The generation gap can be a problem on a marketing team. This is often because it might be difficult to communicate with team members who are not of the same age range. Many people are not aware that there are simple things you can do to bridge the generation gap in your company.
If you are wondering what you can do to help bridge the generation gap, continue reading to learn some useful tips and tricks.
Setup Team Gatherings
If you have a marketing team, you should be proactive and begin setting up team gatherings. These team gatherings can be workshops or social events that can help people from all age groups come together. This could be a creative learning project where you give your marketing team lessons on new skills or information that none of them really are familiar with.
Team gatherings will help your marketing team come together and work together. Regardless of the age range of your marketing team, the team gatherings can create work-related bonds since everyone will be learning together.
Have Mentoring Options
One way you can bridge the generation gap in your marketing team is to use the age differences for a mentoring experience. Have the older marketing team members help mentor the younger ones, which is one way they can work together in a positive situation. The older generation could actually learn about technology and fixing technological problems from the younger generation.
Likewise, you could have the younger generation learning new information about the company or business from the older employees. The older employees also could teach the younger generation about tips and tricks for the company, such as how to reach out to specific people in the marketing world.
Teach About Respect
While it might seem like a no-brainer, you might have to teach the younger generation about respecting the older generation. This could come in the form of making sure the younger generation knows that the older one has been around long enough to know what is going on. Respect also means that the younger generation needs to be aware that the older one knows how to handle situations in the right manner.
For younger generations, they often believe that older people are just set in their ways. It is important to help bridge the generation gap by teaching the younger one about respecting the ways and the long-term solutions of the older generation.
Go With Mission-Based Employees
One way that you can bridge the gap in your marketing team is to always hire people who share the same goals and missions that the company does. You will find that less struggles and conflicts go on when everyone is on the same page regarding the main focus of the job or company.
Mission-Based hiring is important because you want to know everyone is willing to work together to achieve the same goal. If you focus on hiring only people who are enthusiastic about your mission and goals, you will find that there is less conflict among team members. Mission-based companies also have 30% more innovation levels and 40% higher retention rates.
Use Open Offices
One way you can really help bridge the generation gap in your marketing team is to make sure that you are using open offices. This actually means that you do not have dividers or anything up to create cubicles in your work area, and you just have one open work environment.
This open work environment will help the generations come together since they will be more likely to ask one another for help on a project. If you wall off each person into a cubicle then they are less likely to want to communicate or reach out to another team member, especially if they are older and harder to approach.
Conclusion
These are just some of the easiest ways to help bridge the generation gap in your marketing team. You will find that the more you can bridge the gap, the happier your employees will be. This in turn will make your employees more productive and more engaged in the business of marketing.
Even though marketing teams can be challenging to get together at first due to a lot of age variations, there are many ways you can turn the possible conflict into a positive for your company. If you just follow these easy steps you will find that your marketing team eventually will be learning and listening to one another just like a group of old friends.
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