Negative Impacts of Generational Differences in the Workplace of China

Negative impacts of generational differences in the workplace of China

The past decades have witnessed a dramatic transformation in China. With the development of modern society, the generational differences are becoming growingly deep and complex. Although it is normal that people have diverse personalities and lifestyles, the disparity between generations is quite evident. Working age Chinese fell into two main generations, “a generation being defined as an identifiable group that shares birth years, age, location, and significant life events at critical developmental stages”(Kupperschmidt, 2000, p.65), divided by the year when the reform and opening up was implemented. As an increasing number of young people have graduated from schools and start their careers, concern about the generational difference in the workplace is raised. Since different generation internally share different value and culture, communication problems and interpersonal conflict are almost inevitable, which may result in negative impact in workplace, like inefficiency and low productivity. In this essay, the causes and effects of these problems will be examined before continuing suggesting solutions. The essay will then be concluded by presenting personal opinion on this topic.

The first and perhaps most common problem emerges from generational differences in the workplace is communication difficulty. The young generation and old generation both have their unique languages due to different culture background and social environment, which makes it difficult for people from the other generation to understand the language, leading to different perception towards same expression. According to Kersten (2002), an elder member of staff may regard the term “communication skill” as formal writing and speaking aptitudes while a young worker might consider it as instantaneous methods of communication such as e-mail. The possible miscommunications may prevent work teams from high quality cooperation,...