Episode 11: The Generation Gap at Work: 5 Steps to Deal with Your Reactions
When Generations Collide: How to Navigate Change at Work
From zillennials to boomers—what happens when our workplace instincts clash?
Download the free Generations at Work guide
Summary
Four generations, one workplace—and a whole lot of friction. In this episode, Ellen dives into the quiet resistance many of us feel when the workplace norms we grew up with start to shift. She shares what it’s like to navigate generational differences in real time, from being told not to cry at work to managing employees who name burnout out loud (gasp!).
This isn’t about bashing any generation—it’s about getting curious. Ellen walks through five practical steps to unpack your instinctive reactions, examine your assumptions, and figure out whether you’re holding on to outdated workplace beliefs just to feel safe. If you’ve ever rolled your eyes at a Gen Z coworker (or been the Gen Z coworker getting side-eyed), this one’s for you.
We’re talking change, identity, boundaries, and how to be less reactive and more reflective in the middle of a rapidly evolving workplace culture.
Takeaways
Your gut reaction to generational differences is data—not a verdict. Pause before you label someone "entitled" or "unprofessional" and ask where that reaction’s coming from.
Workplace norms are shifting—and that’s not a bad thing. We’re not in the 2005 office environment anymore, and expecting people to play by those rules is a recipe for resentment.
The things that made you successful might not serve the next generation. And letting go of that isn’t failure—it’s growth.
Our assumptions about professionalism often come from outdated, gendered, and biased frameworks. It's okay to change your mind when you know better.
Micro-experiments are the key to mindset shifts. You don’t have to overhaul everything at once—try one small change and see what happens.
Notable Quotes
“Feelings are data. So let’s stop judging them and start using them.”
“Sometimes, it’s not that they’re wrong—it’s just not what we’re used to.”
“The workplace isn’t what it was 20 years ago. Thank God.”
“We learned to survive systems by adapting to them. But what if the system is finally changing?”
“Change feels unsafe to your brain—but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
Chapters
00:00 – Intro: Generational Friction at Work
01:10 – Ellen’s Own Cross-Gen Work Journey
02:45 – Lessons from a Gen X + Boomer Office
04:35 – Why the Workplace Felt Like Family—Sort Of
05:50 – The Rapid Rise of Zillennials at Work
07:10 – Managing the Younger Millennials: A Wake-Up Call
08:40 – “Unprofessional” Dress and Rewriting Old Norms
10:00 – Generational Values vs. Resistance to Change
10:45 – What’s Really Driving Your Gut Reaction?
11:50 – Step 1: Recognize and Record Your Reaction
12:40 – Step 2: Define What Feels “Wrong”
13:10 – Step 3: Name the Rewards of Staying Stuck
13:55 – Step 4: Surface Your Deep-Seated Beliefs
14:50 – Step 5: Micro-Experiments to Test Your Assumptions
15:55 – A Quick Recap of the 5 Steps
16:45 – Why This Feels So Hard (and Why That’s Okay)
17:20 – Wrap-Up, Encouragement, and Free Resource Link
Keywords
generational differences at work, Gen Z workplace, workplace culture shift, managing multigenerational teams, professional norms, emotional labor, workplace resistance to change, leadership coaching, burnout at work, millennial manager, Gen X leadership, work-life boundaries, gender bias at work, adapting to workplace change, career transitions
Transcript
Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:01.354)
Okay, this is episode 11 of the Hard at Work podcast talking about generational change.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:10.648)
Hi friends and welcome to another episode of the Hard at Work podcast. I've been thinking a lot lately about the challenges we're facing at work generationally. This is definitely one of the major issues making work hard right now. The confluence of four plus very different generations with very different life experiences, butting heads.
