At LifeCourse Associates, we offer employers tested strategies for harnessing the strengths of each generation in the workplace—from rekindling the enthusiasm of Boomers on the verge of retirement to diffusing tension between Boomers and Gen Xers to recruiting, retaining, and energizing the incoming generation of Millennials. We believe that every generation has a special set of strengths, which consummate managers should recognize and harness.

We provide consulting, keynotes, and workshops to a wide variety of employers and human resources organizations. We also provide deep insight into an organization's generational dynamic through our new innovative diagnostic tool, the Generational Workforce Audit. Our insights have been tapped by some of the top HR divisions in the nation, including global consulting firms like Mercer and Accenture, professional groups like the American Staffing Association and the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, and periodicals like Human Resource Executive and Government Technology. We have also served nonprofits like the Young Presidents’ Organization and the Brooking Center for Executive Education, large manufacturers like Raytheon and General Dynamics, and government agencies like the USDA Forest Service and Los Alamos Laboratories.

As with our other practice areas, our publications complement and reinforce our consulting work. In Millennials in the Workplace we explain in depth who the Millennials really are, what they are looking for in their careers, and how employers, educators, and policy makers can maximize their workforce potential. In 2007, we wrote a report on “Helicopter Parents in the Workplace” for New Paradigm Learning Corporation. The U.S. Department of Labor used our generational perspective as the framework of its report on the 2002 National Summit on Retirement Savings. LifeCourse founding partners Neil Howe and William Strauss delivered the keynote at that summit in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Businesses and human resources associations first began asking us to help them understand generations in the workplace in the mid-1990s, when we focused largely on the distrustful and often unproductive relationships between Boomer managers and young Gen-X employees. We explained why Boomers always talk about “careers,” Xers about “jobs.” Why Boomers favor depth, Xers breadth. Why Boomers see work as a values statement (how I live my life), Xers as a transaction (how I get a life).

In the early 2000s, LifeCourse began to receive inquiries about the new post-X generation of Millennials, who were just beginning to enter the workplace. Employers were utterly mystified by this new generation’s sense of specialness, teamwork, closeness to parents, and need for structure. Most managers see Millennials as a liability or a challenge—but our solutions reveal how this youth workforce can be transformed into an asset and an opportunity. We have helped dozens of major corporations, nonprofits, and public agencies unleash the potential of Millennials, both by shaping recruitment messages to attract them and by shaping employment incentives to retain and motivate them.