Running a business is often as much about looking after your staff as it is about looking after customers. This can be especially true for business owners in the modern age, where pastoral and professional support for employees is essential.
One of the major challenges that this presents is supporting multi-generational workforces. These are workforces that are made up of staff who span multiple age groups and multiple generations. This type of employee base can see Millennials or staff from Gen Z working alongside people from older generations.
What are diverse employee needs?
One of the real challenges that multi-generational workforces bring for managers is the diverse range of employee needs they contain. This is because staff from multiple generations will have their own specific needs, their own specific attitudes towards work, and differing styles of communication.
Due to this, successfully supporting staff from all generations requires business leaders to cater to the wide range of expectations and preferences across their employee base. By fully understanding the diverse needs of workers, managers can offer support in a way that is valued and effective.
What are some examples of diverse employee needs?
Multi-generational workforces tend to include an array of different employee needs that managers must take time to understand.
Wellbeing is a good example to focus on and something that tends to resonate across all generations in business. Wellbeing programmes are one of the best ways of offering support in this area for companies and contain some truly innovative ways of doing this.
The drug testing lab services from Matrix Diagnostics are a case in point and help support staff who might be dealing with drug or alcohol issues. By helping businesses identify staff who might have issues in this area, Matrix’s lab services ensure that employers can provide the most appropriate support to help the employee in question recover.
Why do wellbeing programmes have a positive ROI for businesses?
In addition to helping firms offer more effective support when managing multi-generational workforces, wellbeing programmes also tend to boost overall performance levels. This is mainly due to the positive impact they have on staff morale and how much workers of all ages value these programmes.
Wellbeing schemes show staff across all generations that the business cares about them and is willing to invest money into looking after them. Investing in your company through things such as wellbeing programmes also shows all staff that you a caring, pro-active leader.
This leads to workers becoming more committed to the company and willing to strive for peak performance levels in every shift.
Understanding diverse employee needs is key
Many businesses now have workforces that contain staff from multiple generations. The key to offering the best support to each employee is having a good understanding of managing diverse employee needs.
Looking after staff health is actually one need that cuts across generations, and this makes running wellbeing programmes an effective way for leaders to support all employees in a way that they value.
