By Julie Fasone Holder

Six years ago, I welcomed my niece, Toni McEwan to The Dow Chemical Company – my employer for the last three decades. While I have achieved some level of success in the company and now sit in the executive wing, I’ve found that even Aunt Julie has something to learn when it comes to leading through generational differences.

Toni joined Dow straight out of college and while we share the same family heritage, we are a model of differences. She came to Dow as an engineer, wanting to make the world a better place.

I came to Dow in the 70’s — in sales — excited to climb the corporate ladder. She is a Millennial, part of that mystifying 20-something generation born in the latter 21st Century. I am a Baby Boomer (okay, part of that 50-something generation) who grew up during the women’s movement, breaking ground in a man’s world and learning the hard way by being the only and first woman to do a variety of things.

Toni cut her teeth on instant messaging, multi tasking and the internet. I learned to use technology, and embrace it for its efficiencies, but grew up in an age where relationships and face-to-face communications “closed the deal.”

I know that in the work place, Millennials like Toni have big ideas. They prefer highly scheduled environments, are expert multi-taskers, and learned young how to be well organized. Case in point – my own children were issued daily planners at school by the age of 10. Balancing options and being flexible are already part of their vocabulary. Reliance on technology and being “connected” is a given.

Probably most importantly, this generation of women has more opportunities than ever. They are constantly on the go at work and after hours, and the chances to join and participate are limitless. They want it all and possibly for the first time ever they can have it.

As a leader, I am challenged to harness the great strengths these fantastic women bring to our company, while helping them fit into a well established culture at Dow — and let them help craft the future of the company. My goal is to channel their passion and talents so that the qualities that make these women unique allow them to grow individually while helping our company achieve its business objectives.

How do I do it? I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but my approach is to link generations through five guiding principles for women. I have shared these often and found they stand the test of time. They are:

1. Identify your true priorities and decide what can wait.

Women of all generations can be successful at home, at work and as an active part of the community. I often recognize a difficulty in saying no. I encourage women to evaluate what they believe in and how they will make a difference, and resist the urge to do everything.

2. Set goals and be patient about achieving them.

Younger employees have a great need for immediate gratification. With vast opportunities in front of them, women may get easily enamored by a chance to move overseas or take on a more demanding role, even if the transition is not a good fit. I urge women to have a plan, be patient, and wait for the opportunities that will surely come.

3. Identify what kind of help you need and get it. Our young people have more access to services than we Baby Boomers ever dreamed, but many are not yet accustomed to the idea that they don’t have to do it all. I remind them that it’s okay to ask for help – no matter what kind.

4. Realize that change is constant and make it work for you.

Even though Millennials seem to be hard-wired for change, it is still unsettling when it happens. I encourage women to be comfortable with it. Today’s global business environment absolutely requires flexibility. The more flexible an employee can be, the better an asset they are to any company.

5. Seek out a variety of coaches for specific situations.

When I entered the workforce, mentoring was uncommon. Our newer employees are fortunate that many companies see the value in providing professional coaches. As Toni’s mentor, I encourage her to seek experts in all areas where she needs support, and I am thankful she has the opportunity to learn from those with varied experiences.

I believe all of us as leaders can bridge the generational gap when we first try to understand the motivations of our Millennials. These are intelligent, savvy, creative women who will be our leaders of tomorrow. Our ability to integrate them effectively will reap great rewards in the future.

About the author

Julie Fasone Holder is a distinguished corporate leader, celebrated for empowering women in professional spheres. As the former Senior Vice President of Dow, she ascended from her early sales role to C-suite leadership in a Fortune 50 company, managing multi-billion dollar business portfolios along the way. She lastly oversaw Marketing and Sales, Reputation, Public and Government Affairs, and HR for Dow, underscoring her diverse expertise. Post-retirement, her passion for women’s success materialized into her entrepreneurial venture, JFH Insights, where she leverages her extensive corporate experience to guide women towards career and life success as an independent director and mentor.

By Robin Throckmorton, MA, SPHR & Linda Gravett, PhD, SPHR

Imagine walking into a workplace where co-workers ranging from 22-years-old to 60-years-old not only work easily side by side, but look to each other for advice and feedback. Would that not be utopia for every company?

Organizations that find a way to unite co-workers of all generations only stand to benefit in many ways, not the least of which is added profit to the bottom line. Unfortunately, this task is often challenging for many teams which are unsure how to handle generational diversity.

