Australian Maritime Issues 2007 - Royal Australian Navy

How Should Navies Adapt to the Changing
Expectations of Generations X and Y?
Lieutenant Commander Sue Harling
Royal Australian Navy
2007 Winner Officers’ Section
Generational differences pose a greater management challenge than the obvious
differences of race and sex. 1
As the first decade of the new millennium nears its end, two new generations of workers,
with their own set of attitudes and values, are making their mark in the workplace:
Generations X and Y. These two generations are now working side by side with the
preceding generation, the Baby Boomers, adding to the diversity of personnel who serve
in today’s navies. Naval life is demanding, not only physically and mentally, but also
in terms of the organisations’ expectations that members will adhere to the unique
set of acts, policies, values, beliefs and traditions that govern navies. How then should
navies adapt to the expectations of the new generations; indeed, should they adapt at
all? These are questions that need to be answered if only because Generations X and
Y are the future workforce of navies.
The literature on generational differences in the last decade indicates that the
differences between the generations should be accounted for; that failure to do so
could result in a loss of productivity, corporate citizenship, and innovation, as well as
the inevitable breakdown in communication between the generations at work. 2 Quite
apart from these challenges that might be common to many workplaces, navies have
their own: those of attraction, recruitment and retention – the challenge of positioning
a naval career as a career of choice. 3 If the age-diversity of the navy workforce is indeed
such an important issue, a suitable framework with which to examine the subject, and
find answers to it, should be found.
The purpose of this paper is to offer an approach that navies could use to adapt to
the changing expectations of Generations X and Y. The first section will examine the
nature of naval service and the expectations of the organisation. The examination will
be limited to service within the Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy, Canadian Navy and
the Royal New Zealand Navy, because these navies are volunteer forces that, arguably,
share a similar cultural heritage. As such, for the purpose of this paper, the term ‘the
navy’ will be used as a collective term that refers to all four navies. The second section
will examine the generational literature to gain necessary insight into the nature of
Generations X and Y, including their relative values regarding life and work. The third
section will draw together the findings from the first two sections and will provide an