One of the major factors behind the push for knowledge sharing in companies is the large group of older workers in the baby boom generation who will soon be retiring and taking their tacit knowledge with them. Companies want these older workers to mentor and interact with younger workers so they don’t lose that knowledge. However, a recent annual World of Work survey reveals that the four generations that currently appear in the U.S. workforce actually interact very little.71 Much of the reason has to do with faulty perceptions. Eric Buntin, managing director of marketing and operations for Atlanta–
based Randstad USA, finds that “Stereotyping is real. If Gen X’ers think their baby boomer colleagues are less flexible—even if they’re not—they believe it.”72 Xerox and other companies are banking on knowledge sharing practices, such as communities of practice, to help bridge this gap between generations. Such knowledge sharing becomes even more important as the type of work life that Xerox employees can expect to see evolves. Xerox has hired ethnographers to follow workers as they go about their daily work lives. Although not complete, this research likely will show that Xerox workers live in a strongly project-based environment in which they interact and have relationships with their coworkers for short periods of time and then must move on to the next project.73 This environment clearly makes natural mentoring relationships between employees extremely difficult, and it doesn’t help with traditional forms of knowledge sharing. However, Xerox has launched a mentoring program, run by an employee caucus group known as The Women’s Alliance, that has developed an online mentor–mentee matching program to help women find more experienced, effective mentors.74 Anne Mulcahey, the outgoing CEO, was one of the founders of the group.

Questions:-

8.1 Are communities of practice, which tend to be technology-based, likely to bridge the generation gap and allow knowledge sharing between the generations of employees at Xerox? Explain.
8.2 Given these generational issues and the type of work life that Xerox employees tend to have, can you think of another possible way to encourage knowledge sharing within the organization?
8.3 How might Xerox attempt to break down the perceptions and stereotypes that exist between generations in order to help the knowledge sharing process?