And I wanted to talk about it here to see if I can help those of us who are struggling to make sense of a workplace that is changing so fast and so much since we were coming up in it, which at least for me can lead to an immediate reaction of resistance to change. And perhaps it's that resistance that we need to look at rather than thinking your colleagues of a different generation are asking for too much or
taking too much time off work or not taking enough time off work or talking about their feelings too much or not talking about their feelings enough. So I've compiled some steps for you to take the next time you're thinking about something a coworker asks that just feels so not what should happen at work. And this goes for a coworker of any generation. I'm a big fan of the immunity to change model.
So I've adapted it for you to do a quicker reflection and analysis of what you might feel. So I've adapted it for you to do a quick reflection. So I've adapted it for you to do a reflection and analysis of resistance you may be feeling. Because what are feelings? They're data. So let's use them rather than resist them. For context, and I think because this might be helpful in...
understanding how generations impact how we act at work. I'm very much a zillennial. was born at the tail end of Gen X and at the very beginning of millennial. So I identify with both of those generations, but neither 100%. And I know there's a lot of you who are in the same boat. Like I didn't have a cell phone until I was 21. And I'm very familiar with call waiting and what a busy signal is, but I adapted pretty quickly to the iPhone.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (02:21.516)
The first glimpses I got of the internet were my senior year in high school, and yet I still had to type my college applications on the dusty typewriter in my dad's office and hand correct errors with whiteout before I mailed them to colleges. Shout out to anyone else who had to do that. I also came up in a very different kind of workplace than we have now for the most part.
When I was starting my career at a big university, helping faculty get reimbursed for their travel expenses, which by the way, involved collecting the original receipts, taping them onto pieces of paper, making a copy to file in one of our many filing cabinets and walking them over the travel office to deliver by hand. I worked in an office of all women who were solidly Gen X and boomer and I was 23. So.
on the very tail end of what they identified with as their generation. I worked in an office of all women who were solidly Gen X and boomer. And here are some lessons I learned there. Don't be late. Even 10 minutes gets you a talking to. Don't show emotion. We're here to work and that's it. Work hard by yourself and try not to need too much support. Very Gen X.
get things done on time or else. And you might get yelled at if you do something wrong.
And we celebrated birthdays with these decadent potlucks, like one of our coworkers would bring in a little oil fryer and fry handmade lumpia in the stairwell so she didn't set off the fire alarms. There was this incredible amount of care and thought for each other. And our bosses, who could be incredibly scary and harsh, were also incredibly protective of us. While I don't think that any of us thought of work as our family,
Ellen Whitlock Baker (04:23.35)
We did feel close to our coworkers and willing to go the extra mile for them because they did the same for us.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (04:34.65)
And like many in my generation, I rose really quickly through the ranks. I went from reimbursing travel to working directly with faculty on complicated grant budgets in a couple of years. A lot of us experienced this quick rise. We were dedicated, fast adapting to newer technology, and willing to give a lot of times to our jobs. Our senior leaders, when I was young in the workplace, particularly women, had an incredibly different experience when they were coming up.
They had to fight and claw. My boss was the only woman in her prestigious PhD program, the only one out of hundreds. And she was used to being the only woman in most rooms. And she thought and acted that, and she told me that acting like a man was a way to get things done because you had to be tough. You yelled when you were mad. You never cried or showed weakness and you worked twice as hard as everyone else.
I know a lot of you had similar experiences with your first roles. And for some of you, this seems like a banana's way to work. And there are lot of reasons, technology most importantly, that the workplace was so different 20 years ago. That the workplace was so different 15 or 20 years ago. And this is where a lot of this generational workplace conflict comes from. Very different lived experiences and social norms and cultural cues.
and add in all of the other complexity that comes with identity and race and class and gender. my gosh, we're all just fighting through a lot of lived and learned experience all the time, trying to figure out what is guiding us true and what should be rethought. When I was supervising the youngest of the millennials, I had quite a few times where I heard that sort of record scratch in my head and was like, I'm sorry, what?
