BridgeWorks generational consultant to discuss improving workplace communication

Kim Lear, a millennial and generational consultant, has a message to share, but it's not what you think.

Lear, 26, is a speaker, writer and strategist for BridgeWorks, a Minneapolis-based company which focuses on improving communication among generations to create a more productive work force. Lear will be the luncheon keynote speaker during the Next Gen. Summit Oct. 1 at the Coralville Marriott Hotel and Conference Center.

BridgeWorks offers specific approaches for recruiting, retaining, motivating and managing multigenerational work forces, according to the company's website. Lear and others also help calculate the costs of failing to bridge those generation gaps.

"How do we best communicate through that?" Lear said Friday. "When you have four distinct groups of people - you have traditionalists, baby boomers, Gen Xs, millennials, and all of them are coming in to the workplace and coming in to communities with very different expectations of what do I find meaningful, what engages me?"

For example, an individual who has worked at one company for 42 years may view his or her company differently than would a 23-year-old, she said.

"We really focus on all of the generations, and I do think there are people out there, specifically in my age cohorts, who are coming in and telling communities and telling audiences how to cater to young people," she said.

"That is not my message. It's not out with the old and in with the new. It's really that we all have very valid expectations and important things that we bring to the table and it's about how do we best utilize all of those."

To register for the event, go to impactcr.org.

The summit is a collaboration of ImpactCR of the

Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance and EPIC of the

Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce.