Bridging the Gap: Part 1 Review of January's E@H

Our January guest presenter was Kay Crawford, Senior Fellow at the Center for Aging and Community (CAC) at the University of Indianapolis. During the Evening, Kay presented findings from the Center's research on Meaningful Work for Older Adults and Aging in Place, including some surprising statistics about the Baby Boom generation.

The presentation provoked meaningful discussions on a variety of related topics, including:

• How did retirement become attached to a certain age? Are Boomers pressing a change in that concept?
• Differences between generations within the workforce and how can we best use the skills and advantages of each generation.

The group discussed the similarities that exist among the various generations within the workplace. So much attention is currently given to the differences in values between Baby-boomers and Generation Xers. While highlighting differences is key to understanding why groups fail to communicate effectively, it does not provide instruction on what needs to be done to correct the problem.

Upon further reflection we noticed many similar values. In order raise the quality of dialogue on this subject, we must begin focusing our discussions around what we have in common and then build on those similarities to find practical solutions.