They prioritize their mental health and wellbeing at times when I thought they should be showing up, even though it was hard. They named things, lots of naming of things, and they named that they were burning out, like out loud to me, their boss, which I would never have done. They balked at return to office and noped out of situations that they weren't gonna be comfortable in. They weren't afraid to go straight to my boss without talking to me about it or go straight to me if I was their skip level.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (07:00.14)
While half of me was with them and understood and applauded these differences in working, I still also had to really stop and question my initial reactions to what they were asking for or how they were acting. Like if a new employee would show up in my office in clothes that would not be considered professional in quotes in my day,
my initial reaction would be, god, I have to tell them not to dress like that. It's not professional. And in that example, I would need to think about it. And if you really think about it, who was I to tell them how to dress? I I've always had an issue with the dress code conversations at work because they always target women. Don't wear too short skirts or sleeveless blouses while the men can just keep wearing what the men wear.
and it's a uniform and relatively easy to buy and put on every day. So I didn't say anything. Okay, I'm going to rerecord that whole paragraph.
While half of me was with them and understood this, I still had to really stop and question my initial reactions to what they were asking for or how they were acting. Like when a new employee showed up to the office in clothing that would not be considered professional, quote unquote, in my day. My initial reaction was, God, I have to tell them not to dress like that. But then I thought about it. Who was I to tell them how to dress?
You know, I've always had an issue with dress code conversations at work because they're inherently sexist and usually target women. Don't wear too short skirts. Don't wear sleeveless blouses. Whereas men generally are male identifying folks who dress in gendered male outfits, generally pretty easy. Pants and a shirt. You can't go too wrong there.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (08:59.086)
So I didn't say anything to this person who showed up in dress that I would have not been able to wear when I was that age at work without getting a talking to. And I thought about it and I learned. So all of this to say, if you're struggling with understanding the younger generation at work, or if you're in the younger generation struggling to understand the older generation,
I hope this helps you know a little bit more about maybe why we have different inclinations by using these examples. And I'm about to give you some steps to take when you feel that pull of resistance to check yourself and see if it's something worth resisting or something to consider changing. So Jean Twange, spelled T-W-E-N-G-E, wrote an amazing book called Generations, which I will link in the show notes. And she says,
The era when you were born has a substantial influence on your behaviors, attitudes, values, and personality traits. In fact, when you were born has a larger effect on your personality and attitudes than the family who raised you does. So we're smart to be paying attention to these generational differences at work.
But what I see here for the most part is actually a resistance to change underneath it all. The workplace is changing. It's not the same one we grew up with. And a lot of the changes are actually good for us, but we resist because we generally resist change because that keeps us safe. And that's what our brain's number one priority is.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (10:43.79)
So let's talk through some ways to question and understand this resistance, to move closer to being able to change. So here are five steps to take the next time something happens at work that makes you think they're asking for too much or who do they think they are or that's not how things work around here. If something like that comes up, stop. Step one, recognize that you're having a reaction.
Tell yourself it's okay you're having reaction. Don't judge it. You're having it, it's okay. Just recognize it, sit with it and gold stars for writing it down. This is very simple phrasing. I am feeling X because so-and-so coworker did Y. That's it. Step two, ask yourself some questions. What do you think is wrong?
Sorry, step two, ask yourself a question. What do you think is wrong with what they have proposed or asked for? Spell it out in a full sentence. I think that asking for blah during our busiest time of work is wrong because blah.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (12:02.07)
Step three, as Britt Frank writes in her excellent book, The Science of Stuck, there are often subconscious rewards for staying stuck in an opinion or thought. She suggests that you take an inventory of those rewards. it might be that one of those rewards might be that, so for example, one of those are,
She suggests that you take an inventory of those rewards. So for example, a reward, a subconscious reward might be that staying with what you know rather than changing is more comfortable and you know how to handle it. Or you're so busy you don't have time to protect yourself from what might happen if you change your way of thinking. After you've written down step two, your sentence on what you think is wrong with
the action that your coworker is taking, write down these benefits that you have from continuing to uphold the original way of thinking.
