As people live longer and work beyond traditional retirement ages, employers are facing an unprecedented challenge: how to take advantage of the strengths of up to five quite different generations — while managing their differences. Getting the best from workers who range from twenty-somethings to those old enough to be their grandparents presents a fundamental shift in workplace dynamics. In the past, organizations could rely on relatively homogeneous workforces with similar technological backgrounds and work styles. Now employers need to navigate different generational perspectives, communication preferences and skill sets within the same teams. But few know how. 

Daniel Jolles and Grace Lordan of the London School of Economics (LSE) surveyed more than 1,450 U.S. and U.K. finance, tech and professional services employees for their 2024 report Generations: Unlocking the Productivity Potential of a Multigenerational Workforce. The researchers found that among those surveyed, 40 percent didn’t view their firms as having intergenerational inclusive work practices and that “firms continue to miss out due to frictions between employees of different generations negatively impacting productivity.” The researchers defined productivity as employees’ performance contribution to team and firm outputs. The researchers also found:

• Twenty-five percent of employees surveyed reported low productivity, with Gen Z (those aged 28 and younger) reporting the lowest productivity levels.
• Employees who have larger age gaps with their managers reported lower productivity.
• But generations agreed that the skills most important to productivity and career advancement are active listening, time management, judgment and decision making.

CoGenerate, a nonprofit aiming to bridge generational divides, asked 61 leaders what they wanted from colleagues on different parts of the age spectrum. In two studies — the most recent in 2025 — the researchers reported that both younger and older leaders yearned for multigenerational workforces that tap into their cohorts’ strengths. “Older and younger leaders told us they want more curiosity and listening, less blame,” CoGenerate Co-CEO Marc Freedman wrote in an introduction to the report. “More chances to work with and learn from one another.” 

The generational divide isn’t just about different music preferences or communication styles, according to Jolles, co-author of the LSE study. It reflects distinct cognitive and experiential differences that need to be leveraged. “When we bring people with different perspectives together to work on projects, they bring their unique intellectual capital to the room,” he says — including their ideas, knowledge, experiences, technical skills, social networks and understanding of the world.

Older workers typically bring judgment honed through decades of experience, along with refined soft skills such as emotional intelligence and sophisticated problem-solving abilities. These workers have weathered multiple business cycles and industry transformations, giving them invaluable perspective. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reports that 77 percent of organizations have prioritized soft skills — like interpersonal skills, time management and leadership — to help meet demands of today’s changing workforce.

 Younger workers often contribute curiosity in place of experience. They frequently process information quickly and adapt to new technologies with ease that older colleagues sometimes struggle to match. “New graduates can bring fresh ideas, new attitudes about work and new outlooks about where the world is headed,” says Shawn VanDerziel, president and CEO of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). “The combination of that talent with workers with experience is powerful.”

Advances in generative AI are driving a rapid shift in entry-level hiring patterns though, complicating the generational balancing act for employers. In its 2025 report No Country for Young Grads, the nonprofit Burning Glass Institute documented a steep decline in opportunities for new workers, driven significantly by AI performing tasks previously handled by junior employees fresh out of college. The study said AI is particularly restricting entry-level opportunities for “growth roles” — jobs like marketing specialist, project manager and financial analyst.

“Core knowledge-economy sectors … have really tamped down hiring in general and tamped down hiring of entry-level people in particular,” says Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute and a co-author of its report. Sigelman believes we’re likely seeing “a fundamental structural change in hiring patterns,” transforming companies from pyramid-shaped workforces to diamond-shaped ones with relatively few entry-level workers. This change, he says, is partly because employers tend to view younger workers as less productive than experienced ones. It typically takes five to eight months for newly hired employees to reach full productivity, according to The Human Panel, an HR platform.

It remains to be seen whether the reduction in junior employees is permanent. It is clear, though, that the key to achieving better results from a multigenerational workforce is intentionality — especially in terms of how firms integrate their youngest and oldest workers. Jolles and Lordan found that when firms make it easy for employees of different generations to fit in and feel accepted, when employees are developed and advanced regardless of age, when leaders demonstrate a commitment to hiring and retaining a generationally diverse workplace and effectively manage employees from diverse generational backgrounds — intergenerational productivity can soar. According to Jolles, “It’s one thing to get a diverse team together, but if you get a diverse team together in a toxic culture or if the culture is not inclusive, then they’re not necessarily going to thrive.”