Commenting on motivation, the late, great American humorist and author Mark Twain once said: “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” While Twain’s motivation for writing was simple and direct, there is a ring of credence in relation to what motivates people to seek out opportunities for training and advancement.

The Impacts of Age

In a 2011 study conducted at Portland State University and the University of Trento (Italy), researchers found evidence that age was a moderator in the relationship of a proactive motivation for career development and training intentions. With many organizational training programs being offered, employees have greater opportunities for learning and development. These opportunities, however, increase individual responsibility for getting the training that will enhance his or her career.
 

An individual who has a propensity for being proactive will take actions such as seeking out training opportunities to influence his or her environments with salary, promotions and career satisfaction as their prime motivators.

Career Objectives

Thinking back to my younger days, I concur with the factors of salary, promotion and career satisfaction as the proactive motivation influencing my career objectives. However, this may not be as true today as it was 20 years ago. The motivational aspect for me now versus 20 years ago differs due to changes across my life span in terms of certain individual needs, rewards and career situations.

This is because, in general, younger individuals are more focused on their career growth orientations, while older individuals are more focused on career maintenance. In other words, a younger worker’s training motivations are more focused on optimizing performance, while an older worker’s is more or less a factor of minimizing losses.

Generational Differences
In terms of proactive motivation for training, this does not mean that older workers are less proactive than younger workers. Rather, proactive motivation is manifested differently. For example, in the many classes and training seminars that I have conducted, I can attest to distinct generational differences in the motivation of those who attend the class.

As an obligatory component of each class or seminar that I conduct, I will always start the session off with the opportunity for each person to introduce themselves and, through a series of questions, provide some insight as to what motivated them to be there. Younger attendees will always refer to their desire for moving up the corporate ladder or making themselves more marketable (growth), while older attendees will, somewhere in the exchange, make mention of how many years they have been with their organization and how many years they have left before retirement (maintenance).

For organizations, this dichotomy in proactive motivation between younger and older workers does not necessarily translate into a conundrum of which type of training strategy the organization should choose. Choose a career growth strategy to suffice opportunistic younger workers who may take what they have learned and move on to another company, or a career maintenance strategy to placate the older more loyal workers who are there to ride out the last few years before retirement?

This cycle of organizational learning is in many ways symbiotic to the cycle of life where the elders pass along what they have learned to the next generation. I cannot think of a better way to motivate younger and older workers than to allow the synergies of regenerative learning to be a part of an organization’s training and development strategy.

Opportunities for continuing the learning life cycle of an organization are within the organization itself. Over time, as workers transition in their careers from motivations of career advancement to motivations of career maintenance, regenerating the life cycle of learning from one generation to the next is the sustenance that keeps organizations vibrant and productive.