Several Freehills female partners were hosts to over 100 clients and guests from a range of organisations at an event to discuss leadership, generation drivers and motivators and people and performance strategies.

Entitled ‘Are you inspired?’ the Sydney event had guests reminded of the age parameters and characteristics of the different generations. For Generation Y, it was explained, mobile phones have always existed, a virus is something a computer gets, and athletes have always been drug tested.

Executive director of AH Revelations, Avril Henry, discussed how to attract, motivate, manage and retain different generations at work. Organisations need to get a quick and firm hold on this before they start bleeding top quality employees and are unable to competitively attract new ones, Henry warned.

Henry referred to ‘the war for talent’, and said that if employers do not ask the right questions and make an effort to understand the relevant issues, including the differences between the generations and what motivates them, they will lose this so-called war.