Why do we work? What do we expect to get out of it? What motivates us to keep going back, to get out or to strive for the next level?

These are questions that a lot of people ask themselves every week, even every day that they return to the fray. Aside from the obvious and unavoidable answer - money - the reason that most people go through this constant cycle of self-evaluation, even when they are happy in their work, is that the nature of work, and the relative level of satisfaction with it, is a very complex issue - one that is different for everybody and certainly one that can be difficult for managers to gauge with true accuracy.

The purpose of this report is to go beyond the basic financial imperative - to dig deep beneath its surface and uncover the meaning and mindset of the UK at work in 2008, both for the benefit of employees that want to understand more about their role and their ambitions, and for managers who are faced, perhaps more than ever before, with a shifting landscape of employee expectations and motivations.

As ever with Working Nation, the themes, ideas and line of questioning have not been plucked arbitrarily out of the air. The research process began with in-depth interviews with a panel of senior opinion leaders from the worlds of commerce and business academia (for a full explanation of the research methodology please refer to section 6, page 46). From that earliest stage of the process it became clear that there was a consensus that one of the issues uppermost in the minds of today’s business leaders is the relationship between different generations in the workplace - not just those already in existence, but also the generations about to enter the workplace in the next few years.

Corroborating the value of this angle, Management Today magazine recently produced its own survey in association with the Freshminds recruitment consultancy¹ investigating the relationship between the groups that are commonly referred to as Generation Y (born 1980 to ‘1990), Generation X (born 1964 to ‘1980) and the Baby Boomers (born 1946 to ‘1963).

“We believed that Generation Y wasn’t just different by degrees, but that this group was a disruptive generation, which through its attitudes and behaviours would have a significant and lasting impact on the future of work,” said Alistair Leathwood of Freshminds, talking to Management Today when the survey was launched.

Is Leathwood right? Could it be that Generation Y is about to become the most dominant group in the workforce? Or is the UK set for even more change, sooner than predicted, as the generation behind also enters the workforce?

One of the main reasons driving this belief in a new, unstoppable advancement of youth is, of course, technology. New forms of communication, it is assumed by many, will change working cultures forever, creating new kinds of companies as well as new kinds of employees. Indeed, a recent a list of scenarios proposed and drawn up by senior managers at the Chartered Management Institute (CMI)² warned us all to prepare for a range of futuristic possibilities by 2018 that included increased use of artificial intelligence to support managers, the use of holograms for communication between staff, even the control of employee behaviour by implanted microchips.

Perhaps more realistically, the CMI report also talked about the proliferation of ‘virtual’ companies, enabled by technology, operating as small community-based enterprises without conventional business premises. These enterprises will be more than able to compete for employees, who will subsequently become more footloose and less inclined to work for organisations that do not allow individuals to tailor the working day to meet their personal requirements. As a result, “organisations will have to address the growing power of the employee,” the report said.

Whether one chooses to believe these predictions or not, what the report does illustrate well is that the continued development of technology is widely believed to go hand-in-glove with changing attitudes, especially from younger generations, to the world of work.

The assumption is that is a unique age - a time of change where technology is playing well into the hands of younger generations that are growing up with its development, and where the attitudes and aspirations of those generations are changing, as a result, irrevocably.

Is the UK really about to enter a world of work dominated by a new cult of youth? Do younger people entering the workplace really want to change the working world? How long does the feeling last? What about those still at school, nervous about the future and worried about increasing competition? And what about the views of those in their thirties, forties and fifties? Did they feel any different in their twenties? What warnings do they have for the future, and how do they feel about their own working lives today?

This volume of Working Nation research responds to these questions by researching age cohorts that we have not considered before. For example, care has been taken to canvass the views of teenagers, still at school and about to enter work, about their aspirations for their future working lives. The researchers also polled recent retirees, and five other age cohorts in between (age ranges 19-21, 26-28, 33-36, 43-46 and 53-56).

Added to this was a unique approach to the research, creating a forum that allowed the different generations to deliberate, develop and cross-pollinate ideas, considering possible solutions to the issues raised by the findings of an extensive quantitative research survey.

What emerges, through detailed analysis over the following chapters, is a story of different generations - both the conflicts and the common ground - but one that takes a more detailed, more layered look at the differences between different age groups than previous studies.

There are some surprises. The younger generations, in many ways, reveal themselves to be not quite as gung-ho as they are sometimes portrayed. The people in the middle of their careers appear to be suffering from a malaise of disenchantment, but perhaps earlier than many observers previously thought, while the older generations, enjoying a second burst of fulfiling work-life, are not quite ready to shuffle off to retirement just yet.

The findings notwithstanding, it is still fair to assume that the working nation is entering times that are likely to move more quickly than ever before, where careers are going to become more compressed, work/life is integrated rather than balanced, satisfaction and fulfilment are likely to soon feel very different - and where significant change could happen over a generation of the next seven years, rather than alone the fifteen or even twenty year spans that make up Generation X or Y.

How can younger people handle their own expectations? What can be learnt from the generation about to leave work, or those that have already retired? Where is the opportunity for those in their thirties? Could the changing landscape become a catalyst for entrepreneurialism? What are the implications for managers, growing and adapting with the times but unsure what will motivate the workforce of tomorrow?

These are all questions that are investigated in this, the sixth Working Nation report from Vodafone UK.

Notes

1 Management Today, MT FreshMinds: Work 2.0 Survey - My generation, (February 2008).

2 Chartered Management Institute, Management Futures: The World of Work in 2018, (March 2008).