Cross-Generational Team Building: When 20-Somethings and 50-Somethings Build Together

Whichever company you peek into these days, you are very likely to see 20-, 30-, 40-, 50-, and 60-something employees working virtually or side by side in the office. Age-diverse teams are a new (yet foreseeable) tendency in the future of work. In fact, 70% of leaders believe that multi-generational workforces are a vital condition for growing successful businesses. 

But! Merely 10% are ready to address this workplace trend. The reason? This is mainly due to the wide generational gap, especially between the youngest and the oldest workers.

So, we’ve compiled this guide to help you bridge this divide before it stretches even further (with Gen Alpha soon on the way, expected to comprise 19% of the workforce by 2035).

Let’s first understand what is critical for different generations of workers. Then, we’ll discuss how to build a cross-generational team that respects differences and strengths, and creates meaningful shared employee experiences.

Understanding the Multi-Generational Workforce and Age Gap (From Zoomers to Boomers)

Meet four age groups in the workplace, each with unique specifics, values, and needs as follows.

Generation Z (Gen Z or Zoomers) → Mid-1990s to Early 2010s

Born into the digital-first era, Gen Z employees are perhaps the tech-savviest generation of all (not counting Gen Alpha—other digital natives, of course).

• Values: Flexibility, self-expression, and meaning (in work and life alike).
• Needs: Flexible hours, opportunities to try new job roles or part-time employment (for the so-called “portfolio careers”), cutting-edge tools, and better mental health support. Actually, eight out of ten would prefer more mental health days at work.

Millennials (rarely called Gen Y) → 1981–1996

Just like their younger colleagues, Millennials are good to go with advanced tech stacks (though not as intuitive as Gen Z-ers) and innovative experiments.

• Values: They are active supporters of DEI initiatives or other workplace projects with societal purpose.
• Needs:  Caring mentors (not micromanagers!), career mapping, greater work-life balance, and more frequent feedback.

Generation X (Gen X) → 1965–1980

Gen X-ers are highly autonomous problem-solvers who easily adapt to circumstances.

• Values: Financial security, reliability, pragmatic, experience-based decisions over trends.
• Needs: More independence and flexibility (e.g., two or three work-from-home days via a hybrid mode), financial perks, and stability in business planning. 

Baby Boomers → 1946–1964

Typically described as “chronic workaholics” (hard workers) and “hustle culture” founders, they show fantastic dedication to their job responsibilities.

• Values: Strict hierarchy and goal-centricity, even if it requires overworking and late-at-night hours.

• Needs: Respect from colleagues and appreciation of their competencies and years of experience. They also prefer face-to-face meetings more than other demographic cohorts: 65%, compared to only 34% of Gen Z-ers.

Note: All of them assign different levels of significance to other aspects, too, such as salary or professional development.

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How to Successfully Build a Cross-Generational Team

Launch a Dedicated Employee Success Program

Why not approach cross-generational team building in a more organized way from the very start?

Set up a formal program to support age-diverse employee success and effectively close the generational gap.

• Name, scope, and goals → Give it a name (GENunity or GENerate Success) and outline its scope and objectives.
• Pillars → Communication, Reverse Mentoring, DEI, etc.
• Roles → Coordinator, Advisory Panel (one or two representatives from each age cohort: Gen Z-er, Millennial, Gen X-er, and Boomer), Mentors/Mentees, etc.
• Instruments → A scheduling tool (e.g., Zoho Calendar or Outlook Calendar in Microsoft Teams), an employee engagement platform like Confetti, a feedback collection tool (take Polly.ai or ThriveSparrow), etc.
• Planned activities → Monthly cross-generational events and projects, feedback surveys, recognition ideas, etc.

Pro tip: In case you run a distributed team or multiple teams at once, consider hiring a virtual assistant (VA) to coordinate the program’s logistics (planning events, collecting feedback, etc.). The virtual assistant cost will largely depend on the hourly rate. Yet, even if you hire a VA for a couple of hours/workweek, they can take the coordination burden off your shoulders and make sure every HR process in your multi-generational program runs smoothly.

Get Rid of Age-Discriminatory Language

Let’s not sugarcoat it. Age discrimination (aka ageism) still remains an unpleasant issue in the modern workplace. It towers as one of the biggest diversity challenges for the younger workforce: Gen Z and Millennials. One study found that 93% of young employees experienced negative treatment at work because of their age.

However, it likewise concerns the older workforce: 60% of those aged 50+ report witnessing or experiencing ageism in the workplace.

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Words matter (and may even be sharper than knives). That’s why co-workers should avoid age-discriminatory statements like these in cross-generational teams:

• You are too “green” to handle that client.
• You are like a work mom/dad to us.
• You need to toughen up—this isn’t college, kid!
• You wouldn’t understand—it’s a Gen Z thing.

Instead, spotlight skills and individual strengths rather than age. Also, watch out for mockery or offensive jokes about “Zoomers and their short attention spans” or “Boomers and their distaste of TikTok.”

Pick Age-Inclusive Team-Building Activities (Both Psychologically and Physically)

Psychological Inclusion

Whenever planning any team-bonding activity, remember that both 20-somethings and 50-somethings should feel psychologically safe and included.

For example:

A Gen Z worker might feel uncomfortable and excluded amid a heavily retro pop-culture quiz, say, about music or cinematography: “What’s the name of this 70s movie?”

Or—

Suppose you manage a multi-generational remote team. Your Gen X employee might fall out of their comfort zone when you organize a ChatGPT meme-generation contest or suggest hanging out in the Metaverse with your VR glasses on, but without explaining a word about those technologies.

