State Civil Service webinar urges agencies to "meet employees where they are" to bridge generational gaps

State Civil Service hosted an online Success Series webinar titled “Uniting Generations in the Workplace,” where facilitators and a guest expert outlined how different age cohorts communicate and offered concrete steps agencies can use to improve cross‑generational collaboration.

Kimberly, a host for the series, opened the session and read headcount figures for the state workforce by generation to frame the discussion. She said the session’s central goal was to help supervisors and teammates "understand each other" so offices can be more productive and inclusive.

Bianca, introduced by the hosts as the session’s generations expert and a facilitator with Civil Service, led the main presentation. She summarized generational communication preferences: "Traditionalist[s]…prefer face to face," she said, while boomers often favor meetings or phone calls. "Gen X prefer[s] direct and concise communication," Bianca said, and she described millennials as adapting to whatever channel best accomplishes the task. "Gen Z is definitely text message, email," she added. Bianca linked those preferences to formative events—World War II and the Great Depression for traditionalists, post‑war prosperity and civil‑rights era developments for boomers, Watergate and the latchkey childhood for Gen X, and the rapid technology changes and major national events (including 9/11) for millennials.

The presenters emphasized that many common workplace stereotypes—such as labeling millennials or Gen Z as "lazy"—are incomplete. Bianca argued supervisors often conflate longevity with work ethic and urged managers to consider differing incentives (for example, increased mobility and student‑debt pressures among younger workers) when evaluating retention and engagement.

Practical guidance dominated the second half of the webinar. Hosts and Bianca recommended that teams:

- "Seek to understand" colleagues by asking questions and documenting communication preferences (a so‑called "platinum rule"). - Adapt communication style to the recipient (for example, choose an in‑person check‑in rather than email when a colleague prefers face‑to‑face contact). - Use tools such as DISC assessments to map work personalities and facilitate knowledge sharing.

They illustrated how small cues can be misread online—for example, one speaker explained that the ellipsis ("...") can mean continuity to some generations, sarcasm to others, and anxiety to Gen Z—underscoring the presenters’ recommendation to clarify intent and not assume tone in digital messages.

Kimberly also read state workforce headcounts by generation during the session: she stated figures as 297 traditionalists, about 10,857 baby boomers, roughly 26,009 Gen X, 24,089 millennials, and about 7,006 Gen Z. Those numbers were read aloud in the webinar with some verbal uncertainty in the transcript; the transcript's exact spoken percentages and digit sequences were inconsistent in places (see clarifying_details). The presenters used the figures as context rather than as a formal demographic release.

Toward the close, Bianca gave a brief note on artificial intelligence, saying AI’s rapid development is accelerating how quickly generations and institutions must adapt, and that colleges and employers will need to make policy and training adjustments. The session ended with a charge to "keep an open mind" and a reminder about a June webinar on imposter syndrome.

The webinar offered a mixture of social science framing and practical team‑level steps for supervisors and employees seeking to reduce friction across age groups. The presenters emphasized respect, explicit knowledge sharing, and adapting communication channels to individual preferences as key, actionable takeaways.