TWENTYSOMETHINGS have been urging their elders to ‘f-f-fade away’ for 50 years. The Who released their hit ‘My Generation’ in October 1965 and, even then, talkin’ ’bout it was nothing new.

Some 600 years earlier, for instance, an anonymous author wrote an alliterative poem called The Parliament of the Three Ages, in which representatives of youth, middle and old age debate the meaning of life. Doubtless some medieval marketing whizz-kid was standing by ready to sell indulgences based on its insights.

The obvious lesson is that young and old never understand each other. Slicing people arbitrarily into named generations may not help. For instance, ‘millennials’ — born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s — and baby boomers, the last of whom emerged just before Roger Daltrey stuttered out his protest song, may be more similar than the marketing hype suggests.

First, the alleged differences. Fami­liarity with technology is the obvious one. Even the most iPadded director is less digitally at ease than the company’s youngest recruits. This gulf is probably at its widest now and should narrow quickly as the first digital natives are promoted. While the gap yawns, however, executives grow fearful that they do not know what the alien beings in their graduate training programme want and how to satisfy it.

Some of the sketchy studies that offer answers have all the predictive value of astrology, which also forecasts outcomes based on date of birth. But there are some common elements.

Millennials are said to be eager for respect from their superiors, hungry for feedback and motivated by purpose and meaning as much as by the promise of monetary reward or high office. A group of potential leaders in their 20s, who I recently interviewed, declared a strong desire to work in organisations with flatter hierarchies, where influence counts for more than authority, let alone title.

Human resources executives at a lunch last week, hosted by the Financial Times’ 125 forum, agreed that millennials want to move faster than their elders did at the same age.

Young employees seek more varied early careers. Companies must adapt. In some instances, employers will have to re-examine their assumption that staff will wait 15 or 20 years before becoming, say, partner of a law firm or manager of a hotel

Young employees seek more varied early careers. Companies must adapt. In some instances, employers will have to re-examine their assumption that staff will wait 15 or 20 years before becoming, say, partner of a law firm or manager of a hotel.

But a survey by Ashridge Executive Education — which has done some of the more thoughtful work on generational traits — suggests over-50s are as impatient for recognition and fulfilment as their juniors. Over-50s say they are not being used to their full potential, the personnel department misunderstands them, and they want to discuss new challenges, not just their pension options.

Companies should try to exploit the similarities. The caricature of needy millennials feuding with boomers coasting to retirement contains some truths, but it hides an opportunity to put the groups together.

Mentoring and reverse-mentoring are the most obvious ways companies can do this. Career appraisals are also ripe for reinvention as a more open discussion. Such a reform would suit over-50s, ground down by years of performance reviews, as much as it would fit the needs of job-hopping youngsters.

Chizoba Nnaemeka, recently shortlisted for the Bracken Bower Prize for younger business writers, wants more opportunities for experienced professionals and their younger counterparts to swap insights. “At most of the events I’ve been attending, the band of ages is quite narrow, the backgrounds near-identical,” she says. “I hadn’t realised how many of these gatherings are peopled by only twenty- and thirtysomethings.”

As for technology, John Soroushian says the fact he and his millennial peers are more adept than their seniors will not surprise anyone. In any case, as he wrote in an essay for the Drucker Challenge, ‘technology has not changed human nature’.

Generational generalisations are more useful to marketers than managers. Speaking as someone supposedly born on the cusp between the baby boom and Generation X, I can also confirm they annoy the heck out of those so defined. “Millennials don’t like being put in boxes,” one HR director says. Nor, he might add, do the rest of us. With Mr Daltrey, 71, set to lead his band on tour again, it is worth acknowledging that when you were born can be a highly misleading guide to your behaviour or potential.

andrew.hill@ft.com

Twitter: @andrewtghill

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, December 14th, 2015