Intergenerational friendships: Why office bonds between completely different age teams are the key to private {and professional} development

Elizabeth “Liz” Nickolls remembers the primary time she met her pal, Lauren Cassimatis. “She strode through the office in stilettos, apparently so sure of herself, until she was ordered to remove the power shoes because they were damaging the floor,” she remembers.

Nickolls, now 75, provides: “There was very little formal introduction, but we recognised something we had in common – it wasn’t stilettos! – but it was a type of courage, heads held high, no matter what.”

In 2004, Cassimatis, who was 24 again then (a Gen X cusp Millennial), was working as an article clerk when she met Nickolls, a legal defence lawyer together with her personal agency and who was a 54-year-old Baby Boomer on the time. Despite a 30-year age hole and being at fully completely different life levels, their connection was fast.

“It was like love at first sight,” Cassimatis, now 45, says. “We had a similar energy and chemistry as women. She was compassionate, ambitious, very intelligent and very fashionable.”

Nickolls grew to become Cassimatis’s unofficial mentor, guiding her not simply in legal regulation however in survive and thrive as a girl in a male-dominated area.

With practically three a long time extra life and profession expertise, Nickolls supplied a perspective Cassimatis didn’t but have, warning her in regards to the glass ceiling, the boundaries ladies confronted, and the fact of sexual harassment within the career.

“I scoffed at that, thinking, this is so old-fashioned,” Cassimatis explains. “It’s 2004, and women are rising through the ranks in law. That’s not how men see women in the law.

“But throughout my career, I have certainly encountered exactly what she said.”

The relationship between the 2 rapidly developed into greater than a piece friendship, with (then) each single ladies swapping courting tales and discovering they shared most of the identical values.

“We both love fashion, spirituality, animals and the law,” says Cassimatis. “I looked up to her, and despite the age gap, could and still do relate to her.”

For Nickolls, the age hole merely wasn’t necessary. “There was hardly a thought about the age difference,” she says. “We would swap stories, good and shocking, about our experiences in our work and social lives.”

Fast-forward 22 years to at this time, and each ladies’s lives are (nonetheless) vastly completely different: Cassimatis has opened her personal regulation agency and has youngsters, whereas Nickolls has retired and moved to a farm close to Wangaratta together with her husband, John.

Despite this, Cassimatis says it’s “the closest we have ever been”. She provides: “We stay in touch by phone, calling each other to check in on how we are both doing. We also have a bit of a psychic connection; we often know if something has happened to one of us and instinctively pick up the phone to check in.”

Nickolls agrees. “We are still just as close, just geographically separate,” she says. “I was really happy when she and the family came up to stay with us. The kids loved the chickens and her then four-year-old named two of them for me, and he insisted one should be named John.”

Like Nickolls and Cassimatis, many Australians have a “work bestie”, a “work wife” or “work husband”, a colleague who makes a job extra pleasant and connects with you on a deeper degree.

It’s additionally not unusual for these friendships to happen between people from completely different generations, says Emeritus Professor Anneke Fitzgerald, founder and chair of the Australian Institute for Intergenerational Practice. “They tend to emerge where shared purpose, repeated contact and psychological safety intersect, including in workplaces that have multigenerational teams,” she says.

While intergenerational friendships could also be outlined by age distinction, Fitzgerald says that, as in Cassimatis and Nickolls’ case, it isn’t what’s on the coronary heart of the connection. “It’s not ‘mentoring’ or ‘helping the elderly/young’; it’s friendship first, age second,” she explains. “It’s a voluntary, ongoing relationship between people from different age groups that is based on mutual respect, reciprocity and emotional connection, benefiting both age groups equally.”

For youthful folks, these advantages can embrace entry to networks, knowledge and perspective, the enlargement and upkeep of social capital, and the constructing of abilities and confidence. “Older adults often provide calm, reassurance, and long-view thinking for younger age groups,” Fitzgerald says.

