learning and sharing in the workplace followed a relatively linear and top-down model. But as the makeup of our teams broadens, as people have longer working lives, and as the workplace very rapidly changes along with new technologies and innovations, the norms of work-related learning challenge the received wisdom that older people teach (before shifting onto a pension around age 65) while younger people learn. Today’s workforce spans five generations, and employers who promote intergenerational learning initiatives for their employees optimize the value of these five generations in their organization. Catalysing intergenerational experience is a new source of competitive advantage that benefits all generations and organizations. Youth have specially focused …show more content…
This diversity of skills and experience is similar to that found in the mentoring model where “mentors learn at least as much as mentees,” according to Jodi Davidson, Director of Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives for Intergenerational learning throughout the course of one’s life puts the onus on workers of all ages to draw from and contribute to one another, developing nonlinear work lives and establishing longer, more dynamic careers that defy generational stereotypes. The diversity of the intergenerational workplace isn’t just a development—it’s a creative opportunity. To Peter Whitehouse, M.D., President of Intergenerational Schools International and Professor of Neurology at Case Western Reserve University in the United States, today’s baby boomer workers are an experienced, engaged resource that should be fully