Page 49 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

36B RE-ENGAGE

have the same commitment to their employers as older employees,
and are seemingly more willing to pick up and move elsewhere if their
current job does not provide a high level of interest and satisfaction.
A recent newspaper article quotes a young woman regarding her
lack of work commitment: “If people don’t even go into something like
marriage with the thought that they are stuck in it forever, I don’t think they
are going to enter a corporate institution or some other place of employment
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thinking that they have to stay there.” Her sentiments mirror the survey
results. This general lack of engagement can severely diminish both
employee performance and retention.

And as We Become More Diverse . . .
We conducted a novel analysis of the results from Best-Places-to-Work
surveys to determine whether the more age-diverse employers had lower
engagement levels. In other words, we asked: “Does having a broader
and more balanced spectrum of ages represented in the workforce re-
duce an employer’s chances of creating a highly engaged workplace?”
The results of our analysis—after controlling for other company
characteristics such as age, position type, company size, and tenure—
showed us that greater variation in age within a company actually has a
negative impact on engagement. The statistical results were quite eye-
opening. It turns out that, after controlling for the variables described
above, the level of generational diversity accounts for more than 25
percent of the variance in employee engagement. Said another way,
this single variable, what we call the Generational Diversity Indicator
(GDI), is a significant factor in the ability of an organization to create
a highly engaged workplace. 7

:
Generational Diversity Indicator
How much of an impact does this single factor have on
employee engagement? The greater the age diversity (the
higher the GDI), the less likely the employer will have high
engagement scores.