flexible working arrangement to the world has been adapted globally. This
includes the virtual meeting arrangement and communications. All generations have embedded
the new norms as to keep abreast with the latest development in the world. We agreed with
Sherblom’s (2010, p. 500) literature study, CMC reduces, modifies, and eliminates many vocal
and physical cues and this restricts the communications of social information about a specific
person. As a worker regardless of generations, we have to be productive in many ways to keep
the company objectives as our priority. Same goes to our family cultures where it follows the
new norms of virtual communications for instance our festive celebration has no longer by the
group visitation but virtually communicated as long as the thoughts and wishes messages are
well delivered, accepted.

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References
Stewart, J., & Logan, C. (2002). Verbal and nonverbal dimensions of talk. In J. Stewart (Ed.), Bridge
not walls – A book about

interpersonal communication (pp. 117–143). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Solomon, D., & Theiss, J. (2013). Interpersonal communication – Putting theory into practice. New
York, NY: Routledge (Taylor

& Francis Group).

Glass, A. (2007). Understanding generational differences for competitive success. Industrial and
Commercial Training, 39,

98–103.

Helyer, R., & Lee, D. (2012). The twenty‐first century multiple generation workforce. Education +
Training, 54(7), 565–578.

Hartman, J. L., & McCambridge, J. (2011). Optimizing millennials’communication styles. Business

Communication Quarterly,

74(1), 22–44.

Howe, N., & Strauss, W. (2000). Millennials rising: The next greatest generation. New York, NY:
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Sherblom, J. C. (2010). The computer-mediated communication (CMC) classroom: A challenge of

medium, presence,

interaction, identity, and relationship. Communication Education, 59(4), 497–523.