To avoid intergenerational conflict between the millennial and generation X (Gen X) at the workplace, experts have suggested mentoring and building a more harmonious work environment for increased productivity.
They argued that for an organisation to be able to mediate intergenerational conflict, it must articulate the revised mentoring module, whereby the younger and more digitally-savvy employee supports the older ones (Gen X), and at the same time, learns from them.
The knowledge transfer, emotional intelligence, and digital awareness, they further said, become more profound, and a win-win for the organisation.
At a leadership engagement session on workplace innovation, organised by the Employee Marketplace Initiative, a trajectory model, which harnesses employees’ self-interest to promote organisational benefit and business growth, the convener, Nduneche Ezurike, described the workplace as a place for self-discovery for the employee as well as positive growth for the employer.
The millennial discussions, Ezurike said; bother on organisational structure, as there is the need to understand their attitudes, experiences, and expectations.
According to him, some organisations are killing millennial without knowing it, which has led to advanced engagement for the future workplace.
“The millennials are victims and beneficiaries of technology. They saw individual brands bigger than corporate, they are talented, understand analytics and the 
Internet of things.
“There is a need for Gen X to understand millennials and allow them to be independent, as we cannot force them into a structure. Once they achieve the organisational goal, allow them to be independent,” he said.
Using the slogan that, it is people that create wealth, he said organisations must focus on the people, understand who they are, by deploying employee analytic module that seeks to interpret who the employee is, and the skills to promote the good of the company.
In his remarks, a media analyst, Nkem Okuhu, who spoke on how the potential of the millennial can be maximised, said: “We observe that in many organisations, this is actually the challenge. What environment do these millennial require for optimal performance? How do you make the environment conducive to generate optimal performance in them, and make them willing to work without somebody telling him to resume work every day?”
Employees’ Voice and Rights Advocate, Gogo Anyanwu, who identified that employees at the workplace do not have a voice, argued that the millennial has given them a voice, so they now speak.
He said voice is an important element in a workplace because a lot of things happen in the workplace that an employer may not know except he or she comes down to the employees’ level.
He said organisations that have done well and will continue to do well are those that listened to their employees, ensuring employees have a voice, understand their needs and who they are, “that is how we can move forward at the workplace.
“There is no way we can rule out the importance of granting a voice to the employees, and once you do that the sky is the limit of that organisation.
“It is only when you engage an employee you will know whether the employee is motivated or not, and if you don’t you will continue to run on a vicious circle.
“HR in Nigeria is a disaster because they have not taken time to motivate employees. Motivation is not just about money, but giving employees the free hand to do what they know how to do best, not just putting everybody in a box, saying this is how we must do it. There are several other ways of achieving the same result.
“The story is the millennial do not have that patience to be tied down, rather you can do things differently and finish your assignment under an hour than the routine way doing the 8 am to 5 pm kind of job schedule,” he said.
Source: https://guardian.ng/appointments/mentoring-critical-at-workplace-to-avoid-intergenerational-conflict/