Article: The workplace lament of Generation X
Of the multitudes of people I have surveyed and interviewed about work since 2019, very few talk about how to meet the needs of people in their 40s and 50s, including Gen Xers themselves. Yet there is a palpable dissatisfaction amongst us. So, I sent out a survey and asked Gen Xers (and some Xennials) around the world to tell me which of their needs aren’t being met, how they think they differ from other generations and what they think will need to change in the future.
There were enough responses to confirm and extend on what I have already seen in previous research and in the very open and regular conversations I have with my contemporaries. But to analyse generational differences accurately you need to study big samples using complex and often costly ethnographic methods. I don’t have the capacity to do it and I am also hugely biased. So instead of an objective analysis, I have written a Gen X workplace lament, one that aims to encapsulate what it is that research participants and my contemporaries feel about work.
