GSmart

Project lead
Prof. Dr. Michael Scharpf
Prof. Dr. Bernd-Joachim Ertelt

Project staff 
Anke Reuter (B.A.)

Third-party funding provider
European Union Erasmus+ Programme

Project duration
December 2020 – August 2023

Coordinating institution
Jan Dlugosz University, Poland

Project partners

• Voivodeship Labour Office, Poland
• Centre for the Innovation and Development of Education and Technology, Spain
• Stitching on Education for Agility Liberating Structures, The Netherlands
• Education Culture and Social Innovation Researches Association, Turkey

Working together with several generations in a team or in one company has become reality across Europe. Starting with the babyboomergeneration, which is slowly retiring, to Generation Z, with its upcoming young workers who have been entering the labour market for the past few years. Different opinions, attitudes, circumstances and approaches to work clash, leading to conflict, making productive work together more difficult. Counteracting intergenerational conflicts proactively is an essential part of leadership and of Human Resources management. However, at the moment, there are hardly any approaches to support companies with this. 

The project GSmart (generation:smart) therefore pursues the goal of improving how different generations work together on a professional level. Three project phases build on each other and identify the potential for different intergenerational conflicts, with the development of a cross generational collaboration model (CGC Model) and also with the implementation of this model into an accessible online-platform and in (online) training units. Target groups are those who work in adult education or generally support learning in adults. With the help of the CGC Model, the target group learns new pedagogical and also digital methods to improve cooperation between different generations. These methods are based on the findings of the first project phase.

At the beginning of the year 2022, the project completed its first phase and a research report "IO1 Cross-Generational Collaboration – In The Domain Of Working Life And Every Day Life" was put on the website. This includes analyses of the labour market situation and the results of representative studies of older employees as well as managers on the topic of intergenerational cooperation. Results of the study show that stereotypical views of members of other generations do exist and that they influence how colleagues are seen. A starting point for the further phases of the project is therefore to create concepts to try and overcome these patterns and make adult education accessible. On the basis of the findings of the surveys, there is a portfolio of training units which are then to be checked and transferred into the CGC Model. 

The universities and companies involved work together closely to generate the best possible integration of practical experience and academic insights. National characteristics provide a basis for versatile benchmarking on the one hand, and on the other give rise to differentiated versions of the end product.