Across America, employers are noticing and bemoaning the fact that, as Boomers retire, they are taking decades of knowledge and real-world experience with them. While this historical knowledge fact may be true of each generation that retires from America’s workforce, at this point in time, it is not the next successive generation (Gen X-ers) who comprise the bulk of who remains in the workplace: it is Millennials. According to the Census Bureau, Millennials comprise about 36% of the U.S. workforce. And the differences between the retiring Boomers and Millennials are stark —especially in terms of each generation’s view of the workplace, preferred communication styles, and learning tendencies.
Many HR professionals and sociologists have written about these generational differences and concluded that Millennials (and also Gen Z-ers) prioritize “work-life balance” over investment in professional development and that, when engaged in learning in the workplace, Millennials (and also Gen Z-ers) require guidance, detailed instruction, and personal connection through mentoring and friendly relationships with their supervisors.
Therefore, in order to transmit and share their knowledge with younger generations, retiring Boomers must shift away from their preferred learning methods and (generally) directive, “top-down” communication styles and intentionally devote time and energy towards forming personal, emotional, and professional connections with younger, inexperienced employees. In the midst of a labor shortage, in order to both recruit and retain employees, construction firm leaders will need to shift their perspective and more proactively guide new employees (Millennials and Gen Z-ers) through their career development as well as more intentionally document and share best practices.
There are noticeable differences in the ways generations currently working in construction typically learn and communicate. Boomers tend to seek answers through conversations with their peers, for example, in face-to-face meetings or over phone calls. Millennials and Gen Z-ers tend to learn through text-based communications and in isolation, often using the internet and AI search engines to find information.
Over the past decade or so, companies have discovered that much of their “in-house” Boomer experience, best practices, network relationships, knowledge, and wisdom has not been formally documented in any way that could be transmitted to (and absorbed by) the organization’s successor leaders, managers, and employees. Thus, much that an organization’s retiring Boomers know and practice is being lost.
Over the past year, Colarelli Construction has been utilizing an in-house “Lessons Learned Database” as one solution to this multi-generational issue. And we have seen that our Database is successfully bridging the gap among generational learning styles, while simultaneously preserving our leaders’ legacy knowledge, information, and best practices.
CCI’s project teams are intentionally documenting Lessons Learned both from projects and in-house practices into bite-sized pieces of information, that are also “sortable” by CSI Division, project name, and/or date. These Lessons are then inputted into an intranet (of sorts). The Lessons are documented and preserved within a platform that our employees can easily and instantly search, as they would the internet. What is the key to fostering inter-generational communication after each search: we include the author’s name of each Lesson inputted into CCI’s Database.
The result? Well, initially, to some within our organization, searching the company’s Lessons Learned Database sounded uncollaborative, an activity that promoted isolated learning. However, we have seen the opposite effect occur. CCI’s Lessons Learned Database has actually promoted and fostered collaborative conversation: among project team members who reflect on a project and draft the Lessons, and also between the employees searching the database and the authors of the Lessons Learned.
CCI’s Lessons Learned Database is merely one tool that our organization is using to mentor and guide employees. A more intentional approach to new employee orientation, a mentoring “buddy system,” and more frequent one-on-one review meetings between employees and their supervisors are a few other ways in which Colarelli Construction aims to build a bridge across the generations and between varying levels of construction experience in our office.