Do you prefer to pick up the phone or e-mail to ask a question of a co-worker? Or do you get out of your chair and walk down to his office?

When the clock hands hit 5 are you out the door? After all, you have a life outside the office too.

Must each hour of the day be detailed on your PDA to ensure everything gets done?

Do you believe in working as hard as necessary to get ahead?

No matter how you responded, your answers most likely reflected your age or, more specifically, your generation. Age is a fact of life that we all understand. Yet, people often say that age doesn't matter in the workplace. Age may not affect competency, but it does create a more complicated environment where people from different backgrounds must work together. And age diversity today is unlike any other.

"We now have four generations in the workplace for the first time in history," says Bob Losyk, an M.Ed. and MBA who facilitates multigenerational workshops and author of "Get a Grip! Overcoming Stress and Thriving in the Workplace."

"It's really a diversity issue," he says of generations. Workers say, "why are these people so different from me?"

"They wonder, 'what are they all about?'"

To have all four generations working together productively requires an understanding that one's generation contributes to one's identity, experts say.

"The key is to understand each other's formative years and make sense of that generation's values and attitudes," says Chuck Underwood, one of the foremost experts in generational study and founder of The Generational Imperative, a research-driven consulting firm.

Of course, there's a caveat too—generational characteristics are generalizations—even though someone was born around the same time as another person does not mean they share all the same attributes and behaviors.

Talk about my generation

A generation encompasses a time when the core values for someone are molded. It's about what we've been taught, and have witnessed and experienced all around us from birth until we leave the full-time classroom, Underwood says.

Losyk says first ask, "what created that generation?" Examine what events and times shaped their lives. Did they live through the depression? (That's the senior or veteran generation.) Did they come of age in an era of free love and civil rights? (That would be the Baby Boomers.) Did they grow up going home after school to empty houses while both their parents worked? (Generation Xers did.) Or did they grow up with scheduled activities each day after school and all weekend long?

What TV shows did they watch? What were the headlines of their formative years—those memorable events that everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news?

The questions can come from so many perspectives but all center around what made a particular generation what it is today.

A stroll down memory lane is a good starting point, Underwood says. But don't just take a look at the bulleted items of what happened in those years.

"Oh my gosh, I never realized the impact of generations," is a statement frequently heard by participants in the seminars on generations in the workplace that Amy Glass presents around the country.

"They'll say, I wondered why I was having problems with this particular person," says the senior facilitator at Brody Communications, which teaches seminars on intergenerational management.

Research tends to classify and label today's working generations as such:

• Silent Generation (also known as seniors or veterans) born between 1927 and 1945. (Almost all born prior to 1927 are in retirement and thus not a part of today's workforce.)
• Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964.
• Generation X born between 1965 and 1981.
• Millenials (also referred to as Gen Y) born between 1982 and today.

Who are they?

"Baby Boomers are workaholics and Generation X believes strongly in balancing work and free time," Underwood says. "This is the most difficult to understand."

He says the American workplace is dominated by these two generations, which have the biggest gap between them, creating all sorts of potential for conflicts.

Baby Boomers grew up in an era in which hard work and dedication to the job were essential to do well and succeed at work.

Generation X is unique, Underwood says. These people grew up with workaholic parents who suffered fatigue, divorce and sometimes substance abuse. "They saw their parents laid off by older executives," he adds. "They are self-protective and demanding. They don't expect two-way loyalty and don't promise it," Underwood says.

"The older generations don't fully comprehend the difficult childhood that Xers experienced and how it shaped their attitudes," he explains.

Generation X came of an age when generational research became hot, thus it was the most researched and scrutinized of any generation, says Rita Keller, a partner with Leading Edge Alliance firm Brady Ware who has made numerous presentations for her clients and industry associations on the topic of generations in the workplace.

Generation X is focused more on "me" than "team," Keller says. However, she has seen the generation mellow the longer it has been in the workplace.

The millennials, however, who are entering the workforce in recent years are starting out closer to the Baby Boomers when it comes to being a hard-working generation, experts say.

"I'm just fascinated by the millennials," Keller says. "They're so close to their parents. They are used to having an older person guide them. They've been in classes since they were like 2 years old.

"They're so unlike Generation X," she says, noting that difference can be a source of conflict when Generation X managers are leading millennial employees.

Another potential for conflict is that the millennials, like Generation X, believe promotion and authority within the workplace should be based on knowledge, not on longevity.

"The newest people typically are given the lowest level of work. These kids want more. We have to change. We don't want to lose them," Keller says.

Consider giving projects or tasks with increasing responsibility to millennials to show your commitment to their growth and to learn how well they can handle the challenge. Make sure to keep close tabs on their progress so they know you expect results.

Millennials also prefer to work in teams. That's why Brady Ware has chosen to hire more interns than necessary—to maximize the opportunity and create a camaraderie for the interns, Keller says. That team atmosphere is embraced by the millennials who are eager for a collaborative atmosphere that a single intern cannot experience.

Both Generation X and millennials prefer a work-life balance, with the latter especially wanting to carve out time to give back to the community. Thus, they appreciate a flexible work environment to accommodate their varied lives.

Keller says that understanding the millennial generation is especially important in any industry, such as accounting, where there are not enough new people entering the field to fill the vacancies.

Another plus for the millenials is that they do not mind working with someone who is older.

Experts say the silent or senior generation and the millennials also share a similar work ethic. The older group had to work to make money when they were young. The younger group had to work hard to manage their time and accommodate all their classes, activities and other responsibilities.

But that shared work ethic does not mean there are not blatant differences. The youngest generation has had heavy parental involvement all their lives—planning activities, chauffeuring them and handling problems as they arose.

Some parents even call their children's human resource department to ask why their son or daughter wasn't promoted or was criticized for their work. "Their parent advocacy doesn't seem to know where to end," Glass says, much to the bewilderment of Baby Boomers and Generation Xers who are managing these youngest employees.

"Baby Boomers and Generation Xers have no idea how to handle that," Glass says.

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