Employees of different generations and their motivations: Do they differ?

Abstract

Managing employees across different generations is not only a hot research topic, but also a challenge faced by contemporary business organizations in any industry. Generally, it is believed that managing employees across generations is a daunting and a challenging management task due to the differences in their preferences, behaviors and attitudes.

The purpose of this research is to examine whether motivational drivers differ across three generations of employees working in the Sri Lankan banking sector. This explanatory study has a cross sectional research design and follows the quantitative methodology and the deductive research approach. The results do not exhaustively support the generational stereotypes concerning motivation that is ubiquitous among management practitioners. A difference among motivational drivers across three generational cohorts was observed only for one category of motivational drivers, which were content based drivers, but not for the process based motivational drivers. This research emphasizes the importance of managing individuals by focusing on individual differences rather than relying on generational stereotypes.