SPOTLIGHT: Ushering in a Postgenerational Workplace With Mauro Guillen

But you see, perennials is different from the other terms in the sense that it negates the existence of generations. It essentially says we're going to be better off if we forget once and for all this concept of generations. And we think about how we can live our lives to the fullest without paying too much attention to it. Most of the listeners of your podcast who work in human resource management, they have quite a bit of power here.

If they make the right choices in the next few years, I think about helping us overcome the tyranny of age, the tyranny of generations, then I think that's also going to be accelerating the process. G'day and welcome to the Gartner Talent Angle. I'm Dion Love. You just heard from Mauro Guillen, professor at the Wharton School of Business and author of The Perennials, the megatrends creating a post-generational society.

Moro makes the case that we live in a world where people of all ages live, work and learn together. He urges organizations to overcome the rigid generational labels that prevent employees from reaching their full potential. Instead, they should embrace and support the new post-generational workforce of the perennials, where individuals are not pitted against each other by their age or experience. Peter Akins, Gartner's Chief of HR Research, sat down with Mauro to explore his vision of a world that embraces the perennial mindset.

You won't want to miss this fresh perspective on the future of work. Take a listen. Mauro, welcome to The Talent Angle. Thank you for inviting me.

I am really excited about this conversation. We're going to spend the bulk of our time focused on some issues that you have been exploring in a new book, The Perennials, The Megatrends Creating a Post-Generational Society. And maybe as a starting point, just congratulations on that. Thank you so much.

Now, this isn't the first work where you have looked at megatrends. And so maybe just to get us started, what is the origin of the perennials? How did you come to find yourself wanting to produce a piece of work on that issue? What sort of prompted you to write?

If you could just give us a little bit of that background. Sure. So it was in the middle of the pandemic. I was confined to my home, not really seeing a lot of people.

And I was invited to do a lot of webcasts. And I was invited by the association, the National Association of Zoos and Aquariums in the U.S., which also has some foreign members.

And I made a presentation there about my previous book, 2030. and they were asking me questions about how, what they should do, these zoos and aquariums, to try to attract people for certain generations, which they don't normally attract as visitors. And it dawned on me that the way to do it was to create conditions for intergenerational collaboration as opposed to conflict. So that's when I realized that there was a book to be written about all of these dynamics.

Now, I have to ask, so you've raised zoos and aquariums, and now I'm going to shift to botany. So the perennials, any gardeners listening today are immediately going to think about perennials in the guise of plants. And in the book, you write, I think, drawing from Gina Pell, quote, as a result, we will witness the proliferation of perennials and ever blooming group of people of all ages, stripes and types who transcend stereotypes and make connections with each other. So this idea of perennials clearly, and it's linked to botany, to blooming clearly in mind, I was just kind of curious why that term exactly?

What made that term appropriate for some of the issues that you were exploring? Well, because this is a term that is very descriptive of the concept that I'm using in the book, that I'm advancing in the book, is this idea that we're not defined by age, that we can be learners, we can be workers, we can be doing different kinds of things at any age. And that's where actually demography and technology is leading us. So in other words, perennials are people who don't think or act their age.

They live their lives, they learn, they work, they do other stuff, but not necessarily in terms of what is age appropriate. So we shall see, for example, we're going to be seeing in the world, I think, increasingly people who go to school in their 50s or their 60s, or people who switch careers in their 70s, or people who continue working at least part-time into their 80s. And also, we're going to see that people report to younger people than themselves at work. And so, in other words, that age is becoming less and less relevant, and that generations source or become less relevant.

That's the concept of perennials. That's the central idea in the book. Got it. And that is then juxtaposed against what you see as a dominant model that exists in society, the sequential model which was much more defined by age Is that correct Exactly So the sequential model has been around for 140 years or so And what it means is that we supposed to do certain things at different stages in life So first, when we're very little, we're supposed to play.

Then we're supposed to attend school, and we should make sure that we can learn everything that we might need for the rest of our lives. And then we work, and finally we retire. So there is this compartmentalization, in other words, of what we should be doing at different points in time that is very rigid. It's almost like a straitjacket.

And I think because of technological change, because of demographic change, because of the new flexibility that the economy now demands of everyone, that model is completely outdated and we have to move away from it. And I definitely want to dig more deeply into that model and moving away for it. Just before we get there, maybe just to, again, get ourselves settled on some concepts. When I asked you about the origins of the work, you mentioned this idea of intergenerational conflict getting beyond intergenerational conflict.

You use some terms in the book, postgenerational, multigenerational, and I interpret those a bit differently. it had seemed like, if I was reading everything correctly, that post-generational is almost an abandonment of those generational definitions, stereotypes, et cetera. Like you said, that rigid view sort of getting beyond that. Multi-generational felt a little bit more like, well, how do we accommodate the fact that we have many more generations interacting with each other?

So maybe just as a starting point, what is the relationship between post-generational, multi-generational? Is one replacing the other or are they going to coexist in some way? No, they're different concepts. So let me just explain and give you an example for each.