For older folks, a pal from a youthful technology may also help cut back loneliness and isolation, present a way of function and rest, and be cognitively and emotionally stimulating.

There can be a plethora of shared advantages and distinctive traits that make intergenerational friendships cherished and valued by those that have them, says Fitzgerald. “These friendships can create a sense of belonging across generations, challenge stereotypes such as ageism and youngism, improve community cohesion and strengthen wellbeing and life satisfaction,” she explains.

For Gen X lady Vikki Maver, 52 and Millennial Veronica Rustica, 39, who met in 2022 when Maver slid into Rustica’s LinkedIn DMs and later supplied her a copywriting function at her Melbourne copywriting and content material company, celebrating and appreciating one another’s variations has introduced immeasurable advantages to their skilled and private lives.

“One of the biggest benefits is perspective, but not in the way people assume,” explains Rustica. “I’m usually the one thinking three, five, 10 years ahead. The world is shifting so quickly – AI, new business models, new ways of working – and I feel a real urgency to make sure we’re adapting. I’ve had five careers already. Change doesn’t scare me; it energises me. I believe that’s a very millennial trait. We’ve lived through so much uncertainty, we’ve learned to adapt and, therefore, aren’t scared of it.

“Vikki is more measured. She’s careful with risk. Where I’ll plant seeds and start experimenting, she’ll want to see/know how it’s going to play out. That means I often have to nurture an idea and bring her along on the journey.”

Maver agrees. “Veronica is at a stage where she wants to accelerate, push and build,” she says. “She’s got energy and enthusiasm for creating something new. I’m nearing the back half of my career, whereas I want financial stability and to be excited about what we’re building, but at a gentler pace. She wants to hustle, and I want to ease into my coffin.”

Outside work, the distinction is equally stark. “Veronica goes to raves on the weekend,” Maver says. “I’m in my slippers three hours before Veronica’s even left the house.”

But for each Maver and Rustica, who’ve since co-created their very own communications coaching enterprise, their variations make them a stronger staff. “What makes it powerful is that neither of us dismisses the other’s instinct,” says Rustica. “My appetite for change keeps us evolving. Her caution protects what we’ve built. It’s not frictionless, but it’s balanced – and the balance makes better decisions.”

Like many intergenerational office friendships, the pair say most of their time collectively is spent at work; nonetheless, their many hours working in shut proximity imply that they take a deep curiosity in one another’s lives and usually speak in confidence to each other, particularly about parenting.

“Obviously, our kids are at very different ages [Maver’s are 21 and 19, and Rustica’s are 9 and 5],” says Maver. “But even the way we talk about our kids, it feels like we share very similar parenting approaches and family values.”

They have additionally bonded over a shared love of comedy. “We go to comedy shows together – Mary Coustas, Kitty Flanagan, Wankernomics – and share funny clips with each other at work,” says Maver. “The rest of our team wouldn’t even know who the people in the videos are.”

This shared sense of humour has offered a launch from what could be a aggravating and demanding enterprise, and each ladies say it’s a spotlight and cornerstone of their friendship. “My favourite memories are the unplanned ones: the late-afternoon calls where one of us says, ‘So, I just need to tell you something…’ And we end up laughing so hard neither of us can speak,” says Rustica.

“There’s something deeply bonding about being able to zoom out and find the absurdity in whatever’s happening. Running our businesses can be intense, but we rarely take ourselves too seriously.”

But, like Nickolls and Cassimatis, there’s a “psychic connection” – or, as Maver calls it, their “uncanny” shared perspective on issues that stand out as extremely particular and distinctive to their intergenerational friendship. “It will often happen in a meeting,” Maver says. “I’ll be thinking something, and I will receive a message from Veronica on Slack saying the same thing. Sometimes we send each other the exact same sentence, and it’s just like, ‘Okay, that’s weird.’ We are quite aligned, and we just feel like we get each other.”

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