Step four, and I'm taking a beat from immunity to change work here. What are you telling yourself that you believe to be true in order to back up your thoughts? What are your deep-seated beliefs and assumptions that are driving your behavior? And these are the things that for a lot of us, those were drilled into our heads when we were younger at work because it's what we saw modeled for us. So maybe it's that if you
ask for the things that this person is asking for at work, you'll get fired. Maybe it's that if you speak up like this person is speaking up, maybe it's that if you speak up like this person is speaking up to you, you'll be thought of negatively by others and treated differently in the workplace. Whatever it is, define it. What are you telling yourself that you believe to be true in order to back up?
Ellen Whitlock Baker (14:06.934)
your thoughts about why this behavior is wrong.
And step five, experiment with micro changes. And this is the last step in the immunity to change model, which if you haven't heard me talk about before, I'll put a link in the show notes. It's a great book and model to help you work through change.
But experiment with micro changes. Challenge those deep-seated beliefs and assumptions in small ways and see what happens. A lot of times we don't make changes because it feels like we have to overhaul everything all at once and your brain just doesn't work like that. But if you try little things and experiment with them, record the results, see what happens when you do the things that you're a little bit afraid to do because you have these deep-seated beliefs.
then you will start to slowly be able to see whether those beliefs are true or not. And it's so effective. It helps you work through the change more deeply. And this will really help you discern whether that resistance you're feeling is because of true repercussions that are gonna happen if you do whatever it is this person is asking to do at work.
or whether you're still living these lived assumptions that are no longer valid in the workplace. Okay, so there's five steps. I know that's a lot. Don't worry. Of course, I have a PDF for you that you can download for free that can walk you through this or just that you can keep around to remind you to think through these five steps next time you're feeling like something is out of line at work generationally. But I'll go through them again really quickly.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (15:51.424)
Step one, recognize and record your reaction. Step two, in a full sentence, write down why you think what they are doing is wrong. Step three, write down the benefits that you get from keeping with the status quo. Step four, define the deep-seated beliefs and assumptions that you think you'll break if you change your thinking. And step five,
Try some micro experiments and record what happens to see if changing your thinking actually results in the bad outcomes you're telling yourself it will.
So if you wanna download that guide, you can find it at hardatworkpodcast.com backslash change. Give it a try, let me know how it goes. I'd love to hear if it works for you. It's been really helpful for me to interrupt some of these long held beliefs that do need to change in the workplace, but that I'm inclined not to want to change because they keep me safe or because it's what I know.
and knowing or doing something different than what I know after 20 years in the workplace can feel really scary. So I hope that's helpful to you all. I promise you'll end up feeling better and you'll have a better experience working with deaf. Okay, I'm gonna back up for a second.
Ellen Whitlock Baker (17:09.07)
And also, just a gentle reminder, go easy on yourself. Change is hard. Recognizing that you're resisting change is hard, especially in this system where we're not supposed to do anything wrong ever and be perfect. If you're in that boat where you still feel that way, where you do feel that way, where life has made you feel that way, then this is going to feel hard because you're going to acknowledge that your instincts, which you rely on a lot at work and where
and which have gotten you to the place where you are, might not always be right. But that's okay. We're all learning and growing. So put your guilt aside, put your judgment of yourself aside, and just get curious. What's going on with you? That's making you feel the way that it is. I promise you'll end up feeling better and having a better experience working with different generations.
So that's it for today's podcast. I hope it was helpful for you. Again, I would absolutely love it if you would put a comment on the episode or send me a note at ellen at ewbcoaching.com and tell me how you're liking the podcast and if you've got any suggestions for future topics or people you want to hear on the show. And I'm really appreciating everybody that's listening. If you haven't already subscribed or
Liked the podcast on your platform of choice? I would appreciate that. And if you're enjoying it, I would love it if you would rate it, review it, or send it to a friend or all three for extra gold stars. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate you all and I'll see you next time.
