Mind the gap: Construction firm wins by combining youth, experience

The American labor force is in a unique state, with four — some might argue five — distinct generations working alongside each other, and it’s commonly thought the two largest generational cohorts, baby boomers and millennials, don’t share the same values and goals and thus struggle to gel in the office.

But Suffolk Construction Co., a Boston-based national builder with a large presence in the region, from Tampa to Estero, has turned that thinking on its head with an innovative reverse mentoring program — an approach to bridging the so-called generation gap. It’s not a formalized training program, per se, but participants say Suffolk management purposefully sets up teams that naturally allow grizzled veterans to learn from tech-savvy up-and-comers — and vice versa.