So post-generational essentially means that we're no longer using generations as those fixed, very inflexible categories that essentially tell us what is it that we're supposed to do. We're also not attributing or we shouldn't be attributing a specific kind of behavior, let's say, to millennials, because those are always stereotypes. They're always, you know, generalizations that are not true. I mean, there's so many differences among millennials that to talk about a millennial generation doesn't make that much sense to me.

Now, multigenerational is a different concept. As you said, when we find in a particular setting, let's say in the workplace at a particular company, we find that now the number of people of different ages, different generations is much greater than the past. And so there are dynamics there that need to be managed. Right.

I think there are distinct benefits to be obtained from the multigenerational workplace. And then the third term is intergenerational. So it's intergenerational conflict or intergenerational collaboration. So in other words, it's between generations.

What do they do? Do they actually collaborate? Are they always bickering? So those are three distinct terms, but they do coexist.

It depends. You know, the English language is a very precise language, right? So we have to use one or the other depending on what is the meaning that we want to give it. Yeah, and it does sound like they are coexisting at the moment, if I have that right, that you have some, perhaps some individuals who are living a more perennial or post-generational way of life, others who are more generational way of life.

and then they're all interacting in an intergenerational context. Is that? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

So again, depending on what you're trying to say, you need to use one term or the other. But they all refer to this idea that whatever was rigidly in place in the past regarding generations and age, no longer, I think, is the best situation, is no longer optimal because of the changes in demography, the changes in the economy, the changes in technology. Right. And I have to ask, and maybe there's a bit of irony in this, that we're talking about trying to abandon some of these previous categories, generational categories, with a new category called the perennial.

Just wondering how, if you've probably gotten that question before or thought about, is it that we just, it's hard to talk about concepts like, I don't know, generations or different age groups without these categorizations? Just wondering about the tension there that you may or may not feel about creating a category to overcome the categories. Yeah, that's a great point. And of course, there is also the question of what we professors do all the time, which is to, you know, we create new terms and we have all of this jargon.

But you see, perennials is different from the other terms in the sense that it negates the existence of generations. It essentially says we're going to be better off if we forget once and for all this concept of generations. And we think about how we can live our lives to the fullest without paying too much attention to age. Of course, we have to pay some attention to age.

But I think we should minimize the impact that it has had in the past in terms of what we want to do or not to do at different ages. So it's a term, in other words, perennials, that essentially overcomes the limitations of the past. It's different in that sense. Now, you just said this idea, we will be better off.

And I want to turn now to a big part of the book is actually a real deep and detailed critique of this sequential model and many of the problems or harms that you see within that model stress on youth who may struggle to find their path compromises for women as they try to navigate potential desires for children and professional career, ageism that leaves skills untapped. At one point you write, besides the multiple psychological stresses that it creates at different junctures in time, the worst consequence of the sequential model of life has been the rise of intergenerational frictions and tensions because of its rigid classification of people compartmentalized into age groups.

So I would love to know, I mean, there's a lot of detail, obviously, in the book, but if you were to help summarize down, what are some of the biggest problems or harms that have been, that have come with this sequential model, this generational model of life? Well, I think there are two. So the first one is the one that you alluded to, which is that if we emphasize generational identities, then we are creating the conditions for intergenerational conflict, or at least differences of opinion to exist, right?

To the extent that we try to move beyond those generational differences and we don't, you know, tell people that they have to identify with whatever, you know, the baby boomer generation or millennials and so on and so forth, then I think we create more space for collaboration, more space for overcoming some of the big issues that we have today. For example, who's going to pay for the healthcare of those above a certain age or for their pensions and so on and so forth. So I think that is one distinct benefit from adopting this new mindset of perennials.

The other one is, you You know, Peter, there are so many people who don't make the transitions when they're supposed to in life from one stage to the next. That's under the old model. And we don't give them generally a second chance to try to make up for those wrong decisions. So think, for example, about the 22 million people in the United States who are high school dropouts.

For whatever reason, they didn't want to study. And of course, the opportunities in the labor market are very much reduced as a result of that. Well, we ought to be able to give these people opportunities to actually go back to school. Think about recovering addicts, right?

Recovering people from drug abuse. There's also like 20 million people in the United States in that category. They find it very difficult to find their way once again. Or another example is teen mothers.

And we do have in the United States right now, as we speak, about 15 million of these teen mothers. Only 2% of them graduate from college. And obviously, getting a college degree is very important in the labor market as well. So we should have systems in place to help teen mothers actually recover from the fact that they had a child at a time when, you know, then they had to, most of them actually leave school as a result of that.

And then the last category I would mention is people in foster care. So they also have much lower levels of educational attainment. There's 15 million people in the United States who are in foster care or have been in foster care. And again, with fewer opportunities than the rest of the population.

