Kelly Henderson, Executive Director for the Trucking Human Resource Sector Council Atlantic has been in the Trucking Industry for over 24 years. Having started her career in the Trucking Industry at a leading private career college for the trucking industry in Atlantic Canada, it was a natural progression to move to the Council in 2004. Her work has focused in a variety of areas, not limited to, recruitment and retention, training standards, certifications and building human resource capacity in the trucking industry. Over the years she has received many industry awards and recognitions for her contributions to industry. Most recently was recognized as Woman of the Year in Transportation for her dedication to excellence in the trucking industry. Continuous learning is one of Kelly’s top priorities. “The trucking industry has been very good to me – the best part of what I do is that every day is different – I experience new challenges and new opportunities regularly with ongoing opportunity to learn and grow.”

Columnists,Kelly Henderson |
August 14, 2018

Generational differences in today’s workplace have been a growing interest to all industries over the past few years.  As Millennials or Gen Y (ages 23 – 38*) entered the workforce, it was the first time – ever – we had four generations in the workplace at the same time.

Now enter Gen Z (ages 3 – 22) –giving us up to five generations in the workplace at one time.  How are we managing?  Is the training keeping up with the demands employers are facing? Are we making the effort to keep up with those demands as workplaces?  Or are we too complacent into believing it’s not an issue?

Today many companies are saying they’ve thought about introducing generational training, but are less concerned as their workplaces are still predominantly Gen X (ages 39 – 53) and Boomer (ages 54 – 74).  This is a great strategy, if you didn’t know that today’s workforce includes over 37% of Millennials!

Does that surprise you?  Is it concerning that your workplace may not be as reflective of real trends?  What does this really mean in the workplace and does it motivate you to action?

In reality this isn’t a new challenge and there is a significant amount of information you can gather on the internet to become informed.  Start researching!

The bigger question is how are you, and your management teams, managing the generations today?  Are you experiencing turnover?  Are you hearing more complaints among employees?  Is there more frustration around communication?  Then maybe it’s time to put communication and generations at the top of your list!

Some things you can consider today:

  1.  Take a look at your recruitment and retention strategies. Are you responding to all generations?  What is the landscape of your workplace?
  2. Create a working committee, determine where in the company there are issues arising, are there multiple generations involved? Empower the committee to start sharing information with the management team to help build an inclusive and diverse workplace.
  3. And finally – ask! Ask for support for training, ask employees what they need or are looking for.  And work together to bridge those gaps and build a workforce that responds to all generations.  For more information contact us at thrsc.com

*Ages vary slightly depending on research referenced.

 

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Kelly Henderson, Executive Director for the Trucking Human Resource Sector Council Atlantic has been in the Trucking Industry for over 24 years. Having started her career in the Trucking Industry at a leading private career college for the trucking industry in Atlantic Canada, it was a natural progression to move to the Council in 2004. Her work has focused in a variety of areas, not limited to, recruitment and retention, training standards, certifications and building human resource capacity in the trucking industry. Over the years she has received many industry awards and recognitions for her contributions to industry. Most recently was recognized as Woman of the Year in Transportation for her dedication to excellence in the trucking industry. Continuous learning is one of Kelly’s top priorities. “The trucking industry has been very good to me – the best part of what I do is that every day is different – I experience new challenges and new opportunities regularly with ongoing opportunity to learn and grow.”