A study by researchers at the University of Queensland (Australia) found that members of stereotypically view their older colleagues as incompetent, untrainable, and unable to adapt to new ways of working. The results also show that younger workers trust older workers less as professionals.
“Workplace structures are getting flatter, so we often see people with big age gaps working at the same level,” said Dr. Chad Chiu, the study’s lead author.
He said young workers often jump to unfair conclusions about this. Working alongside older in similar roles, they often wonder why those colleagues aren’t moving up into higher positions.
What the study found about Gen Z and older colleagues
The study involved about 400 employees and was conducted at workplaces in Australia and Taiwan.
First, the team surveyed 199 employees at consulting and tech firms in Taiwan about their trust in colleagues’ professionalism. The results showed that younger participants were more likely to judge older colleagues as untrustworthy.
“When young employees get very little information about their older colleagues’ , they tend to base their judgments mainly on surface characteristics like age,” Dr. Chad Chiu said.
In a second experiment, 177 Australian participants aged 22 and up were asked to evaluate a scenario in which a 55-year-old engineer responds to an urgent production problem. Workers had to state their judgment about the engineer’s competence. The researchers analyzed the responses by participant age.
It turned out that younger people trusted the engineer’s professional abilities less. As Dr. Chiu said, they see older colleagues as pleasant or caring, but they don’t see them as valuable.
“It’s wrong to assume that older employees don’t need support just because they are older or more experienced,” Dr. Chiu added.
He believes the study’s results could help managers who want to more effectively lead inclusive, age-diverse teams of professionals.
Commenting on the study in the Daily Mail, one reader noted, “Most of the technologies young people use were invented by the same older generation they’re criticizing.”
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