The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society by Mauro F. Guillen Book Review

In The Perennials, Mauro F. Guillen explored the new trends that occurring in the different generations and how times are changing. He defined the term perennials as, “people who are not characterized by the decade in which they were born but rather by the way they work, learn, and interact with others.”  He explained how creativity boosts on their twenties and again in their fifties. In their 20’s they rely more on cognitive abilities and when their brain slows down, they rely more on their experience. He looked at BMW’s pioneering and how they choose to approach mutigenerational workplace. They strive to mix over fix generations where they can all collaborate together with their own perspectives and this led to greater productivity and higher job satisfaction. In the book, he also looked at how the common trend is having three careers in a lifetime, how retirement is changing, inheriting, consumer market, and longevity and health. 

 

 

The book explored the role of the nuclear family structure and how it has changed and fallen. Children used to always move out of their parents’ homes and they would get married and raise their own children. He looked at the history and how divorce and separation is causing more single parent households. There is also an increasing happening of being choosing to live alone all together. They are being described as singletons and some choose to never marry or have children. It also means that living alone is becoming more expensive. There is a trend of seeing the breakdown of the sequential model and the nuclear family. Some of this is related to independence and more self-reliance. He shared how young adults without a college degree are living with their parents. In the past, we believed that parents at some point in life would be empty nesters and this is greatly changing. 

 

 

I would recommend this wonderful book on the mutigenerational workplace and family dynamic to anyone who is wanting to earn more about what is occurring right now. I loved how he did tons of research for this book and included a number of different studies to clarify the message of this book. I was shocked by reading about the benefits of flex work and how this helped people to feel less stressed and this in fact prevent job burnout. People are also less likely to retire or quit their jobs. I wonder if companies would provide this key feature how much more happiness, we would in turn witness. There should be a fine line balance between work and living your life. Companies could also see less turn over and not waste their times in training someone who doesn’t want to stay. This book is an incredible resource for us to use to learn more about the mutigenerational and the changes that are happening. 

 

 

 

 

"I received this book free from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press for my honest review.”

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to purchase a copy, check it out on Amazon.com:

 

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Perennials-Megatrends-Creating-Postgenerational-Society/dp/1250281342/