Jenn Black: As Gen Xers, we've continued to grow, seen and realized how important our personal life is. It's not just about working anymore. We wanna find that work life balance. Welcome to GenShift where generations explore life, work, and leadership. This is a part of our series HR through the eyes of Gen X. There's one episode for each generation.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Our last episode was HR through Boomer eyes, and today we're centering on my Generation X. Gen X entered the workforce during corporate downsizing, restructuring, and growing skepticism toward institutions. Many were shaped by severe independence, realism, and a cautious relationship with big promises.

That timing shaped how Gen X approaches HR. Remember this conversation is about understanding how Gen X practices HR not defending the function. As you listen, notice what feels pretty pragmatic about this generation and what might feel different from your own actual experience. I'm super excited to host Jen Black today on the podcast.

Jen is a true get her done Gen Xer, and I know she's going to bring us. So much insight into how her generational paradigm impacts how she views her role. Jen, thanks for being here. Just take a moment and fill us in on the experience that you're bringing into the conversation today.

Jenn Black: I'm proud to be a Gen Xer. You and I have had many conversations about our generation and I feel like we bring a lot of different perspectives that I'm really excited to talk about. And even within my own career, I've been in HR a little over seven years now, but prior to that I also was in supply chain for almost 20 years.

So I am able to bring that business sense of being in the field into the HR aspect. As I continue to grow my HR career, and I absolutely love it. I think it helps me bring a different viewpoint to the business and helps me build trust within the team members that I do support and the leaders I get to work with every day.

I switched careers midpoint and it was a little scary. But I will tell you what was the best decision I could have made for myself and just even for my family. I'm a mom to two kids and a wife, and hearing them tell me how much they've seen me grow. I come home differently.

I'm more myself. I get to be more myself in this, in the HR role, and so hearing my family get to tell me, that just validates to me that as scary as the shift was. After 20 years, it was the right shift for me. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Excellent. So it was a big career move for you in one kind filled with a little bit of fear as you said.

What would you say is the best thing about that transition? 

Jenn Black: I think just being okay with asking questions and not knowing. I always would say let me just come at you from the employee aspect of it. 'cause I was there and I still am. Any company I work for, I'm still that employee. I don't always wanna have an HR lens.

I sometimes wanna have that employee lens so that other HR leaders can understand that what it's like to be the employee. Just having a company that supports you in that change and taking that risk with you says a lot. So it really does, and it means a lot. It 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: believed in you.

Jenn Black: Yes. Then I believed in myself, but it's always like I do have imposter syndrome, so that's always for me, I think a lot of people have it more than what we talk about, to be honest. I think you're right. People they're like, how do you do it? I'm like, honestly, I don't know.

But having such a strong support system helps too, not just my family, but also having mentors within the company. Outside the company. Friends just surround yourself with your cheerleaders, 'cause you never know when you're gonna need them. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Excellent. Okay, so we're going to do a lightning round. Are you ready? 

Jenn Black: Okay. Oh gosh. Yep. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: One word for what it's like to work in HR right now. 

Jenn Black: Stressful. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: You went into HR because? 

Jenn Black: To help people. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: The hardest part of being in HR is? 

Jenn Black: We are looked as the bad guy. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: HR does its best work when? 

Jenn Black: We collaborate. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: HR loses credibility when? 

Jenn Black: We don't communicate.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: The misconception about HR that frustrates you the most is?

Jenn Black: That we're all about terminations like they don't look and see all the good that we try to do either. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. What drains you faster? Drama or ambiguity? 

Jenn Black: Drama. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: What's more dangerous? Silence or oversharing. 

Jenn Black: Silence. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Which is harder. Enforcing policy or explaining it. 

Jenn Black: Ooh. I think enforcing. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: And then one thing that leaders misunderstand about HR professionals from your generation?

Jenn Black: I honestly think it's we deserve a seat at the table. Because Gen X is called the bridging generation. We've grown up being that bridge between so many generations that we have a lot of points of view and we can really bring strategy to the table and bring maybe a different point of view than they have.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So are you referring to the Boomer generation? Like they're still in a lot of the seats. Yeah. And Gen X needs more room at the table. 

