MAAÑO, PHILIP S.

Multigenerational Workforce Difference on Job Satisfaction and

Employee Engagement

A generation can be defined as a group of individuals of a similar age who share

historical experience within the same time period. Members of a generational cohort

share important life experiences such as starting school, entering the workforce, and

retiring at similar age, and they also experience memorable historical events at a similar

developmental stage (Park & Gursoy, 2010). According to Murphy (2007) a generation

shares a common set of formative events and trends—headlines and heroes, music and

mood, parenting style and education system. As they grow older, they learn and grow.

They adjust their behaviors and build their skills. But they generally do not radically

change the way they view the world. In addition, because each of the generations came

of age in a distinct and unique era, each has its own perspective on such critical

business issues as leadership, communication, problem solving, and decision making.

Just a few years ago, generations were separated at work by rank and status. In hierar-

chical organizations, the oldest employees filled executive positions, the middle-aged

held mid-management jobs, and the youngest worked on the front lines. People weren’t

likely to rub elbows on a daily basis with those in other age groups.

Generations

In a nutshell, it’s the times in which they were born and raised. While every

individual is unique, people born in a certain era tend to share certain attitudes, values,

and behaviors because they experienced the same significant events during their

formative years (HHS, 2012). Most employers have a workforce that includes three
generations: Gen Y, Gen X, and the Baby Boomers. Gen Y ranged from the age of 22 –

34, they have high leisure work values, preferring a job that provides more vacation time

than older generations, and despite of their lower work centrality they have higher

expectations about promotions and pay raises in the workplace (Park & Gursoy, 2010).

Next generation is the Gen X which age is 35 to 47 years old. Murphy (2007) said that

Gen Xers tend to be self-reliant. They enjoy achieving measurable results and stream-

lining systems and processes. They also will seek out and stay with flexible, results-

driven organizations that adapt to their preferences. Lastly, a group of 48 – 65 years

old, Baby Boomers perceived work to be a crucial part in one’s life more strongly than

younger generation. They are found to be loyal and committed to their organizations,

and expect a corresponding reward from their organizations compared to younger

generations because they believe hard work pays off (Park & Gursoy, 2010). Thus,

these individual factors among each generation suggest an influence to levels of job

satisfaction and engagement which basically on their predisposition. Individual

difference theory postulates that some variability in job satisfaction is due to individual’s

personal tendency across situations to enjoy what he does (Aamodt, 2012).

Job Satisfaction and Employee Engagement

Job satisfaction refers to how employees feel about their compensation, benefits,

work environment, career development and relationship with management. Employee

engagement is about employees’ commitment and connection to their work—what is

motivating employees to work harder, who is motivating them to work harder and what

conditions are motivating them to work harder. Organizations have recognized that in

order to stay competitive it is not enough to focus just on the factors important to
employee satisfaction at work, but it is necessary to engage employees. Many studies

have linked employee engagement to employee performance, customer satisfaction,

productivity, absenteeism, turnover and support of the organization.

Based on Park and Gursoy (2010) study, the concept of work engagement

emerged as a result of a research shift to the antipodes of burnout. Work engagement

was first conceptualized as being situated at the opposite end of the continuum of job

burnout. It is defined as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is

characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. Further, work engagement has

shown its significant effects on work-related attitude and behavioral outcomes such as

job satisfaction, turnover intention, and performance through its mediating role between

aforementioned antecedents and outcomes.

It can be noted that motivation is a factor in the employees’ satisfaction and

engagement which also associates with commitment. This commitment has three types,

first is the affective commitment in which the extent of employees wants to remain with

organization lies on how they care about the organization and is willing to exert effort on

its behalf on this point Gen Y is a distinct group to this because they are confident, they

engage more to team work and achieving. Second, continuance commitment is the

extent to which employee believes he must remain with the organization due to time,

expense and effort he has already put into it, hence, Baby Boomers has the same

perspective since they are in the retiring age but they are very goal oriented,

independent and competitive. Lastly, normative commitment follows an obligation to the

organization is highly attributed to them, as Gen X value work life balance; they handle

the obligations well as with their being flexible and individualistic.

 Another point on the part of job satisfaction, Beehr (1996) noted that among the

several theories on job satisfaction, there is a prominent one fall into a broad category

which is discrepancy. Discrepancy Theories of Job Satisfaction as he further explains,

argue that job satisfaction is caused by or perhaps actually is the inverse of one or more

discrepancies between the perceived nature of the job and some other state. The less

the discrepancy, the more satisfied the employees are. Needs, wants or desires,

interests, values, expectations and/or belies about what would be fair could determine

the other state and this can be regard on the experience such discrepancies between

what they have on their jobs about the amount of autonomy and variety on their jobs,

the nature of the supervision and co-workers, the types of skills they use on their jobs

among others.

Reference

Aamodt, M. (2012). Industrial and organizational psychology. Philippines:

Cengage Learning Asia.

Beehr, T. (1996). Basic organizational psychology. USA: A Simon & Schuster

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Gursoy, D. & Park, J. (2010). Generation Effect on the Relationship between

Work Engagement, Satisfaction, and Turnover Intention among

US Hotel Employees. Retrieved September 6, 2013, from

http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1196&

context=gradconf_hospitality

Harrison, L.H. (2007). Managing today’s multigenerational workforce. Retrieved

 July 25, 2013, from http://www.lhh.com/en-US/thought-

leadership/Documents/managing-todays-multigenerational-workforce.pdf

Heneman III, H. & Judge, T. (2010). Staffing organization 6th Ed. USA:

Mendota House, Inc.

Murphy, S. (2007). Leading a multigenerational workforce. Retrieved July 27,

2013, from http://assets.aarp.org/www.aarp.org_/cs/misc/leading_a_

multigenerational_workforce.pdf

Walsch, F. et. al. (2013). Are generational differences in the workplace driving

your nuts?. Retrieved July 25, 2013, from http://www.aca.org/conferences/

winter2013/WC2013_Presentations