In this context, you should prioritize psychological inclusion in virtual team-building activities like these or others.

Physical Inclusion

Here, you should also take into account different physical abilities. Why? Because fun for some can be “ouch” for others, and may absolutely undermine your multi-generational team building.

Let’s agree that risky, adrenaline-boosting sports adventures (say, bungee jumping or scuba diving) would be totally inappropriate for Gen X-ers and Boomers, or even lead to personal injury incidents. Particularly, when they have cardiovascular diseases or joint problems.

Under these circumstances, you should prioritize physical inclusion. And if your team members are passionate about the sports theme, let it be something gentler (and not so dangerous): a Super Bowl office party or a sports trivia quiz.

For example:

For two weeks, Xledger’s cross-generational team competed in mini-games like table tennis during the Office Olympics.

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The Best Cross-Generational Team-Building Activities That Bridge the Gap

Bias-Busting Circles

As Michael Dimock, President of Pew Research Center, once said, “Generations are a lens through which to understand societal change, rather than a label with which to oversimplify differences between groups.”

So, rather than hanging generational labels, bust common misconceptions with facts, like these.

Zoomers

• Stereotype: Gen Z-ers are lazy and addicted to their gadgets.
• Fact: 46% of Gen Z limit their screen time on purpose. The “anti-hustle” mindset also helps them protect their mental health at work.

Millennials

• Stereotype: Millennials are hardly retainable job-hoppers.
• Fact: In reality, 87% hold career growth as the key priority and stay loyal to organizations that invest in employee upskilling. Also, research shows they aren’t job-hopping more than other generations of employees.

Generation X

• Stereotype: Gen X-ers are harsh cynics who revel in micromanagement.
• Fact: Actually, half of workers (49%) rate Gen X-ers the best managers out of all age groups.

Baby Boomers

• Stereotype: Boomers are rigid technophobes.
• Fact: 82% actively browse at least one social network, and 70% are curious about new devices and technologies.

It’s high time to bias-proof your team against those age-related myths. Don’t let them expand the cross-generational gap even wider.

Conflict Management Workshops

Naturally, workplace conflicts are not uncommon in cross-generational teams. In fact, 72% of employees experienced an intergenerational clash of work ethic (47%), communication preferences (33%), or tech skills (26%).

But even if disagreements do occur in your age-diverse team, teach your workers to handle conflicts in a healthy way. Here’s how. Arrange a conflict resolution workshop where your team members will deal with mock conflicting situations and master all the needed skills as follows:

• Active listening
• Emotional intelligence
• Empathy
• Cross-generational sensitivity
• Negotiation and compromise-seeking
• Problem-solving

For example:

Matrix Systems Pvt Ltd conducted a two-day workshop on conflict management to master the art of resolving workplace disagreements of all kinds and to promote team cohesion and collaboration.

Alternatively, look at this virtual Conflict Smasher Water Cooler to practice conflict-resolution scenarios with Confetti.

CSR-Driven Activities with Unity in Mind

Do you know the next greatest advantage of corporate social responsibility (CSR) after making a difference?

It’s this. It appeals to every employee generation and unites age-diverse team members around a shared value and mission.

It can be driven by one or several major CSR aspects with cross-generational team-building activities for each:

• Ethical → Coding4Integrity hackathon, AI ethics program, leader’s role rotation (for ethical, mindful leadership)
• Environmental → “Plant a Tree” donation, wildlife habitat support (e.g.,  creating birdhouses or feeders), “Save the Planet” sustainability challenge (e.g., corporate recycling or CO2 emissions reduction)
• Philanthropic → Fundraiser (e.g., a charity run or walk), volunteering day off, charitable game (e.g., Jeoparty for Good)
• Economic → “Local Shops” buying bingo, pop-up fair for local vendors, “Financial Literally For All” training

Pro tip: To drive an even deeper sense of togetherness across employee generations, teams often pick a collective attribute/accessory or wear corporate-branded apparel during such team-building events. Even a small nuance as this can extremely reinforce camaraderie and belonging.

For example:

See how the age-diverse team from Freedom Debt Relief put their red noses on for fellowship and union amid the annual fundraising campaign, Red Nose Day, to end child poverty.

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Don’t have a CSR program yet and don’t know where to begin?

Not to worry. You can create one during the Collective Impact Workshop with Confetti.

Laugh-Togethers

Laughter not only heals people, it bonds them. These are not baseless words—that’s science. Laughing together is social bonding glue that melts icy relationships and seals awkwardness gaps between people. It literally proves this—a bit rewritten—proverb: a laugh a day keeps the cross-generational gap away.

Here’s how you can light up your team’s day with smile-packed activities and grow tighter bonds across different employee generations.

• Funny ice-breaker questions: Imagine waking up as the CEO tomorrow. What’s the first silly rule you’d make?
• Drink and Draw challenges.
• Slang guessing games: Older staffers try to explain the Gen Z slang words, and their younger colleagues guess the Gen X or Boomer slang.
• Laughter yoga sessions.

• Holiday-driven giggles: e.g., the “Funniest Costume” contest on Halloween or the Ugly Sweater Making Party on Christmas.

Explore other hilarious team-building activities at Confetti and keep laughing and bonding!

Build a Successful Multi-Generational Team with Confetti

There you have it—your ultimate guide to bridging the cross-generational divide, even with huge age diversity and dissimilarities between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers.

Don’t wait for team harmony to switch on by default (or by accident). It won’t. Choose your next team-bonding event at Confetti. Whether it’s a corporate training workshop or a funny game, tie up closer employee connections—one light-bulb moment or one giggle at a time!