Jenn Black: Absolutely. Yep, for sure. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So imagine how the Millennials and Gen Zs feel. 

Jenn Black: No, man. I do feel sorry for them because I still feel like the Gen Xers are trying to fight our way in there still.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: All right, so now you know, you can expand on your answer some. What did you learn about work early in your career that still shapes how you practice HR?

Jenn Black: Everybody is going through something.

Whether you can see it or not. Every person is going through some sort of possibly difficult time in their personal life or maybe at work, and they're just, not talking about it. So really with that, you treat everyone as an individual. And I remind myself that, if someone is short with me or, doesn't wanna open up with me, try not to take it personally, right? They more than likely have something that's going on.

You have to treat everyone as an individual and come to the conversation with good intent.

And I believe everybody else is coming to the conversation with good intent. More times than not, people don't wanna take out their rudeness or their frustrations, unwillingness, to work with you because of you.

It's likely due to an experience they had with maybe HR in the past. They're just going through a stressful time and this is just adding more stress to them. So I lead with kindness. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: I like that. I bet people really appreciate that about you.

Jenn Black: I think they do. HR is not an easy field to be in. I always feel like I need to explain if I'm like, do you have a second to chat with me? 'Cause anytime HR pings you and says, do you have time to chat with me?

Like right away a negative is, oh gosh, what did I do wrong? What policy did I violate? Did I screw up my time card? What's happening? And really, sometimes I just set up meetings just to be like, Hey, I just want to talk to you. I don't want them to feel on edge.

I don't ever wanna add that to somebody's life. And so I do try to be like, Hey, how's it going? Just wanted to chat, say hi, see how you know what's going on. Try to remember, if they just went on vacation, their family, things like that. Just because they are people too. And we're all people. I wanna get to know the employees I support on a personal level. 'cause that will also help me right know if they're going through something or not at the time I have to talk to them.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Absolutely. I love that. Can you talk a little bit about if layoffs, restructuring, or instability, when we were growing up, did that influence how you view institutions?

Jenn Black: I grew up where my parents were both teachers. I didn't grow up in understanding like an in-depth idea of what other institutions other than a school district does. But yeah, I do think it did in a way because there were layoffs. My parents did have a couple layoffs or, they were laid off and then at the last minute, a referendum would go through or something would change, or my mom wasn't a teacher right away. She worked other jobs and things like that before she went to become a teacher. And yeah, I think it did. But at the same time, I don't have a yes or no answer because I also feel like our generation still stayed with the same institution for a long period of time.

Like when I got hired on by the first company I worked with, I thought I'd be with them my entire career. I was there almost eight years, and I've been at five different companies. So I think when I got into the workforce, yes, but as my career has gone on, I now see that you're not gonna likely be with one company your entire career. Yeah.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: I think the increase of just even changing professions, right? I think Gen X did that a lot more than Boomers, and then I think Millennials might have even, I don't know the exact stats on that, but, it's not strange to change your direction once you've already entered it.

Jenn Black: I went to school for social work. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. 

Jenn Black: I did that for a little bit then I did get burnt out quite fast. Then into supply chain, like I never would've thought in a million years. I just remember looking through the newspaper at job openings, and I was like, oh, this sounds interesting.

Yeah. And then I changed it again. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: I was gonna ask you, with both your parents being teachers, it's interesting, you doing what you're doing. Although HR, I would say is much more of a people profession, in that sense. 

Jenn Black: It's, and it tapped into like why I went into social work.

And I was a school social worker, which is funny too, because really that's all I knew was working in education. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. 

Jenn Black: I'm so glad I had my time in supply chain because it did show me that I do enjoy being in the business, and then my social work background, I get to be people centered, I get to help them improve help them succeed.

So I get to use some of what I learned in HR as well from a people perspective, which I do appreciate. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Tell us about a moment when your Gen X independence actually made things harder for you.

Jenn Black: Wow. That's a good question.

Because here's the thing, I like to work independent. I think I strive the best when I am given the trust and ambiguity to do what I know I need to do. And so when I have to stop and ask and not do something. I think my impatience comes into play there. I'm gonna be honest, I don't ever recall being in a situation that got me not necessarily in trouble, but made things harder. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. Is there a time when you're working with maybe a Millennial who's part of the collaboration generation or Gen Z who might want you to come alongside of them, where they've been like, geez, what's going on?

