Traditionalist Expectations

A key element of the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is what employees expect from their employer. Historically, each “generation” in the workforce has different expectations, so employers today face the challenge of trying to meet the needs of workers representing 4 different generations. This is part of the Employee Value Proposition and is often a factor more relevant to our grandparents.

Traditionalists

These are the segment of the workforce folks now in their mid to upper 50’s and 60’s who that expected to have a job for life. Their goal was to find a good job and stay with that company for a long time, and many of these people did just that. They worked for with just one or two companies during their entire working life and they retired with the ‘gold watch’ at age 65 after many years of service.

This is where the employee’s profile comes into play and what these senior workers expected was a secure source of income;, a place where they could work for a long time,, build relationships and make good money, so they could provide for their families. If they really liked what they were doing that was great, but they only looked at it as work and personal life was a separate world. They wanted to have security in the form of respectable, good work and a steady paycheck.

I realize this is a stereotype but for purposes of delineating the different groups, (the different generations), I am making some broad generalizations.

Baby Boomer Expectations

With the baby boomers, these folks definitely have a very strong work ethic and they also highly value security, stability and the ability to work their way up. A key part of the Baby Boomer mentality is ‘earning their way‘. They expected to come in, they expected to work hard and work they expected to work their way up through an organization and be . They were rewarded for their hard efforts.

The Baby Boomers expected to mostly stay with the same company, or maybe change just a couple of times throughout their career. But they don’t really aspire to continue to grow with their company in a meritocracy based business culture. It is much more of a seniority earned through experience and years of service and working their way up the corporate ladder is highly valued by this group. The preferred style is generally more formal with clear hierarchical structure and lines of authority and the mentality that they earn the right to a secure financial situation by doing a good job and staying there a long time. Over time, it was expected that they would be rewarded for their efforts. This is, again, more of a seniority type value system.