Megan Gerhardt, PhD, a professor of Management and Leadership at the Farmer School of Business at Miami University, learned this unexpected lesson from her sophomore students.
“That’s right,” she wrote in a now-viral LinkedIn post. “If you are over 30, you must learn what I learned yesterday: when you use a period in your texts, Gen Z finds this ‘harsh,’ ‘scary’ and ‘passive aggressive.’”
Gerhardt’s students shared this revelation in a research paper about generational differences in workplace communication. Her students’ opinions shocked the professor.
“I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” she said in a phone interview. “I have an 18-year-old. I do this for a living. I had no idea, so I thought, ‘Well, I don’t know if that’s true.’ So, I posted it on Instagram.”
The response shocked Gerhardt. She received many replies to her story that confirmed her students’ observations.
She even texted her 16-year-old niece, Gwen, about the punctuation intimidation factor.
“Yes, it’s so passive-aggressive when people use periods for non-formal texting,” Gwen shared with her aunt. “Because of the informal conversations that happen on text. It becomes more impactful when a period is used.”
Gerhardt also shared a text exchange with a Gen Z-er who said she feels awkward when her manager uses a lot of periods in texts.
“I get scared she’s mad at me!” the Instagram user replied.
What’s the big deal about sentence periods, anyway?
Gerhardt said making a big deal about using periods in texts may seem ridiculous to older adults. However, issues like this need to be studied in light of the changing work-climate dynamic.
“For the first time, we are in a five-generation workforce,” she said. “We have people working longer for a variety of reasons. Demographically, we have people working and living longer … some people work longer for economic reasons…many [people] aren’t interested in retiring at an arbitrary age of 65. So, that has created more of a generational dynamic than we’ve seen in the past.”
When you have workers ranging in age from their late teens to older than 60, communication challenges are bound to arise.
For example, understanding the period’s power and other punctuation marks when communicating with Gen Z.
“What’s interesting is it is a little thing that is a big thing because it is so common,” Gerhardt said. “It doesn’t seem like it should be that big of a deal, but it’s so pervasive in everything we do.”
With so many ways of electronic communication, including email, text and online chat programs such as Slack and Teams, it’s easy for there to be miscommunications on tone based on generational punctuation norms and how they’ve shifted as technology advances.
Older generation workers grew up with more formal writing and communication guidelines. Emails and especially texting are relatively new skill sets.
However, Gerhardt believes many Gen Z-ers may have learned to text before learning proper punctuation. They grew up with technology and have developed their style when sending texts–namely, a lack of punctuation or equating emotions to capital letters and different punctuation marks.
Bridging the generation communication gap
When bridging the communication gap between workforce generations, Gerhardt said it’s important to reframe how we approach the subject. Her openness to identifying these differences and finding ways to transform multigenerational challenges led her to write “Gentelligence: The Revolutionary Approach to Leading an Intergenerational Workforce.”
“All of the work I do on intelligence is really about helping people have smarter, energized conversations,” she explained. “Rather than stereotypes and clickbait headlines, how do we get curious and interested in how other generations see things, not because ‘they’re wrong because they are not how I see them.’”
When talking with older members of the workforce who ask Gerhardt questions like, “Can they do that?” with things like dropping punctuation or reading tone from including periods at the end of sentences, she advises considering the type of communication used.
For example, texting is an informal communication method compared to emails. How something is written and perceived can be very different between the two.
“I think, at least with people who are working adults, they’re aware enough that there’s different decorum when you’re writing an email to a boss,” Gerhardt said. “But, when we switch to text, it’s considered very informal.”
Gerhardt doesn’t say we should limit our communication methods to one way or the other. Instead, all generations must understand that assumptions are made about how messages are sent and received. There are even assumptions about the prevalence of smartphone use among the generations.
“Younger generations may believe when they pull out their smartphone that they are being super efficient,” she said. “But, if I’m having dinner with my grandparents, they’re going to think I’m rude and have no manners.”
The bottom line for communicating well with younger generations, whether in the workforce or even in your own family, is to approach them with curiosity and a lack of assumption or judgment.
When looking at a difference in communication style, such as Gen Z perceiving periods as harsh, a conversation between multi-generations can go like this.
Gen Z: “Oh, I hate periods in texts. They’re so harsh.”
Older generation: “Fascinating. Tell me more.”
That can lead to discussions on why the lack of punctuation for the older generation person feels uncomfortable (and why) and, ultimately, the conversation of “How to we deal with this?”
“It really is another form of diversity,” Gephardt concluded. “The idea is that ‘I’m working with people who think differently and have different sources for information. That could be a source of a lot of wonderful complementary advantages to frame it that way.”
More details
To learn more about smarter intergenerational conversations visit gentelligence.org.
What generation are you?
The years for each generation vary based on who you ask. But here’s our take on each (by birth year):
1901-1927: The Greatest Generation (named for facing great odds, conflicts with fighting)
1928-1945: The Silent Generation (also called tranditionalists, known for not speaking out during conflicts, growing up during Depression)
1946-1964: Baby Boomers (born when birth rates in the U.S. were highest at that time)
1965-1980: Generation X (described as feeling overlooked, misunderstood; hit hard by dot-com bubble and a recession in 2008)
1981-1996: Millennials (had a singular event define their generation - 9/11; is larger than Baby Boomers generation)
1997-2012: Generation Z (also called iGen, growing up with the internet as part of every day life, doing most things online)
2013-2024: Generation Alpha (shaping social media and popular culture, launching popularity of digital influencers)
2025-2039: Generation Beta is the name floating around for the next generation
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