Jenn Black: Yeah, it has. In projects that can be hard, especially if I'm not leading the project or being a co-lead I can just tend to run with it because I know what needs to get done. I'm also an executor. So I get really excited to show the finished product that it can get me in trouble or seem like I'm not a partner.

It when really that wasn't what I wanted to do. I just thought I was helping them more or less. They've had to come back to me and say, Jen, that wasn't part of the project plan or anything like that. Yeah, 'cause I thought, I was helping, I think I see this in more of a personal situation of just trying to help.

A friend out when they were struggling and I thought I knew what was best for them, but in the end I didn't. And that's really hard to swallow, with that type of relationship. Because the last thing I wanted to do was, make them feel even worse than they already felt.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yep. 

Sometimes we learn the most from those kinds of situations, even though they're hard. 

Jenn Black: Absolutely.

So just talking to my coworkers, trying to explain to them, people aren't gonna always fall into exactly what their generation is, but I honestly believe that the more you get to understand each generation, what they've gone through you will see that who they are, how they operate is due to their generation.

Just like we opened an India office, right? And you need to get to know what that culture is. It's no different than needing to understand a generation that someone is in or, working with a team in Spain or even Canada. You need to know their culture and a generation is like a culture. Just like any regional culture is as well.

And so I always try to explain that to people when I'm talking to them about different generations and why it's important to understand that is think of it as a culture, a different region of the world. We all work differently. There are similarities, but you just need to study it and you need to ask questions if you don't know.

 Dr. Katherine Jeffery: That's my favorite analogy. They are different cultures. They might have even grown up in the same house that you did, but the world as they experienced it is so different. Well,

Jenn Black: Yes, so different and even if you're at one end of the generation, on the one end when it starts and at the end still, it can be different for that too, right? Because they could fall into the next generation that they're close to. So you just, you gotta learn the culture, you gotta ask the questions and respect it.

Nothing's wrong with it, it's just how and when they grew up. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: It's not about good or bad, or right or wrong, it's just different. It's a different paradigm. And if we don't take time to try to understand that, then we're gonna keep missing each other all along the way. 

Jenn Black: Honestly, I always say my intent of asking you this question is because I wanna get to know and how do I work with you better? How do you prefer to be communicated with things like that? Just make it known that you're trying to learn so that you can work better together.

Or in your personal life, live, more cohesively together. So yeah. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: I think in today's world, understanding and being able to communicate across the generational divide is a huge leadership differentiator. 

Jenn Black: Absolutely. In my own personal experience, leaders who can do that, they have such high engagement with their team members and it's engagement, it's trust, they want to work harder. They just enjoy coming to work more when they have leaders like that. Absolutely. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Agreed.

So as a Gen Xer where do HRs values and then the actual realities of the business clash most clearly for you?

Jenn Black: That's a great question.

Gosh, that's a hard question. I think maybe within loyalty. Because, as a Gen Xer being independent, looking out for ourselves, if companies still want us to be loyal to them, but sometimes we can't be loyal, right? If there's job eliminations, if there's a personal situation, like I think loyalty is difficult because as Gen Xers, as we've continued to even grow, we've seen and realized how important our personal life is.

It's not just about working anymore. We wanna find that work life balance and, yeah, I think it's probably loyalty. Everyone's replaceable.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. We've learned that. 

Jenn Black: Yeah. And that's really hard to say as an HR person. You wanna do the best for the company, but also you want to help the team members or employees, do what's best for them. And so sometimes it honestly is a struggle to you feel stuck. Cause again, like I got into HR because I wanted to help people succeed and improve their profession, personal life.  And sometimes, it's hard to have that discussion with someone or if the skills of an employee just aren't the skills that are needed in the direction the company's going.

That's hard too, to have those conversations and just, again, it's that loyalty that I get pulled between.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah, like which side are you on? 

Jenn Black: Yeah. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. 

Jenn Black: Yep. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So that really leads to the next question I wanted to ask you. What emotional labor do you feel like being part of HR? Do you carry that other people might often underestimate?

