If you work in an environment where there are people from all different generations that you’re interacting with, be it within an office environment or in something like a senior living community, it can be hard for some people of those generations to know how to interact well with people from different generations. But luckily, there are things that can be done to help alleviate some of these issues.

To help you see how this can be done, here are three tips for connecting with different generations in the workplace. 

Prioritize Respect

When interacting with anyone, respect is vital if you don’t want to offend or put people off. The problem is that some people from different generations don’t realize what it is that can offend others.

If this is something that you’ve experienced before, one thing that can help is to prioritize respect in all of your interactions. This can be done by thinking before you speak to anyone, including those who are part of a different generation from you. Once you feel like you have mutual respect established between yourself and others, then you can consider getting more comfortable in your communication. But until then, make sure everything that you’re doing is with an air of respect, whether the people you’re interacting with are older or younger than you. 

Make Things Less Corporate-Feeling

Sometimes, what people really need to be able to break down barriers between generations is a little familiarity. But in the workplace, this isn’t easy to accomplish.

With this in mind, you may want to try either holding group events after work or during work hours but in a less corporate environment. There are likely things that people from all generations will enjoy doing together. And if you’re able to find something like this that people can connect on and engage with together, this camaraderie can easily transfer over to the workplace as well. 

Set Guidelines For Communicating With Others

In a workplace, there’s a lot of different kinds of communication that will take place. So when communication is written, like in emails, you may want to put some guidelines in place so that people from different generations will have an easier time communicating. 

Some of the guidelines that you might want to institute could include detailing what kind of information should be done in a chat form, what should require an email, and how video or phone calls should be handled from both sides. But putting these guidelines in place, everyone, regardless of their generation, will be on the same page with their internal communication. 

If you’re wanting the different generations that you work with to connect better, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you in accomplishing this.