Grey eminence: Senior professionals play a big role in shaping post-pandemic workplaces

At a macro level, it is estimated that a 10% increase in trust is associated with a 1.3% to 1.5% rise in economic productivity. At a firm level, employees who feel more connected with their colleagues are 1.5x more engaged with their workplace.

Social capital—the building block of workplace culture

But what does culture really mean in a firm context? It’s not only about workers interacting with each other or with external partners and clients, but also the nature of these interactions and the terms and principles by which these interactions take place.

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Younger workers often follow cues from experienced colleagues, whose influence shapes firm culture and behaviour. While individuals might have varying styles of working, influence is rarely distributed equally; some workers shape the behaviour and attitudes of others more profoundly.

This interaction is where social capital comes into play—the notion that positive value can be derived from connections between individuals or groups. Social capital manifests in different ways, especially in trust-building acts, such as delegating client relationships to subordinates, publicly acknowledging colleagues’ hard work and efforts, or extending payment terms for old clients.

Knowledge is worth its weight in silver

The silver generation is typically a holder of social capital, and can implicitly shape the future of firms and careers of younger workers, but they must be leveraged to be effective.

For example, experienced workers in a services industry like law or accounting have a large client roster. A retiring employee could pass a relationship on to a subordinate and help retain the firm’s social capital; but the decision to do this also requires subordinates to prove themselves through quantitative and formal evaluation methods, and also qualitative character and behaviour assessments. Such acts of recognition and trust have a positive impact on worker loyalty and retention. A study shows that 55% are less likely to look for external job opportunities and 68% are less likely to feel burnt out on the job when they are properly credited by their superiors.

Also Read: Social capital can help close a wide MSME gap

In essence, younger workers will be required to build social capital with experienced employees to progress, but in the right enabling environment, younger workers would also be incentivised to invest in the firm. For example, BNP Paribas piloted such an initiative in its Italian offices through an internal cross-generational coaching programme. It created a Learning Expert community with several senior employees aged 45 and above to deliver courses and training modules to younger staff, which resulted in better retention and also an expansion of the learning expert community.

Counterintuitively, reverse mentorship programmes also provide an opportunity to increase social capital in a firm, as younger workers feel empowered to guide and train their superiors, and superiors can unlearn traditional ways of working as times change. This initiative can only work with buy-in on both ends, but when it is implemented, like at Procter & Gamble and Nestlé, it can have significant impacts on productivity, retention and in turn, profitability.

At Nestlé’s China offices, a reverse mentoring programme was designed to provide senior leadership with insights on strategies to attract and retain younger generations, digital marketing techniques appealing to younger demographics, the role of AI in business operations and how to become influencers in professional networks.

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However, there are inherent dangers to solely relying on social capital and intuition to build workplace culture and career trajectories for employees. A study by McKinsey shows that social capital tends to be highest among older male workers, and least prevalent amongst women, especially those returning from maternity leave. The proliferation of old boys’ clubs or exclusive groups can hamper firm culture and homogenise workforces. This is also why it’s important for experienced workers to leverage their social capital to signal key firm values for the rest of the company’s workforce.

These instances show that firms are actively thinking about these issues and how to bridge gaps between younger and experienced workers.

At the core of these initiatives is a desire to build trust and empowerment within a firm, in order to ensure its ethos and culture is taken forward.

The silver generation can play an important role in demonstrating trust in younger colleagues and thus shape career prospects.

Building avenues to enhance social capital can better engage workers and improve firm performance.

The author is a Senior Policy Advisor at WisdomCircle. He tweets @VibhavMariwala