Jenn Black: I care too much. My own personal values need to match the company's values that I work for. And I really do care and always wanna try to find a balance, like a win-win situation. And it may not always come across that way that I do. Sometimes ' it's emotionally taxing on certain things too, as where I do care a lot.

Sometimes I wish I could just turn that off a little bit and not care so much whether it's about the individual, the team, the company as a whole. There's days where I just leave drained, emotionally drained. And I've said many times, oh, I just gotta care less. Just don't care as much.

And that's not gonna happen. I've already determined that's just who I am. And so I need to find ways to help keep my own mental health. Okay and in a positive way.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: And when you care that much, it's often hard to just leave that at the office.

Jenn Black: It's incredibly hard to leave it at the office. Especially when I'm working at home. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah, exactly. 

Jenn Black: Because I don't have that commute and that is one thing. So I do work hybrid, so I'm in the office two times a week. Before I came to my current company, I worked remotely for nine years and.

I really do enjoy working remotely, but I forgot what it was like to just have that decompressing time during the commute so that like I'm not just walking right out of my office, door at home right into the middle of my personal life. I don't have that time to just do some self-talk and self-help.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah.

Jenn Black: Or turn the radio up really loud and just sing my heart out or just, stop and, walk around a store just to get my mind off things. And so yeah, that's the one thing I will say that I did not realize I missed until I started to have a commute.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: That's a really interesting perspective, right?

Like another reason to maybe not always work remotely and we don't realize how actually, none of us love a long commute, right? 

Jenn Black: Oh no. Yes. No, but but 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: having that time, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. 

Jenn Black: Yeah. Like I think mine is about 30 minutes on a good day. And sometimes I just sit in peer silence because all day I'm on. I'm meeting with people, and so that silence just reenergizes me so that I'm a better mom and wife when I walk in the door versus not having that time. That was really eye-opening for me when I went back to the office. I was like, wow, I didn't think I'd miss a commute, but I actually do sometimes.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. So then how do you integrate that when you're working from home? What does that look like?

Jenn Black: I'm still trying to figure that out. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah, if you figure it out, let me know. 

Generational differences show up everywhere in workplaces, classrooms, and even around the dinner table. Too often they lead to frustration instead of connection. That's why I created the gen shift dialogue deck with thoughtful questions for every generation traditionalist. Boomers, gen X millennials, gen Z and Gen Alpha.

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Explore the GenShift dialogue deck and my services at katherinejeffery.com. Start bridging the gap today.

And then here's a great question I think for our generation how has empathy evolved for you over time?

Jenn Black: That is a great question. I don't know if there's a day that goes by that I don't bring up empathy to a leader. Even how to lead with empathy. I think at the beginning of our careers, it really showed there wasn't much empathy. I just don't honestly really remember it in the workforce.

At least with the earlier leaders I had. But I think as we've had other generations come into the workforce as we've had COVID, we've had different world events that have happened. Having that work-life balance and having that empathy has definitely increased over time. Which I'm very happy that it has because I do think it makes the work place even better for everybody when you lead with empathy.

But then, on the flip side, there are some people then that will use that empathy to their advantage. And I think that's where we're now seeing a little bit of a struggle within the workplace between fully remote, hybrid, going back into the office full time. Because we did get to a certain point of so much empathy and needing to understand, and I think now it might be, did we go too far and do we need to dial it back a little bit? I don't know. I think that's still being questioned. It definitely plays a huge role in the workplace and even just leaderships. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah, I hear you. And yeah, it's such a word that wasn't used all the time when we were young. 

Jenn Black: Exactly. I think the first time I probably heard it was in college during my social work, courses of empathy and I distinctly remember the class where we had to learn the difference between empathy and sympathy as a social worker.

And that was really eye-opening. And also more and more, both parents are working, are in the workforce now, whereas probably when we grew up, I know, my mom wasn't always in the workforce. She was sometime, a stay at home mom and that was more common when we were growing up and now it's just, it's really hard to be a single income family.

One income family can be difficult. So I think empathy in that sense as well, goes into the workplace knowing that both parents are working now. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. And a greater distribution of maybe household responsibilities. Absolutely. 

