Demographic change poses major challenges for both commercial enterprises and social work organisations. The baby boomer generation is retiring and generations X and Y are taking over their management and functional responsibilities. The arrival of Generation Y has already brought with it a clearly noticeable change in values in social organisations. Work-life balance, the search for meaning in professional activities, 30 to 35-hour working weeks and other values have changed social organisations in many respects. Generation Z is in the process of arriving in the most diverse fields of social work after completing their training/studies. With them comes a generation with values in social organisations, some of which differ significantly from those of the three previous generations.

In order to successfully organise this process together, positive attitudes from all employees are important. A cross-generational willingness to actively participate in and shape this change process is required. To this end, it is important to analyse and understand where there are generational lines of conflict, but also where there is common ground. This should be used to work out the different generational competences and use them in the interests of the client.

Focal points:

• The concept of generation
• the individual generations, their general values and their values in the work context
• Identifying lines of conflict and how to deal with them
• Identification of competence clusters