A melting pot
Dan Gingras, a partner at executive consulting firm Tatum in Newton, Mass., says CIOs should create an environment where there is a blending of talents among older and younger workers. He encourages a "cross-fertilization of specific skills."
"You have to look at individual skills and figure out where those match. Pairing up older and younger workers is a good approach," he says.
What the older workers bring to the table is business acumen. "The older generation can teach younger workers the business of IT. They understand that IT is a support function of the company as a whole, where younger workers are just trying to solve an immediate problem," Gingras says.
He adds that knowledge swaps can occur during brown-bag lunches where younger workers teach older workers about new technologies and older workers explain IT's relevance to the business as a whole.
The buck stops here
Bruns says the key to avoiding age discrimination is not to act as if everyone is equal, but to acknowledge generational differences. "There can be a frustration among some of the younger workers who watch the older workers work differently. But if management does not recognize the value and is not able to explain or defend the differences then [that's when] the cohesive team splinters and you get a generational clash."
Gittlen is a freelance technology editor in Northboro, Mass. She can be reached at sgittlen@charter.net.