How to Work and Communicate with Gen X

Haries Efrika is the Lead Engineering Manager at Quipper Indonesia. He is currently handling the Web App team at the Global Product Development division. His 17 years of professional experience brought him to meet different generations of colleagues, including Gen X. We had an opportunity to talk with him about three aspects of communicating in working, which are delegating tasks, giving feedback, and giving appreciation to employees, especially to those who are born in 1965-1980. Let’s hear more about his experience working with them.

Delegating Tasks

Generally, it is wonderful to have colleagues from Gen X. They are easy-going, adaptive, and hard workers. Delegating tasks to Gen X is usually straightforward. The first thing we have to remember is to always use the word “please”.

"Could you please help review the pull request from X?"

Other than “please”, we can also use question marks followed up by positive encouragement.

"Is it possible to have this module completed by next Friday? Would be great if you could."

Last but not the least, Gen X is very fond of work-life balance culture. Sometimes, overtime and working outside of schedule are unavoidable in the line of work. To do this, it is important to communicate as early as possible before working together with them if there might be such possible scenarios happening in the future. When the time comes, don't forget to apologize and mention the impact on the company/users.

"I do apologize, but is it possible to have a bug patch released by tonight? Otherwise, the students will not be able to do the examination by tomorrow morning."

Giving Feedback

Giving feedback is much easier if we befriend our Gen X colleagues. They are people who appreciate a lot in friendship. People don't actually take in feedback equally. Imagine our friend telling us, "Actually you look better using a long sleeve shirt during the presentation". We might answer "Oh really? Thank you, I will consider it next time”, compared with strangers telling us the same issue. Aside from that, effective feedback according to Leader Lab (Tania Luna/ LeeAnn R.) is given in the form of Q-BIQ.

Question: Start by asking questions to check if the other person is ready to hear feedback. "Hey bro, I wonder if this is the right moment to discuss about your response time?"

Behavior: Describe the behavior that is helpful or harmful, and be specific.

"Based on the data I have, your average response time is 30 minutes. But our team KPI is actually 10 minutes.”

Impact: Explain the impact of that behavior. It could impact the company target or the risk the person may face if no improvement happens.

Question: Finally, wrap up with questions like what are their thoughts on this matter, and what should be the next steps to improve.

Final note, to always focus on improvement, and not on the subject.

Giving Appreciation

Despite any generation, positive tone feedback like "thank you” and “great job" works wonderfully and needs to be exercised often on any occasion. However, specifically Gen X, they are well known for being autonomous people. They like to work with less supervision. Giving them a chance to determine and decide the best way to do their work, having less or no micromanagement at all, is one of the best appreciation we can give them. They are also big learners. With TQIF, Quipper actually appreciates and allows the employees to spend much time in self-development. Thank you, Quipper!