What if the generation gap at work is really a communication gap?

Baby boomers, Gen Z, and the miscommunication that’s really just a misread.

I want to talk about something that keeps coming up in my work with leaders and organizations, and honestly, I find it a little fun. It might not be fun for everyone living it, but stay with me.

We’re in a rare moment in history. We have four generations working side by side at the same time. Baby boomers, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z. And the two furthest apart, baby boomers and Gen Z, are the ones people talk about most, the clash, the gap, how leaders and organizations are supposed to bridge it.

I love reading the research on this. One finding: around 65% of baby boomers prefer face-to-face interaction. For Gen Z, about 28% prefer instant messages, email, technology. So in how we communicate, there’s a real gap. And where there are differences, miscommunication tends to follow, especially when the two approaches look this different from each other.

So I want to talk about the misread between generations.

What each side is truly saying

I remember working with leaders at the Navy, going over employee satisfaction results. And it was fascinating, because I kept hearing the same things from both sides.

From the leaders: this new generation wants to be recognized without putting in the effort. They’re always asking questions. They skip the process, they go straight over their supervisor to the chain of command instead of following the steps. These were genuine concerns, said with real frustration.

And from Gen Z, the other side of the same coin: there’s no communication here. There’s this abrupt cutoff when I just want to ask a question. Because it mattered so much to them to understand that what they were doing was meaningful, to feel they were contributing to something bigger.

So is this really a problem one side has and the other doesn’t? Are baby boomers outdated, or is Gen Z entitled, the way people love to say?

I say neither. It’s not one or the other. It’s still a communication thing.

What we all want underneath

Because this is the finding that reframes the whole conversation. A study showed that 87% of workers across every generation prefer flexible workplaces, places where they feel respected, seen, taken into consideration, valued.

And when I say flexibility, I don’t only mean benefits and schedules. I mean flexibility in how people relate to and communicate with each other.

There’s a theory in the academic world called communication accommodation theory, and it’s a beautiful one. It’s about the flexibility of understanding another person’s way of perceiving life and communicating, and through that understanding, finding a way to make them feel: I hear you. I see you. I understand this is how you experience communication, and I’m making an active, intentional choice to communicate with you in a way you’ll understand.

To me, that’s the whole secret. That’s what this is about.

Because technology isn’t going anywhere. And here’s a takeaway I’ve noticed that a lot of people miss: technology has pushed us to connect in different ways, not only through words, but emotionally. It’s challenged the ways we learned to interact and nudged us toward more emotional intelligence, more social intelligence.

And as technology takes on more of the practical tasks, where does that leave us? It leaves us with the things that aren’t particular to AI: human connection, emotional intelligence, belonging. Because we’re wired, biologically, to belong. Underneath almost any motivation to achieve anything, what you’ll usually find is connection. The wish to feel closer to each other, to feel we belong, to feel we matter. Technology is making that clearer every day.

The perception is the problem, not the person

Watch how this plays out. Two people can do the exact same thing in the workplace, and just being perceived as belonging to a different generation is enough to change how each one is received.

A baby boomer offers a point of view. A Gen Z offers the same point of view. And because of the generational lens, we hear those two identical things differently.

We focus on what this person is. It’s a baby boomer, they’re older, they don’t get technology, they’re stuck in time, whatever they propose won’t be current. Or it’s a Gen Z, so they don’t know anything, they’re entitled, they think they have all the knowledge but they’re just babies walking around as adults.

Now imagine that energy in a workplace, sometimes unspoken, sometimes said right out loud. Those interactions feed each other, and they build miscommunication. They build the misread.

So why not focus on what the research says unites us, on what we have in common? Because underneath all of it, we still want the same things. To feel seen. To feel connected. To have some flexibility in how we’re met, in our time, in our benefits. To be respected. To be heard. To feel part of something greater. And that runs across every generation.

How we close the gap

This is why I keep coming back to discernment, and to building compassion as a value in organizations, and in ourselves as leaders. Because we get that discernment internally first, and then we can extend it to others.

You don’t necessarily have to change how you communicate. But you can be curious enough to understand the other person’s way. Because even when the same behavior gets read completely differently depending on who’s looking, awareness changes things. Wow, what’s my perception here? Is this a preconception I’m carrying about this person? Let me separate, for a moment, the person from what they’re proposing. Let me connect with that instead. And ask: is this contributing to the greater good of the organization, the business, the project?

That’s how we close the gap. That’s how we change the rhetoric that keeps reinforcing the misread between generations.

So I’ll leave you with a question. Where have you assumed how someone wanted to be reached, without ever asking them?

Because we tend to think, this is just how this person is. But what if that baby boomer loves technology and prefers a quick text? What if that Gen Z would rather meet face to face? It’s a simple question, but what sits underneath it is powerful. It’s the beginning of being flexible, with ourselves and with others. Of being curious. Of taking the time to see a person for who they are, instead of lumping them into a generation.

— Roselyn Pérez Casiano