There is no doubt that the intergenerational conflict is one of the most attractive issues to approach from the view of the Sociology of Organizations.

It is important to start defining concepts. Any conflict implies a confrontation between two or more people with different interests. Generally there are three groups of factors which affect directly in the genesis of conflicts: cultural, structural and behavior factors.

In the intergenerational conflict, the key is in the different vital moment of the parts involved and as a consequence of this, the different perspectives that they have about some facts.

When this issue is approached, the natural, the natural trend is to think about it as a problem of two variables: “the old ones” and “the young ones”.

However, in our organizations, even four generations can coexist: the traditionalists (born up to 1947), the baby boomers (born between 1948 and 1963), the X generation (born between 1968 and 1978) and the well known Y generation (born between 1979 and 1992) which has changed the organizational paradigm. To make things more complex, a fifth generation started to appear in some companies, the Z generation and they are starting to get into the labor market. This last generation is the 20% of the world population and is trying to get into the world of employment and coexist with a high increase in life expectation. This means that we are having active old adults who make great contributions to the organizations.

Considering all this, we can see the company as a place of multigenerational interaction made up of people who go after a common general goal; the challenge would therefore be, not to miss that common general goal.

It is necessary to analyze something simple but deeply interesting. When this social interaction is positive and functional for the company, there is a qualitative and quantitative increase in innovation, creativity and productivity. When this social interaction causes conflict, we run the risk to devote more time to solving the conflicts than to fulfill the organizational objective. This is a strategic issue.

The first step to define a successful strategy is to know in typological terms which are the most outstanding characteristics of each generational category and to analyze how our work teams are made. It is necessary to understand that part of generational gap is explained by the changes in the social paradigms and the different views of a sensitive concept such as Work.

In general terms, the traditionalists ‘view is related to concepts such as dedication, effort, respect for the authority; the baby boomers have concepts such as professional development, acknowledge, responsibility; the generation X with concepts such as globalization, independence, freedom; the generation Y with concepts such as flexibility, entertainment, worklife balance; and finally, the generation Z, the digital natives who do not understand life without internet, social media and who give equal value to work, family, leisure time and personal projects.

There is no doubt; we have lived in a more flexible labor environment for some years. The concept of flexibility which was controversial in the 90¨s, is a concept which has come to stay as a consequence of the social pressure of the X generation in the labor market. During that period, women´s right to develop professionally grew, together with their need to fulfill their mothers ‘role. Young people started to get into market and they wanted a balance between work, studies, sports and hobbies. Nowadays, we have old adults with a great experience who are willing to work part time or for specific projects. All of this, in a context of economic cycles more and more volatiles.

The concept adopted in Europe of flexicurity, which deals with the need of flexibility with security for companies and fundamentally for workers in terms of rights, is the key to “think” modern labor markets.

Regarding our companies, it will be necessary to “re-think” looking for a balance between individual and collaborative work areas, optimizing the technology use to get free the frontiers of time and space, minimizing the conflict zone focusing on the productivity increase, the design of flexible schemes for different generations which are our human capital. In inclusive organizations, the right diversity management is a strategic asset.

* Martín Padulla

Sociologist (USAL)- MBA (UCA)

Prof. Sociology of Organizations.

Managing Director staffingamericalatina.

mpadulla@staffingamericalatina.com