By Béatrix Charlier — Researcher in Multiple Intelligences | Expert in Intergenerational Collaboration | Founder of Temp’Operandi & P’OP | Author of Activate Your Company’s Talents (2021) and Awaken Your Talents (2024) | Supporting leaders, teams and students in activating their talents and building sustainable organizations.

For more than twenty years, I have been analysing generations in the workplace: their values, drivers, unconscious biases, and their relationship to the world.
And today, one conclusion stands out clearly: what many describe as a “generational clash” is, in reality, a matter of governance.

Tensions do not come from age.
They emerge because organizations struggle to orchestrate different cultures, expectations and levels of consciousness.
You don’t “manage” a generation — you govern a collective.

Three generations shaped by major disruptions

Even if Generations X, Y and Z currently coexist in the workplace, they were formed by two historic shifts:

1. Historical disruptions

Financial, social, climate and health crises reshaped trust, stability and people’s relationship to work.

2. Technological disruptions

Digitalization, AI and new forms of collaboration disrupted norms, pace and learning models.

This double shock created radically different worldviews.

Gen X — the Wise Generation

Raised with the belief that companies offered stability and lifelong careers, they saw this psychological contract collapse in 2008.
Today, they bring organizational memory, resilience and steadiness.

Gen Y — the Now Generation

They brought meaning, work–life balance and agility to the foreground.
Initially misunderstood, these values proved essential during Covid.
They bring transformation, collaboration and fluidity.

Gen Z — the Next Generation

Growing up amid eco-anxiety and geopolitical tension, their lens is no longer “career” but impact.
They oscillate between Fight (engagement), Freeze (overwhelm), and Flight (withdrawal).
They bring ecological clarity and a demand for coherence.

Across my field exchanges — including with young engaged leaders such as Nikita Colas — a shared expectation emerges:
For Gen Z, companies must be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Intergenerational dynamics are not about age

Beyond labels, they are about values and consciousness.
Reducing individuals to generational stereotypes is a mistake.
Back in 2016, our study on Millennial turnover showed that barely 30% actually embodied the so-called “Y values”.

Across more than 5,000 datapoints collected over twenty years, my analyses show that 82% of tensions attributed to generations actually stem from differences in values and levels of consciousness — not from age gaps.

In other words: what we call a “generational clash” is, first and foremost, a clash of worldviews.

Why intergenerational collaboration is becoming vital

We are living through a Darwinian moment.
The organizations that survive will not be the ones pitting generations against each other — but the ones enabling them to work in resonance.

Intergenerational collaboration is not a “youth issue”.
It is a matter of governance, values and organizational models.

Recent surveys reveal a deep shift in workplace expectations:

• 73% of employees regularly experience difficulties collaborating with colleagues from other generations (PwC, Multigenerational Workforce)

• 89% of Gen Z and 92% of Millennials say meaningful work is essential

• 57% of Gen Z already use generative AI daily at work

• 48% of Gen Z and 46% of Millennials do not feel financially secure

These numbers do not reflect entitlement.
They reflect a societal shift.

Youth is not “creating problems”.
It is revealing what was already dysfunctional.

The companies that adapt will be those able to multiply their generations’ strengths — not merely add them.

Five levers to activate intergenerational intelligence

1. Map skills and create talent convergences

Each generation brings an invisible capital (technical, relational, societal) that is often underused.

➡️ Action: Create talent maps to identify emerging competencies (ecology, digital, soft skills) and build hybrid teams where the match of talents becomes a direct lever for sustainable innovation.

2. Establish reverse mentoring and cross-generational dialogues

Gen Z wants to be heard. Their perspective is invaluable to update managerial practices.

➡️ Action: Implement intergenerational pairs where younger employees guide more experienced ones on digital topics, ecology or social transformation.

3. Replace performance reviews with evolution conversations

Control demotivates; development retains.

➡️ Action: Transform annual reviews into dialogues centred on aspirations, values and impact — aligned with the fact that nearly 90% of younger generations place meaning at the heart of job satisfaction (Deloitte 2025).

4. Strengthen meaning, engagement and value alignment

Younger generations leave companies when commitments feel superficial.
As Isaac Getz has shown, “altruistic organizations” attract because they embody their values.

➡️ Action: Clarify purpose, make commitments visible, and involve all layers — leaders, managers, employees — in projects with real impact.

5. Flexibility & mental well-being

Fewer than 60% of Gen Z and Millennials consider themselves in good mental health, and anxiety is widespread (Deloitte 2025).

➡️ Action: Increase flexibility (remote work, adaptive schedules), train managers in listening and care, and recognize effort beyond pure performance metrics.

In conclusion

What new generations reveal has nothing to do with an age clash.
They express something deeper:

• the refusal of exhaustion

• the quest for meaning

• the demand for coherence

• organizational justice

• respect for human time

• the desire for impact

These new criteria of sustainable performance transcend generational cycles.
They reveal an organization’s ability to align its values, recognize diverse intelligences, and transform this diversity into operational strength.

The company of tomorrow will not win because it has more young people or more seniors — but because it has developed a governance model mature enough to orchestrate interculturality, talents and each individual’s pace of evolution.

This maturity — measurable, cultivable and strategic — will determine which organizations endure the future, and which ones actually build it.

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