In today’s workplace, an organization can actually have as many as five generations represented:

• Radio Babies born 1930 – 1945 (62 – 77 years old)
• Baby Boomers born 1946 – 1964 (43 – 61 years old)
• Gen Xers born 1965 – 1976 (31 – 42 years old)
• Gen Ys born 1977 – 1990 (17 – 30 years old)
• Millennials born 1991 or later (16 or younger)

Each generation was labeled, according to sociologists, because of the different influences during the time period that they were growing up including social issues, parenting styles, politics, economic conditions, technology, etc. These different influences shape how they respond in the workplace with decision making, communication and work styles.

In the best situations, when companies learn to embrace these differences, the influences can create diversity of thought, less conflict, less turnover and even better talent management.

Less conflict

In today’s workforce, many organizations are faced with lost productivity due to conflict between older and younger workers with very different opinions on issues such as work ethic or work/life balance. Communication styles of younger and older workers are very different making it even more challenging for them to resolve the conflict. If generational diversity was promoted as an inclusive tool, companies would not have these conflicts and productivity for everyone involved would improve.

Less turnover

With varying statistics indicating that 30 percent of our workforce is seeking their next position, organizations are hurt each day by the cost of turnover. By promoting generational inclusion and educating employees about how to handle differences, companies could create a collaborative workforce so workers would be less likely to leave. The key way to do this would be by uniting through generational diversity. The more workers accept each other’s differences the more welcome everyone is going to feel and want to stay with an organization; thus reducing turnover.

Talent Management

In the current tight labor market and while facing a future labor shortage with a rapidly aging workforce, organizations that can manage the talents and skills of their workforce will be more likely to succeed tomorrow. The more united a workforce is in sharing diversity of thought through mentoring and succession planning, the more successful that company will be. If older workers work closely with younger workers to share their expertise and knowledge and younger workers are willing to accept and listen to what they have to share, everyone’s talents will be maximized. In a workforce that is generationally diverse and united, this can happen!

Often it takes opposing views to get someone to challenge the ways that are “tried and true”…. to try something new and different. If employees are united, they will we be less likely to conform and more likely to challenge the accepted way. Most organizations would like to benefit from improvements to the bottom line, have less conflict, less turnover and improved talent management. If generational diversity united all co-workers, it would actually be an organization’s utopia.

Robin Throckmorton, a seasoned Human Resources professional with over 30 years of experience, holds a Masters in Labor and Employment Relations from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor’s degree in Management from Purdue University. Her expertise is reflected in her book, “Bridging the Generation Gap,” which she co-authored, providing comprehensive insights into multigenerational work environments. Throckmorton’s credentials include the Senior Professional Human Resources (SPHR) Certification, SHRM – SCP, and Everything DiSC Certification, affirming her commitment to HR excellence and continuous professional development.

By Cindy Carrillo

Let me tell you about Paula.

Until Paula’s mother broke her hip, she hadn’t considered the care her aging parents might need. They seemed healthy and independent. Like many professionals, Paula’s eldercare role was thrust upon her with immediacy and uncertainty, so she struggled to balance both her career and the care for her parents.

After her mother’s fall, Paula rushed to the emergency room and then took time off to help her mother recover. Her mother moved into Paula’s home, so Paula stayed home too and started to work again via laptop and Blackberry, using her firm’s telecommuting program. When Paula had critical client meetings, she contacted her firm’s backup care provider to arrange for a trusted, affordable caregiver to come into her home and offer her mother assistance, so Paula could return to the office.

After discussing her situation with a geriatric care manager offered by her firm, Paula realized that her parents could no longer live alone or in her home; they both needed supervision in a safe, stimulating environment. Paula called the firm’s information and referral service; she requested solutions for her parents’ long-term care and received articles about how to decide on care arrangements for aging loved ones, plus detailed information about assisted living facilities near her.

When Paula realized she was overwhelmed, she wasn’t nervous about speaking to her HR director about her concerns. The HR director offered free counseling sessions through the firm’s employee assistance program and invited Paula to a support group to speak with other working caregivers and learn how to manage the stress caused by her new role.

Fortunately, Paula’s employer anticipated the eldercare challenges that employees at the firm might face. Although they should, not all employers offer extensive eldercare benefits to help employees support their aging loved ones while remaining productive at work.

These statistics illustrate the number of people like Paula who are (or soon will be) managing both eldercare responsibilities and their careers.

• 41% of baby boomers with a living parent are providing care through personal help, financial assistance or both. Of those who aren’t providing care for parents now, 37% think they will someday.(1)
• 60% of those caring for a senior adult are working – most full-time.(2)
• By 2030, almost 20% of Americans will be 65 or older.(3)

Consider the impact eldercare challenges have on the workplace.

