I Thought My Gen Z Co-Worker Was Disrespectful Until I Realized I Was Being a Boomer
Cross-generational communication breakdowns are costing companies $62 billion annually. Here’s how to bridge the age gap.
I was leading a team meeting recently and noticed a younger employee, probably in her early 20s, staring down at her phone and frenetically thumbing away.
I tried to ignore her rudeness as nothing but a Gen-Z thing, but every time I looked her face was buried in that phone.
Afterwards, I saw her in the hall and couldn’t help myself from mentioning that it sort of irked me that she was on her phone the whole time during our meeting.
She was stunned.
First, that I was actually confronting her in real life. Second, that I had it completely wrong.
“I was taking notes,” she said, rolling her eyes. I apologized and sulked back into my office, embarrassed.
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A $62 billion problem
Misunderstandings like this happen every day in offices around the world. An Indeed survey of over 1,000 job seekers and 1,000 employers found that “different communication styles and workplace expectations among generations” were the biggest challenge facing multigenerational workforces.
And the confusion isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s a money drain. Companies lose an estimated $62billion annually due to poor workplace communication.
I talk to managers and employees all the time and everyone has a generational communication breakdown story. One Gen Xer told a story about how she sent a text to a Millennial employee asking him very politely to do something and he responded: “Heard.”
That was it. No “thank you.” Or “I understand and will get it to you shortly.” Just “heard.”
“It was completely disrespectful!” she said.
But to the Millennial who sent the message, it was efficient and quick.
“I send short concise emails and texts that clearly state what I am working on,” he told me. “Boomers love to send long overly detailed messages.”
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The Four-Generation Pile-Up
We currently have four generations overlapping in the workplace: Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z.
On paper, this seems like a lovely mix of different perspectives and experience levels. In reality, it can be a disaster. We can’t communicate about why we can’t communicate.
There are many ways communication breaks down in the work environment, but it keeps coming back to three things.
Hierarchy
Boomers and Gen X grew up with org charts. They were taught early on that if you worked hard enough and paid your dues, you’d move up the ladder and finally land in that corner office with the view.
You respected—or at least tolerated—those ahead of you on the food chain, knowing that one day you would replace them at the top.
Meanwhile, Millennials and Gen Z inherited a much different system. They came up in flat, team-based organizations. There were no corner offices. Everyone sat out in the bullpen. Decisions were made at the ping pong table. Bosses had titles like “Chief Happiness Officer.”
How did this affect communication? Well, younger workers don’t automatically defer to authority the way their older colleagues expect. They’ll question decisions, push back on processes, and ask “why” about things Boomers and Xers just accepted as the way things are done.
To older generations, this feels disrespectful. To younger ones, it feels collaborative.
Feedback
Everyone wants feedback, but how you give and receive it can be completely different.
Boomers and Gen Xers prefer a more formal approach. They came up with an annual performance review, sitting in a conference room once a year while your boss read from a prepared document about your strengths and “areas for improvement.” That’s all they needed to hear. No hand-holding necessary.
But Millennials and Gen Zers require more immediate feedback. They want to know how they’re doing in real-time. A project wraps up? They expect a debrief stat. Someone else got a promotion? They want to know why it wasn’t them and what they need to do to get there.
To them, waiting a full year to find out if you’re doing a good job is insane.
Modes
Lastly, the way we communicate says a lot about when we were born.
Boomers prefer in-person conversations or phone calls. They want to hear your voice, read your body language, have an actual back-and-forth exchange.
Gen Xers prefer email. Give them a clear subject line, a concise message, and we’ll respond when we get to it. Professional, efficient, done.
Millennials prefer Slack, Teams, Basecamp, or whatever collaboration platform the company uses. Quick messages, emoji reactions, casual check-ins that feel less formal than email but more immediate.
And Gen Z? They prefer video messages, voice notes, or just skipping the whole thing entirely and DMing on Instagram. Phone calls terrify them. Emails are for boomers. And don’t even think about leaving them a voicemail—they’ll never listen to it.
I remember recently being frustrated trying to communicate with a Millennial employee. I kept sending her emails about a project we were working on. Nothing back. Days went by. I sent a follow-up. Nada.
Then I logged onto the internal communications site Basecamp and found a ton of messages from her. Detailed responses to every question I’d asked. Updates on her progress. Even a few questions for me that had been sitting there unanswered for days.
She hadn’t been ignoring me at all. In her world, I’d been ignoring her.
Some solutions
Most of us want the same thing. We just want it in different ways. The more we can acknowledge that our communication preferences aren’t character flaws—they’re just generational differences—the better chance we have of actually understanding each other.
That means Boomers and Gen Xers need to accept that “Heard” isn’t a diss. And younger workers need to understand that reading a long email isn’t a form of torture.
It means recognizing that taking notes on a phone isn’t rude, that asking “why” isn’t insubordination, and that your preferred mode of communication isn’t the only correct one.
Multiple studies find that organizations that intentionally manage generational diversity—through communication, training, and inclusive practices—see higher productivity, stronger innovation, and better retention.
Will addressing the communication gap solve everything? Probably not. But at least we’ll stop assuming the worst about each other.
The problem isn’t that we can’t communicate. It’s that we’re all convinced our way is the best way.
And until Gen Xers like me accept that taking notes on a phone is perfectly acceptable, we’re going to keep yelling at people in hallways.
Jonathan Small writes about generational workplace dynamics at his Substack, Small Talk
I was leading a team meeting recently and noticed a younger employee, probably in her early 20s, staring down at her phone and frenetically thumbing away.
I tried to ignore her rudeness as nothing but a Gen-Z thing, but every time I looked her face was buried in that phone.
Afterwards, I saw her in the hall and couldn’t help myself from mentioning that it sort of irked me that she was on her phone the whole time during our meeting.
