St Paul’s Cathedral and the educational charity Cumberland Lodge are launching a new partnership, which will examine the values driving young people (18 to 25 years old) and their work practices, to further understand how this impacts on the corporate, social and creative sectors of the City of London.

Economic challenges, questions of intergenerational (in)justice, technological innovation, shifting social boundaries, and existential threats such as climate change are generating an atmosphere of uncertainty, impacting on young people’s expectations of their futures. While expressing personal and social values that enable them to navigate the 21st century, this is impacting on the workplace, and workplace practices, including in the financial services sector.

The partnership will bring together both the connections St Paul’s has with the City, and Cumberland Lodge’s expertise in facilitating conversations that explore social conflict and ethical challenges. It will examine in depth how values are shifting between generations, and how this affects behaviours, attitudes, recruitment, and retention in the workplace.

To launch the project, St Paul’s will be hosting a panel discussion featuring findings from initial research with speakers from the corporate sector, reflecting on intergenerational difference and how these might be managed.

The project aims to develop a programme of intergenerational conversations held at Cumberland Lodge, bringing together young people and employers, and focusing on learning across generational boundaries. Recommendations and learning tools will be developed to support companies and institutions in managing generational diversity in their workplaces.