• The annual cost to employers for full-time employees who are caregivers of seniors is $33.6 billion – for absenteeism, replacing employees, elder-care crises, unpaid leave, workday interruptions and switching from full-time to part-time job status.(4)

These numbers present a solid business case for corporate involvement in eldercare solutions. When solutions are available, employees can stay in the workforce, get to work and remain productive while at work. Paula’s story outlines her use of several eldercare benefits – telecommuting, backup care, geriatric care management, information and referral, employee assistance and caregiver support groups – but it’s difficult to list all possible eldercare benefits employees need.

Eldercare is complicated, which is one of the reasons it hasn’t yet been addressed successfully in our society or across the entire workforce. While aging is universal, every situation is unique and requires a different combination of resources and solutions. Caregivers need help to determine short-term and long-term care solutions, to handle the emotional aspects of caregiving and to manage their careers with options like flexible schedules, job sharing and part-time positions.

Everyone – employees, their loved ones, and their employers – ultimately benefits when working caregivers are offered these types of programs.

Cindy Carrillo is Founder and President of Work Options Group the leading provider of backup care for children, adults and elders. Workoptionsgroup.com

By Nancy Gleason

When people ask me what I do for a living, I say, “Oh, I sell high speed adhesive dispensing machines, metal expansion joints and electrical conduit.” They typically ask me to repeat that. If they ask my husband, he says, I really don’t know, but she makes good money and really likes her job. This is the same guy whose eyes glass over when I get into the specifics of glue dispensing, adhesive viscosities and gear pumps.

Most of my career has been spent working for large industrial behemoths (Atlantic Richfield and Nordson Corporation) in their outside sales organizations. My sales calls have taken me into the bowels of paper mills, aircraft engine plants, oil refineries, cranberry processing facilities, catheter manufacturers, steel mills, automotive makers and even breweries, just to name a few.

I started my career as an Industrial Sales Representative with oil giant Atlantic Richfield. My first sales territory was west and north Texas, from Dallas to El Paso up to Borger. Being from Rhode Island, this was a true eye opener. In retrospect, I know my bosses in Los Angeles transferred me to Texas, as part of their plan just to see if I was sturdy enough to handle what had always been a man’s job. It turns out I was. For the next 10 years, I was promoted every year and eventually ended up back at headquarters in an Executive Sales Management position.

Today, I work for Nordson Corporation and as always in my industrial sales career, I earn a good salary, travel internationally, take home a decent bonus every year, have excellent benefits, a somewhat flexible work schedule, a clear career path and I enjoy what I do. However, even after 25 years of doing this, I am still one of very few women at our annual sales meetings.

If more women explored positions in fields such as mine, they would reap the rewards that men have for years, and could use them as a spring board to upper management. Most companies in this space require their leaders to have some outside sales experience. Today, few women are at the top levels of manufacturing companies only because they do not have the outside sales experience required. Outside sales experience helps women have the vision to lead and to have a broad perspective on your customers and your competition. Whether it is at companies such as GE Lighting, Parker Hannifin or even my own Nordson Corporation, the executive management at large industrial giants typically have a background in outside sales. Outside sales experience can be very lucrative. An executive VP at my current employer, who started in outside sales, now makes $400 thousand per year and just cashed in $2 million worth of stock options.

Even if you are not interested in pursuing upper management, these outside industrial sales jobs are better than most in terms of salary, flexibility (most positions are home offices covering a geographical territory), stability, benefits, travel and socialization. A majority of the men that I have known and worked with over the years are able to support a family and a great lifestyle from a simple outside industrial sales job.

Few women explore these opportunities because they are either not aware of them or this is perceived as not very glamorous. Sometimes I even think the men are keeping these positions secret because they know that once women find out about them, they’ll go for it and the women will work harder and smarter. Take my word for it; these are great jobs with a future.

So if you are a woman with a college education looking to secure a good, well paying, challenging job, try thinking outside the box. Be prepared to work hard, learn an unbelievable amount about how things are made, get a little dirty and thoroughly enjoy your job.

For additional resources on finding outside sales positions such as these visit Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute, a trade organization in manufacture packaging, at pmmi.org.

Nancy Gleason is manager of Nordson Corporation’s Life Sciences Group. Nordson Corporation is the world’s leading manufacturer of systems that apply adhesives, sealings and coatings during manufacturing operations.