The Advantages of a Multi-Generational Workforce
Running a successful asset management firm and building the technology solutions that power their strategies is an unconventional business model, yet the team at Charleston Capital accomplishes this, citing their uniquely diverse team as a core driver of their success.
The company facilitates an open culture that values developing brilliant ideas and brilliant people, and actively fosters diversity into everything they do. This very un-Wall Street approach to finance is what attracts such great talent to their team. Their developers come from the likes of Amazon and Zappos, and their newly appointed CEO boasts over thirty years of financial leadership experience, including AMF, a subsidiary of Credit Suisse.
Below is a look inside this promising finance firm and Fintech company, including their own insights about the value of a multi-generational workforce.
What are the benefits of building a multi-generational workplace?
If you walk inside the offices of Charleston Capital in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina, you’ll find a team mixed up of young coders, seasoned financial professionals and talented millennials analyzing data. CNN streams across the televisions of the 11,000 square feet of office space throughout the day, and the tech team can be found playing Dungeons and Dragons in a conference room later that evening. It is unconventional, to say the least.
“Success is about building a selfless team. Hunger and talent are ageless. Each member of a team has a unique role to play and must feel like they have a unique role to play. Although the young often have great energy and the old often have great experience — assume nothing. Harness your workers’ passions so they bring their best to their job every day.” says Sol Berkoff, a Principal at Charleston Capital.
The company benefits from their multi-generational workforce, believing that your own team should be a reflection of the diversity of your customers. They deploy this thinking into all of their team-building efforts, pairing young talent to work beside industry professionals with over twenty years of experience. The results of this management approach generated an 11% annualized return to its investors last year and led the company to build its own technology platform, in Factor.
“While older generations have more experience, younger ones are more experienced in what is happening in our world today,” said Caleb Goding, CFO of the firm. “I encourage you to look inside your own organization and ask yourself if you have the right team facing your clients now, and in the future. Knowing that your client base is going to change with time, is your team set up to succeed today? Do you have generational knowledge sharing internally?”
What are the best tips for managing these generations’ innate strengths and possible challenges?
The Charleston Capital team goes far outside of classic command and control management structures, treating everyone as members of a winning team on an inspiring mission. They urge companies who want to be more diverse to understand and avoid, the potential challenges of a multi-generational workplace.
“Teams are motivated and most effective when working together to achieve common goals. But people are individuals and have individual needs and concerns. One must always be sensitive to these concerns and be willing to listen.” said Berkoff. “Balancing the good of the whole versus the needs of the individual is a never-ending challenge, especially when dealing with a multi-generational group.”