Jenn Black: Yeah. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah, it's a different paradigm that we're operating out of some of us.

Jenn Black: Definitely. Yeah. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. 

Jenn Black: Yep. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. Where do you feel most misunderstood in HR today?

Jenn Black: Probably having to just stick with policies, having to enforce policies, even though you know someone might be going through a difficult time, you still gotta enforce the policy of say, absences or you don't have enough time away. So whatever the company needs to do, take, pay away, whatever.

Be written up, things like that. It's hard. We don't enjoy those things, but we are hired to enforce policies and to support leaders on enforcing policies. We have to live by them too. Their company policies, I would say, sometimes we're looked at, HR really doesn't care about us as team members. No, we really do. But at the same time, we have to balance with what the company stands for and the policies that are written. Because a lot of times it's, we're legally required to do something. And you can't always be forthcoming with why why did this change?

We. We can't fully explain things sometimes, and that's hard too because, for example, like someone says like, so and they got to do this. They get to work from home, they get to work remote. And it's like, why do they get to, and I don't, I can't explain that to you.

That's confidential information, but we gotta just focus on you. And they don't realize, what those other conversations are, and we can't tell them. But it is hard to enforce things when you know a team member's going through something really difficult or you don't personally believe in it.

It is hard, but at the end of the day, that is what we were hired to do. That is our role too. Especially workforce planning.

Honestly, right now, I think with AI being such a big topic within the workplace of, we have to look long-term, what does the workforce look like with AI coming into companies?

We don't know, right? But that's a really difficult topic to even talk to people about and trying to figure out what is a company's strategy about, the workforce with AI coming in. That's a hard conversation to have. Honestly. It's not all about wanting to reduce cost.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. So it sounds like the feeling of like things are unfair and Yeah, but I can't fix it for you, but there's a story behind the curtain.

Jenn Black: Yes. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: And almost asking employees sometimes to have empathy.

They don't know why they're having empathy. They don't know the full story, but just understand that certain situations are different. 

Jenn Black: Yes. And that is hard. That is very difficult. Because we can't just look at one department or one team. HR needs to be consistent across the entire company, and that's really difficult. But it's something we have to do. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So what would you say employees get wrong about HR? 

Jenn Black: Oh, we're people too. We are employees too.

If something changes, if a policy changes, if benefits change, all that affects us just as much. We're not exempt from any of that happening. And so sometimes I think they think we're just looking out for ourselves and, we're not. We're a team member.

We're a team mate, just like they are. We also have to deal with the changes that come and we also have to be champions of that change and make sure that we're explaining it and getting people on board with it when we're going through a change cycle, just like they are.

Yeah, that's probably the one thing that other people forget about people in HR. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: You might be the bearer. Bad news, but you're living in the bad news too. 

Jenn Black: We just can't show it. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: And then what would you say that maybe executives might get wrong about HR?

Jenn Black: I think we're still working up to we have ideas from a strategy standpoint, like they forget. To bring the human side of strategy, I think, to the table. I think we can still work on that. It's getting better, but I definitely think we have a ways to go. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Like there's humans on the other end of these policies. 

Jenn Black: Yep. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Or these changes or whatever might be. 

Jenn Black: Yep. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: What feels especially Gen X about how you personally practice HR?

Jenn Black: Me personally, I really do think about what generation they are when I'm working with them, especially from a communication standpoint. I do this even in my personal life like even when my grandparents were still alive, they loved handwritten notes, so I would hand write them a letter. I don't know the last time I did that, since they've passed away.

And then I look at do they prefer it handwritten? Do they prefer a phone call? Do they prefer a text message? How much information should I give them? Do they want a face-to-face conversation? So me as a Gen Xer, I really think about what generation they're in and that's how I communicate with them.

And sometimes I communicate with them in multiple manners. I'm not sure. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So like adaptability of Gen 

X adaptability for the flexibility. Yeah. 

Jenn Black: Yes, absolutely. Yep. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: I'll meet you where you're at.

Jenn Black: Yeah, I'll meet you where you're at.

