This article appears as part of Casey Weade's Weekend Reading for Retirees series. Every Friday, Casey highlights four hand-picked articles on trending retirement topics and delivers them straight to your email inbox. Get on the list here.

Today, we are in the midst of a demographic shift where five generations now coexist in the workplace. This is why previous podcast guest Chip Conley is a strong proponent of intergenerational wisdom-sharing. He emphasizes that wisdom –accumulated experience shared with others – enhances team productivity, employee retention, and understanding of worker needs.

As such, there are four key benefits of wisdom-sharing:

📌 Retention and satisfaction: Mentorship and low burnout rates among older employees contribute to better retention overall

📌 Productivity and learning: Age-diverse teams are more likely to outperform single-generation teams, merging the strengths of younger and older perspectives

📌 Understanding worker needs: Companies like Atlassian incorporate age diversity as a metric, revealing generational differences in workplace needs

📌 Elevating wisdom: Older employees who mentor younger colleagues help companies harness and transfer valuable expertise

Ask yourself: What can you teach the generations that follow you, and in return, what can individuals in those generations teach you?