The Experience Perspective: An Ipsos Podcast
Aug 28, 2026 · 30 min · 10 segments
Join Bhavna Sawnani as she explores the realities of generations in the workplace with Emily Cooke, Director…
Emily CookeGuest
Bhavna SawnaniHost
So if the research here is telling us that some of the generational differences aren't quite what we think they are.
The next question is really, what does this really mean in practice for organizations? So for leaders who are managing increasingly age diverse teams, what behaviors do you think become even more important?
Well, we've already just talked about the fact that different age groups can completely misunderstand each other or create assumptions.
So I think the role of the manager is in making sure that they themselves don't fall into this same pattern of thinking.
They need to be actively challenging their own assumptions, which is all down to self-awareness and awareness.
The other thing I think is making sure that they are creating the space for that open dialogue that we just talked about within the team, not just in one-to-ones, but as a collective.
And then thinking about individualized support, which is really difficult, as we said before, especially when you're contending with your own demands as a manager and the increasingly complex environment that you're having to navigate.
But it's around dedicating time to really get to know everyone in your team, everyone that you need, and being able to dial up certain support based on where someone is in their life and career.
And I think those kind of behaviours are things that don't always come naturally to people.
When you see managers that get promoted into managerial roles because that's just the next step up for them and it comes with people management, but actually they're just experts in their role, they're not then getting the development of those human skills that I think are required to treat everyone as individuals and not fall into the trap of grouping people together.
Yeah, it's those softer skills, right, to just be able to actually get to know the people who are on your team and what their needs are and what their beliefs are and what they want from their role as well.
And it's really interesting, right, because, yes, I agree that managers are probably that squeeze in the middle.
But I think one other thing that probably should be really important and should be prioritized is that human touch and that authentic leadership, which is becoming more and more important in our day-to-day work, right? So generational thinking has become quite embedded in how organizations think about the workforce, from attraction and onboarding through to development, employer value propositions and how benefits are then kind of shared or promoted.
But if the research suggests that generation isn't always the most useful lens, what should organisations be looking at instead of when designing the employee experience?
While we're saying that generation isn't the right lens for viewing your employee experience through, We definitely advocate for segmenting the workforce and not just in one way.
So the variables that we see consistently explain more of the variation in EX than the generation are things like tenure, life stage, seniority, role type.
career stage and i think of those tenure is probably the most underused so how long someone has been in an organization really does shape the way they experience it that has nothing to do with their age the optimism and the energy that we tend to attribute to younger people is often actually a tenure effect right if you think about you start a new job You are engaged.
So I think similarly, the disengagement and skepticism that we might associate with people who are older is more of a long tenure effect.
It's that kind of accumulated distance from the organization's current direction.
So if the research here is telling us that some of the generational differences aren't quite what we think they are.
The next question is really, what does this really mean in practice for organizations? So for leaders who are managing increasingly age diverse teams, what behaviors do you think become even more important?
Well, we've already just talked about the fact that different age groups can completely misunderstand each other or create assumptions.
So I think the role of the manager is in making sure that they themselves don't fall into this same pattern of thinking.
They need to be actively challenging their own assumptions, which is all down to self-awareness and awareness.
The other thing I think is making sure that they are creating the space for that open dialogue that we just talked about within the team, not just in one-to-ones, but as a collective.
And then thinking about individualized support, which is really difficult, as we said before, especially when you're contending with your own demands as a manager and the increasingly complex environment that you're having to navigate.
But it's around dedicating time to really get to know everyone in your team, everyone that you need, and being able to dial up certain support based on where someone is in their life and career.
And I think those kind of behaviours are things that don't always come naturally to people.
When you see managers that get promoted into managerial roles because that's just the next step up for them and it comes with people management, but actually they're just experts in their role, they're not then getting the development of those human skills that I think are required to treat everyone as individuals and not fall into the trap of grouping people together.
Yeah, it's those softer skills, right, to just be able to actually get to know the people who are on your team and what their needs are and what their beliefs are and what they want from their role as well.
And it's really interesting, right, because, yes, I agree that managers are probably that squeeze in the middle.
But I think one other thing that probably should be really important and should be prioritized is that human touch and that authentic leadership, which is becoming more and more important in our day-to-day work, right? So generational thinking has become quite embedded in how organizations think about the workforce, from attraction and onboarding through to development, employer value propositions and how benefits are then kind of shared or promoted.
But if the research suggests that generation isn't always the most useful lens, what should organisations be looking at instead of when designing the employee experience?
While we're saying that generation isn't the right lens for viewing your employee experience through, We definitely advocate for segmenting the workforce and not just in one way.
So the variables that we see consistently explain more of the variation in EX than the generation are things like tenure, life stage, seniority, role type.
career stage and i think of those tenure is probably the most underused so how long someone has been in an organization really does shape the way they experience it that has nothing to do with their age the optimism and the energy that we tend to attribute to younger people is often actually a tenure effect right if you think about you start a new job You are engaged.
So I think similarly, the disengagement and skepticism that we might associate with people who are older is more of a long tenure effect.
It's that kind of accumulated distance from the organization's current direction.
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