Are generational differences at work real?

They exist but are smaller than they are said to be. Research comparing work values by age group finds that variation inside one generation is much larger than the average gap between generations. Much of what is called generational is simply career stage: what anyone at the start of a working life looks like.

How should a founder hand over to a child who has studied abroad?

By separating the handover into explicit decisions rather than leaving it to happen gradually. Which decisions the successor takes alone from now on, which ones are taken together, and which stay with the founder for a set period. Staff need to know this too, otherwise they will keep asking the founder and the successor will never gain authority.

Why do young employees leave after a year or two?

Often because nobody has told them what the next step looks like. In a small market, a friend's offer is always visible. An employer who explains clearly what someone will learn, and what could follow in two or three years, keeps people longer than one who expects patience without saying what it leads to.

Generations at work in Seychelles: founders and young staff

“Generation Z does not want to work” and “the old guard will not change” are said about workplaces all over the world. In Seychelles, the reality behind these phrases is usually more specific, and more manageable, than a clash of values.

Three situations account for most of the generational friction found in Seychellois companies.

1. The founder and the returning graduate

A large share of businesses here are family-run: guesthouses, construction firms, shops, tour operators, restaurants. Many were built by one person over thirty years, on personal relationships, long hours and decisions taken quickly at the counter.

Then a son or a daughter comes back after a degree in the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa or Mauritius. They bring spreadsheets, fixed meeting times, written procedures and an expectation that decisions will be explained. Within a few months, the founder feels their judgement is being questioned, the graduate feels their training is being ignored, and the staff do the sensible thing: they keep asking the founder.

The problem here is not age. It is that nobody has said who decides what.

The explicit rule: write down the handover. Which decisions the successor now takes alone, which are taken jointly, and which stay with the founder until a stated date. Then announce it to the team. A successor who is never publicly given authority will not acquire it, however competent they are.

2. The small market next door

Young Seychellois employees know exactly what their friends earn and how they are treated at the hotel down the road, because they talk about it every week. In a market this small, an employer’s reputation travels fast.

The older rule in many companies was that loyalty is shown by staying, and that progression comes with time. Younger staff are not against staying. They want to know what staying leads to. “Be patient” without a horizon sounds to them like “we have not thought about it”.

The explicit rule: say what the deal is. What someone will learn here in the next two years, who will teach them, and what could follow. An honest two-year proposition keeps people longer than an implied twenty-year one nobody believes. The other reasons young employees leave, and what keeps them, are covered in keeping young Seychellois talent.

Feedback follows the same logic. An annual review made sense when careers lasted decades in one company. For someone who will decide in eighteen months whether to stay, eleven months without a word on their work is not patience, it is silence. Ten minutes every two weeks, on the work rather than on the person, costs less than one formal review and removes most of the uncertainty.

3. The knowledge that is written nowhere

In many Seychellois companies, the most valuable information is held by someone who has been there for twenty-five years: which supplier on Mahé delivers on time, how to handle a particular government office, which client needs a phone call rather than an email, how the old generator really works.

That person often feels that younger colleagues do not respect what they know. The younger colleagues often feel that the older one will not share it. Both are partly right, and the company is exposed: when that person retires, the knowledge goes with them.

The explicit rule: pair them on real work. Not a mentoring programme with a launch meeting, but a shared task with a real deadline, where each one needs what the other has. The experienced colleague brings the history and the network; the younger one brings the tools and new practices. Knowledge moves in both directions, and the relationship lasts because it is built on work.

What the three situations have in common

In each case, one side is following a rule it thinks is obvious, and the other side never agreed to it. The friction is not about values. It is about rules that were never written down.

Two conditions make written rules work. First, they must be short: response times, how feedback is given, who decides what, how disagreement is raised. Six lines are enough. Second, they must apply upwards. A rule that the owner or the general manager ignores is not a rule, and the youngest people in the team will notice within a week.

The manager’s own posture is what makes these rules hold over time. That is the subject of The manager-leader toolkit, and the question of what keeps people motivated when budgets are tight is covered in Motivating without a budget.