Search results
Maximizing Multigenerational Teams
Whether you are a Boomer, Gen X, Millennial or Gen Z, discover the unique advantages of working on a multigenerational team in the UN context and learn how to turn challenges into opportunities. This experiential course equips you with practical skills to bridge generational differences in your team to foster collaboration and support team members effectively.
Understanding the generational landscape of today’s workforce - including values, perspectives, preferences, work and communication styles - is crucial for effective leadership.
Today’s leaders manage teams with up to four generations (e.g. Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X and Boomers) working together. This presents leadership and cultural challenges, particularly in ensuring engagement, inclusion, and leveraging the diverse strengths of staff of all generations. However, it also offers significant opportunities. Research shows that when organizations embrace multigenerational diversity, they often see increased engagement, greater innovation, enhanced well-being, greater results, and enhanced problem-solving capabilities.
Maximizing Multigenerational Teams (MMT) programme aims to enhance participants' self and team awareness, and develop skills for cross-generational collaborative leadership. Building on the UN System Leadership and Competency Frameworks, the course will equip leaders with the skills to leverage the strengths of each individual in age-diverse teams to stimulate innovation, solve problems, and boost collaboration.
As more generations work side by side, leaders must navigate these differences to foster collaboration, innovation, inclusion and productivity.
By the end of the course, the participants will be able to:
- Understand how generational differences shape values, perspectives, expectations, technical skills and work methods
- Identify how generational differences can lead to bias, stereotypes, cliques, misunderstandings and conflict, and apply strategies to address and resolve them
- Empower teams to communicate more effectively across generations to foster better work relationships and ensure all voices are included
- Maximize teams' use of technological tools and work methods (including digital tools, hybrid/face-to-face situations, and the use of AI) to enhance collaboration and inclusion across age groups
- Promote collaboration and delivery of results in multigenerational teams
The course applies proven learning and behaviour-change frameworks, emphasizing hands-on experience, collaboration strategies and building confidence to challenge the status quo.
In this learning journey, you will:
- Participate in five live two-hour webinars designed to facilitate deep engagement and learning with multiple facilitators and resource persons utilizing small breakout groups for meaningful discussions based on real experiences and solutions
- Develop skills to leverage the benefits of multigenerational teams, both as a leader/manager and a team member
- Practice modelling leadership through role plays, experiential exercises and peer coaching
- Access expert-recommended readings and curated resources
- Apply your learning to real team contexts through weekly assignments
- Engage in an online forum with a network of peers and practitioners
Week 1: Demystifying Multigenerational Diversity - Tuesday, 11 November 2025, 2-4 pm CET*
- Exploring how events, environments and socialization shape each generation's values, behaviour, work ethics, work processes and career/work-life expectations
- Examining how age differences lead to bias, stereotypes, ageism, microaggressions and cliques in the workplace
- Raising awareness of one’s personal biases, and potential biases of team members, and strategies for managing them
- Applying this knowledge to benefit your multigenerational teams
Week 2: Exploring Multigenerational Workplace & Career Values and Expectations - Tuesday, 18 November 2025, 2-4 pm CET*
- Examining different preferences, expectations during , and biases in career path (including advancement, recruitment, job security, and experiences inside and outside the UN)
- Analysing divergent preferences of work-life balance, relations and boundaries, expected benefits, values of career path vs salary vs job satisfaction
- Actioning strategies to bridge different values, career aspirations and workplace expectations
- Identifying skills for inclusive leadership in multigenerational teams and how to apply them
Week 3: Enabling Multigenerational Communication - Tuesday, 25 November 2025, 2-4 pm CET*
- Examining the tone and dynamics of multigenerational communication
- Learning how to create a safe space for open dialogue, ensuring everyone has a voice across generations
- Developing skills for effective one-on-one communication between people of generations
- Mastering the art of speaking up with constructive assertiveness, including addressing and challenging microaggressions
- Gaining tips for enhancing the human factor and leveraging emotional intelligence in communication
Week 4: Maximizing Tools & Work Processes for Multigenerational Teams
(Digital Tools, Collaborative Platforms, AI) - Tuesday, 2 December 2025, 2-4 pm CET*
- Exploring communication methods and tools used by different generations and their potential impact on collaboration and inclusion (e.g. text/face-to-face, phone, collaborative workspaces and AI)
- Examining working styles and preferences in different workplace environments - in-person, hybrid and virtual
- Identifying strategies and mechanisms to bridge generational differences in tools and work practices to include all team members
Week 5: Resolving Multigenerational Conflict & Maximizing Collaboration & Results - Tuesday, 9 December 2025, 2-4 pm CET*
- Developing and practicing conflict resolution skills
- Exploring skills in coaching and cross-generational mentoring
- Building peer networks to understand and maximize collaboration
- Harnessing leadership strategies for generationally diverse teams
The programme is delivered through UNSSC's e-learning platform. After completing the certification programme, participants will gain access to an exclusive alumni network for continuous learning around key leadership and management-related topics.
* Some modifications to the programme and time schedule are possible. Find your local time zone: click here.
UN personnel at all levels and ages, including with supervisory, management and leadership functions, at headquarters, regional offices and country offices
The programme fee of $1,250 includes:
- The five-week live virtual course, combined with an online learning path with engaging content
- Five webinars will be comprised of:
- live virtual sessions with leading experts/leaders
- interactions between peer participants and instructors
- individual and group activities and post-webinar assignments
- takeaways and commitments for action
- Unlimited access to the dedicated online learning platform with a curated resource repository (recording of webinars, activities, readings, tools, videos related to the content of the programme, etc.)
- Moderated discussion forum for participant exchange and learning reflections
- Certificates from the United Nations System Staff College will be awarded to participants who complete course requirements, which include virtual presence during webinars and completion of all pre- and post- work associated with each module.