And I think that some of it is also because as a Gen Xer, we know what it's like to work with technology, but we know what it's like not to work with technology. Yeah. And everything in between.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: And we've written many handwritten notes throughout our lives. We just don't do it so much anymore. 

Jenn Black: Exactly.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: We all had pen pals. 

Jenn Black: We did. I was just telling my son about my pen pal the other day. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: That's awesome. 

Jenn Black: And how long it took for that snail mail to get to, it would be months. They just can't even comprehend what that's yeah, it's definitely adaptability when it comes to communication for me.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Excellent. And what has changed in HR culture that you're actually very grateful for?

Jenn Black: I think having leaders consult me or ask for my recommendation, ask for direction when there's a certain decision that needs to be made or a certain direction we need to go into. They wanna understand what have we seen from the employee side of things on how will this affect our team members?

What kind of positive effect? Will it has a negative effect? Will it increase engagement? Do you think it's gonna decrease engagement. I feel like they are taking into account more of the human side of decisions being made and asking us an HR like what are, based on our experience, based on our recommendations.

What would we recommend? This is what our thoughts are like. They're really asking us to come along with them on the journey and not just you clean up the mess at the end of the day.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Much more part of the process. 

Jenn Black: Yes. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Than oh yeah, we gotta check with HR 

Jenn Black: Yeah. Come walk with me. Yeah. Don't walk behind me. Walk next to me. It's exciting to see. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. You've probably seen that shift a lot over your career. 

Jenn Black: Yes. Yeah.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So Jen, thank you so much for the Gen X perspective. I feel it, I relate to it. And we have to remember, every generation enters HR under different conditions. There's different labor markets, there's different expectations. There's even different leadership norms. And Gen X is a generation who built trust through competency and consistency.

And you've heard Jen say the word executor several times, right? Gen X is making things happen, and they do it at a very fast pace. Our next episode is HR through the eyes of the Millennials. This was a generation that was shaped by technological change and the rise of the values driven workplace. Get ready to see what shifts.

Anything you wanna add, Jen, anything you wish you would've said? 

Jenn Black: First of all, thank you for asking me to come on your podcast. I love working with the different generations, honestly, and you just never know what's gonna happen.

So it's new every day. I really do enjoy that it also helps me learn I think as an HR professional, every single generation teaches me something every single day. Having mentors in different generations has always helped me get different points of view.

So honestly, that's probably what I would wanna end with is don't just stick with one mentor, get mentors in different generations because you will learn from them. They will learn from you. And learning is a gift to be able to understand someone at a deeper level and understand why are they the way they are.

A lot of it does have to deal with the generation that they grew up in. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Do these mentors always have to be older than you? 

Jenn Black: No. I learned so much from the younger generation. That's what makes me old is when I have mentors that are younger than me, but I think it doesn't just make me a better professional or HR professional.

It actually makes me a better mom. As well. 'cause I do have 11 and a half years between my kids. And so a lot of times I use my kids as my mentors and I learn especially with my daughter who just is getting into the workforce. Helps me relate to, our employees that are coming into the workforce and what they're looking for. So yeah, no mentors, young and old, same age.

I just find that they all have value and help you learn in so many different ways. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: I often talk about kinda that concept of co-mentoring. 

Jenn Black: Yes. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So if I'm an extra mentoring a z that Z's mentoring me right back. The relationship goes in both directions. It's not just a top down or older to younger.

If we're not learning from younger generations, we will fall behind. Like they are actually teaching us how the world operates. 

Jenn Black: Absolutely. And it's changing so fast that there's no other way really to learn it. And so I actually just had a conversation with a couple people about getting younger, find a mentor who's younger than you are in a different generation.

And they looked at me at first was like, are you serious? And then I just explained why. And they're like, I can't believe I didn't think of that. And I'm like it's easy to overlook, yeah. It's

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: A foreign concept to most of us who are in older generations. 

Jenn Black: Right? Because we were taught, you look up to your elders, go to your elders to learn things. It doesn't just need to be that anymore. You can learn from any age.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Right. I love that. Thank you. I love that. You're welcome. We got to hear more of your heart right there.

Jenn Black: Oh, thank you. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So this is GenShift. Thank you for joining us today, and if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share with someone who might find it helpful. We look forward to sharing this space with you again.