And so we should also have a way for them to be able to catch up. Uh, because again, the, the, the, the older system, the sequential model of life was very punitive. If you didn't make the transition at the right time, it's like you had missed the train and you were stuck at the station. Yeah.

And that idea of it being punitive is so the way I heard that was if you found yourself fortunate enough to be well grooved to, to live that sequential model of life as it was laid out, great. There was a lot of supports and momentum and guardrails around that. But if you were to fall off that path, almost impossible to try to get back on. Is that the biggest harm?

That for many of those people who just don't quite fit that perfect sequential way of going about life, they just find themselves on the edges, really struggling to get back into productive work or productive lives, you know, whatever that might mean. Absolutely. So in other words, if people don't make the transition at the right time, then the system doesn't allow for exceptions, right? You're supposed to do certain things and to make the transition from one thing to the next at certain moments in time.

And exceptions are not, you know, really allowed under that system. But by the way, there's also the gender issue. So the sequential model of life, you know, play, study, work, retire, was meant for men, not for women. because for women, if they want to have children, it completely interferes with that model.

It's too rigid, right? It's too compartmentalized for women. Women need a little bit more flexibility, especially women who want to pursue a professional career. And so it was a model that was thought for men back in, you know, 100 years ago, 50 years ago, after World War II, it became like, you know, the way to live your life for everybody, for example, in the United States and other countries around the world.

But it was for men. It wasn't for women. It wasn't meant for the women. Yeah.

So we have this model that very rigid, works for some, certainly not for others, and was punitive, particularly for anybody that was an exception. Now, you also then make the argument, though, that you see that model beginning to break down. You talk about just longevity. People living longer opens up different possibilities, improvements in health, technology advances.

maybe you could just help us understand how are these factors or others combining to begin to break down that sequential model Yeah absolutely So the first thing is life expectancy So it no secret that we live longer But tied to that it also that we stay in good physical and mental shape much longer than in the past, meaning that we can work very easily beyond age 60. You know, a 60-year-old, like 30 or 40 years ago, was relatively in bad shape. But today is a person who can have a very active lifestyle and perhaps would prefer to continue working and so on and so forth.

So it's also that factor that we stay healthier longer. That's really, really important to keep in mind. And then technology has two effects, right? One is negative, the other one is positive.

So the negative effect of technology is that if your job gets automated, for example, and increasingly, of course, with AI, we're seeing not just manual jobs, but also cognitive jobs being automated, then you're a 50-year-old or you're a 55-year-old, you're stuck. It's very difficult for you to then, you know, maneuver and find employment, right? However, technology can also have the positive effect in that now with online learning, people can access education at a much lower cost and with much more convenience than in the past.

So technology has this, you know, effect on the one hand negative, on the other hand positive. So those are really the important trends behind, you know, what I think is the coming of this perennial way of life. We're getting close to the end of our time. I think I have maybe two final questions, maybe just one building on where we've been in terms of the actions that organizations and governments and so on can take.

If I were to ask you to think out maybe five or 10 years into the future, what would you hope to see, expect to see as some of the biggest changes that may emerge, let's say, 10 years out from now? What would tell you that the model is emerging as you expect and hope it would? Well, first and foremost, I would like to see in five or 10 years from now that a very large proportion of the population is engaged in lifelong learning, either in person or online. I think that would be a terrific sign that things are changing in the right direction.

So if today in the U.S. is about 30 percent of adults are engaged in some form of learning, that we get to 60 percent or 70 percent or 80 percent. I think I would also like to see people having an easier time switching jobs and switching careers if that's what they want to do.

But right now, as you know, it's a little bit difficult to do that when you're 45 or 50, right? Because it's kind of missing the train. If you switch careers, you have to start all over. So we need a little bit more flexibility there.

So if instead of having today 6% or 7% of the American population who switches careers, we all switch jobs, but not necessarily careers. if we had a much bigger proportion of people switching careers, finding a way of doing that, in response to changing circumstances or changes in their own preferences, I think that would be progress. That would be fantastic. And then lastly, if we saw, you know, in five or ten years from now that women have an easier time reconciling their professional lives and their family lives, if we could see that some of those disadvantaged groups like high school dropouts or teen mothers were having a better time, right?

Also finding their way in life and being able to, you know, fulfill their dreams. I think that would be progress. That would be movement towards the, what I call the perennial way of life, the post-generational society. Terrific.

And this has been a really fascinating conversation. So thank you for all that. Maybe just one last final question for anyone who wants to learn more about, not only this work, but some of your prior work on Megatrends, where can they go to find out and learn more? Well, obviously my website, which is moroguillen.

com, or you can Google my name. You can also come to my website at the Wharton School, which is where I work. Or I encourage people to also get in touch with me via LinkedIn so they can first become a friend of mine or a connection on LinkedIn. And then we can even chat.

you know, there is a messaging service within LinkedIn. So I always answer every message that I get. So I think that that's the way to go. Terrific.

And Mauro, really thank you for your time and your thoughts today. Terrific conversation. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much for inviting me.

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