Leveraging Age Diversity for Innovation

Abstract

Age-related factors can have important implications for individual performance as well as team functioning. While the graying of the workforce has attracted the attention of some business leaders, few employers have identified ways to leverage age-diverse work groups and work so that age diversity becomes an asset and resource. In this manuscript, we discuss the Executive Innovation Lab, a guided learning experience designed to harness the power of age diversity. Working with business leaders and their age-diverse innovation teams, we found that the organizations’ successful experiences with the lab supported team members’ positive attitudes toward age diversity at the workplace.

Keywords:

• age diversity
• multi-generational workforce
• innovation
• workplace practice