The success of any organization is contingent upon the effective methods leaders use to support and engage multicultural and multigenerational employees. Supporting employees and maintaining an engaging working environment is critical to the success and longevity of an organization. Leaders play a critical part in ensuring that diverse employees are successful at work. Focusing on principles that aid leaders and management in supporting employees may lead to positively affecting employee performance. Organizational leaders not providing support to their employees may experience increased absenteeism and high turnover. The purpose of this chapter is to aid management and organizational leaders in gaining a better understanding of why using supportive tactics and effective communication strategies may positively influence the working environment and assist multicultural and multigenerational employees to be resilient and successful on the job.
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Organizations are comprised of various multicultural and multigenerational employees who all possess different skills and experiences. For example, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials currently make up an essential part of today's workforce. Resilient workers are the backbone of any organization that relies on leaders to use effective communication and motivational skills to support and sustain an engaging workforce. Supporting multicultural and multigenerational employees is critical to the success and longevity of any organization. In this respect, leaders play a critical part in ensuring that multicultural and multigenerational employees are successful on the job.
Understanding different concepts related to maintaining and supporting multicultural and multigenerational employees is important to the success of an organization. For example, how organizational leaders perceive concern for the employees, the organizational goals, and values, and how leaders can strengthen the workforce and improve performance. Ensuring leaders understand the significance of why providing support to multicultural and multigenerational employees is worthy of attention in that it will enable leaders to deal with unpredictability and manage everyday situations. Social learning theorists argued that respect, trust, and knowledge are crucial elements for leaders when providing support and using effective communication among multicultural and multigenerational employees (Zeb et al., 2023; Bandura, 1977). Social learning theory provides organizational leaders with the knowledge and understanding of how performance and behaviors can change because of social interaction (Muh, S.A., 2022, Bandura, 1977 & Franks, 1974).
According to Mukhalalati et al. (2022), social learning theory is an effective framework that enables leaders to provide support to improve performance to multicultural and multigenerational employees. Social learning theory provides a framework that promotes changes in society. Zeb et al., (2023) and Bandura (1977), proposed that social learning theory enables leaders to support resilient multicultural and multigenerational employees based on the employee’s belief in their ability to perform the task. Additionally, employees learn by observing and imitating what others do (Mukhalalati et al. 2022; Bandura, 1977). Hence, with the correlation between social learning theory and the sustenance of resilient multicultural and multigenerational employees, it is acknowledged that the success of an organization depends on the extent of assistance provided to employees in accomplishing a task. (Muh, S.A., 2022; Bandura, 1977). Employees who can effectively perform on the job are a major asset to any organization, because when an employee's performance improves production increases (Rankin, 2019).
Effective employee performance contributes to organizational efficiency, which is evaluated by leaders using various methods. Organizations cannot flourish unless their workers are resilient and highly productive. Organizational success may suffer when multicultural and multigenerational employees perform below expectations, due to a lack of support, effective communication, motivation, and ineffective training. Providing support aids employees in utilizing their skills. When multicultural and multigenerational employees are part of a supportive working environment it may lead to increasing their level of understanding, self-efficacy, and motivation to remain with the organization (Rankin, 2019).