Generational Interviews (Gen X, Gen Y & Gen Z)

Three individuals from three different generations (Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z) has been interviewed. All the three interviews were conducted face-to-face. The interview questions can be divided into 2 parts namely, personal life and career. The set of questions asked were:

Personal Life related questions (including relationship )

1. In your view, what are the fundamental needs of an individual to survive now?
   
   
2. If you were asked to cut down your current standard of living to save up, would you
   willing to? e.g. going out often
   
   
3. What are your expectations or goals in life?
   
   
4. When I say the word family, relationship and love, what do you think about it? Explain in
   the simplest word possible.
   
   
5. List down 4 values that come to your mind now.
   
   
6. Do you like challenges in life?
   
   
7. What is important to you now?
   
   
8. Would you consider yourself as a traditional, cultural individual?
   
   
9. How is your relationship with your parents?
   
   
10. How is your relationship with your siblings?
    
    
11. Which would you prefer?
    
    
    1. Slow process, Good Income, Low Pressure
    2. Quick process, Average Income, Moderate Pressure
    3. Slow process, Average Income, Moderate Pressure
    4. Slow process, Good Income, High Pressure 

Work related questions (including technology applications)

12. What does technology mean to you? Are you able to be without television, internet and mobile phone for at least 24 hours?
    
    
13. If you are given a task to complete would you rather work individually or in a team? Why?
    
    
14. If you were given choice to wear these cutfits to work, which would you prefer?
    a. Formal b. Business-Casual c. Casual
    
    
15. What motivates you to complete your work?
    a. Self worth b. Rewards c. Accomplishment c. Just want to get over it 

   16. Are you satisfied with your current performance in every platform?

          a. Very satisfied b. Satisfied c. Dissatisfied d. Very Dissatisfied 

    17. Are you able to multitask?

           a. Yes b. No

18. What do you think of last minute work?
    
    
19. Are you willing to work extra to perform better?
     a. Highly willing b. Willing c. Probably I will d. Not willing

20. Choose below that fits you well.
    1. Less holiday, More work, High Salary
    2. Equal holiday, Average Work, Average Salary
    3. More holiday, Less work, Little Salary
       
       
21. How technology savvy are you?
    a. Very good b. Good c. Not too bad d. So-so

   22. Which would you prefer 

         a. Quality b. Quantity 

The first interviewee is Mr Joseph. He was born in 1965. He is working in an international education institution.

The second interviewee is Mr Sharvesh. He was born in 1988. He is working in MIMOS Sdn Bhd as a software engineer.

The third interviewee is Bryan Chow. He was born in 2001. He is a grade 8 student in an international school.

The response of the three interviewees is represented in the table below according to number of questions: 

 

Will coaching styles need to be changed when dealing with people of different generations?

There are similarities as well as dissimilarities in the findings above among the three Generation X, Y and Z. Not much of information can be provided by Generation X regarding the working world simply because they have yet to experience that stage of life. As for Generation X and Y there were informational responses. As we can see from the finding above, we have separated the questionnaires to two different stages, consisting personal life and career. By the first question responses itself we can see the massive differences in these three generations. But yet we still standby that despite they are coming from three different generations still each individual should be treated differently. This could be because of they all come from different types of background.

The first question was “what are the fundamental needs of an individual to survive now?”, and as you can see Generation X was more towards the family orientation, Generation Y was more towards survival mode and lastly the Generation Z was towards technological era. The other question that showed a difference between three generation is “Would you consider yourself as a traditional, cultural individual?” and the responses had some similarities. Generation X without doubt showed more towards cultural aspect but Generation Y and Z had a similar viewpoint where they were on the average side of being cultural. Does this mean as the era enhances we become less conventional. Perhaps not, as these interviews was done with just three individuals. As simple as what kind of attire would they prefer to wear to work played a significant understanding to where are they coming from. Generation X and Y prefer formal attire comparing to the Generation Z which is business casual. This shows that the Generation Z will be more of a laid back cluster comparing the current Generation X and Y. To get a better understanding the sample size has to be bigger. There is a reason why we took males for all our three generation. As we believe that, if it was a mix gender sample size then for sure there would be different types of viewpoint. Individuals that falls in different generations will have to be treated with different approaches as their mindset and believes are different.

To our understanding, yes we believe the coaching styles need to be changed to a certain extend only when dealing with people of different generations. Averagely the changes are very little as most of them are already adaptable with the current living style. Vast changes will be towards very few individually who are very stuck in their era despite the evolution of our current style of living. This includes family orientation, work place culture as well as technology advancement. According to Weston (2001), to be able to communicate efficiently and coaching employees we need to understand their values, beliefs, characteristics that they perceive. This would help is tremendously throughout the whole process. Which generation they belong to plays a significant role as it carries an alteration factor in their perception about everything. Current workforce is consisting of three diverse generational cohorts. The definition of generational cohorts refers to individuals that are born in the same common stage of life where they share the same cycle of experiences, which includes historical events, public heroes, demographic trends, early work experiences as well as entertainment pastimes. One of the similar cycles of experience generates cohesiveness in viewpoint and characteristics and describes the untold assumptions of that generation. Consequently, workforces from various age factors do not share the similar work principles or outlooks. Positively, every individual has their own personal belief and values. Nevertheless, understanding generational know-how and their viewpoint and knowing how to coach them individually. This is crucial as they are from different stages of age group and background.

Stated by McIntosh-Elkins, McRitchie & Scoones (2007) the current offices are not only generationally diverse as well it is culturally diverse. Generation X (1963-1977), Generation Y (1978-1986) and Generation Z (1987 to mid-2000) they all partake diverse beliefs, needs and values. This will become an obstacle for the coaches who are involve with a generational blend of group members. The current younger members have a vast different needs and values comparing to the “conventional” older members. This is pointing out to the differences between Generation Y and Z with Generation X. As simple as the Generation Y and Z saw their Generation X parents work so hard that the family was ignored and, for all of the extra working hours and seeing their parents still striving with finances and retirement funds. They are known as the "latch-key" kids therefore the younger generation would prefer a work-life balance. They would not want to give up their individual and private time just for the benefit of their employer. When you scrutinize the different individualities of each cohort and recognize their life understandings, you can grasp what has molded their characters in today's time. Each cohort's ethics are diverse and understanding these dissimilarities, while recognizing misapprehensions, can lead you to effectively coaching this dissimilar cluster. Therefore as coaches we must not only be aware of which generation our client falls in also we must pay attention to them as an individual as well.

Bibliography

Weston, M. (2001). Coaching generations in the workplace. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 25(2), 11-21.

McIntosh-Elkins, J., McRitchie, K., & Scoones, M. (2007, October). From the silent generation to generation x, y and z: strategies for managing the generation mix. In Proceedings of the 35th annual ACM SIGUCCS fall conference (pp. 240-246). ACM.