Workplace diversity has driven organisations worldwide to consider providing a favourable environment to attract and retain high-potential talent. One source of diversity that has emerged and become a focus is generational differences. Three generations of
employees commonly work together in a company—Baby Boomers (born before 1964), Generation X (1965–1979), and Generation Y (1980–1990s)—at various levels of management. Recent studies suggest that generational disparity between employees has
consequences for work engagement values, communication modes, and employees’ workplace behavours.

The motivation for the study lies in the phenomenon of the employees’ change in generational composition within Telkom. According to the preliminary interviews with HR management, there is a concern about generational diversity in the workplace. In
Telkom’s workplace, three generations are working together, which, according to the manager’s perception, causes gaps in work values between the generations that potentially bring problems into workplaces. More specifically, it is part of the company’s future
concerns to have all members of organisations come together as one unit, develop a high level of employee engagement, and improve innovative work behaviours in order to be a strong competitor in the industry.

The potential problems regarding generational diversity were differences in style of communication, differences in employee engagement, particularly the lower levels of loyalty in the newest generation, and differences in work values of innovative behaviours.
The differences in communication style potentially disrupt the transfer of knowledge from older to younger generations. Differences in employee engagement potentially influence employee turnover, which may inhibit the continuity of the company’s work programs.
The differences in innovative behaviours may potentially prevent the ability to be competitive in the industry.

Therefore, it is necessary to prepare the future Telkom to become a company that is able to unite all employees to work together and achieve the company’s target, maintain high engagement of employees, and improve innovative work behaviours among its
employees. Hence, our problem statement (PS) reads as follows:
PS: To what extent should the generational diversity be addressed (1) to unite the employees, (2) to increase engagement of millennial employees, (3) to support innovative work behaviours (IWB) through leader-member exchange (LMX) quality and well-managed generational diversity management (GDM) as the predictors of employee engagement (EE)?

To be able to answer the problem statement, we have formulated the following Research
Questions (RQs) which are derived from the PS.

RQ1 : Do different generational backgrounds influence the perception of leadermember exchange (LMX), generational diversity management (GDM), employee engagement (EE), and innovative work behaviours (IWB)?
RQ2 : To what extent are variables of leader-member exchange, generational diversity management, employee engagement, and innovative work behaviours related to one another?
RQ3 : How is awareness of generational differences in Telkom addressed to prepare for the future of the organisation?
RQ4 : How does Telkom as an organisation maintain and improve the solidity in
the relationships between diverse generations’ employees to become a company of highly innovative work behaviours?

These RQs are our guidance in undertaking the study. In Chapter 2, we provide previous literature as a foundation for this study. We discuss the definition of leader and member exchange (LMX), generational diversity management (GDM), employee engagement (EE), and innovative work behaviours (IWB). From the discussion, we develop a model that can be used to improve the level of innovative work behaviours in a company through the high level of employee engagement, which is supported by the quality of leader-member exchange, and a well-managed generational diversity.

In Chapter 3, we discuss the research methodology that we employed to collect relevant data to the four RQs and PS. We explain the mixed method that we adopted for the study, which is divided into two stages. In the first stage, we employ quantitative methods
through questionnaire distribution among Telkom Group’s employees as the population. In the second stage, we employ a case study as a qualitative approach through interviews, focus group discussion, and observation to follow up the results of the first stage. We also describe our data sources, data collection process, and data analyses.

In Chapter 4, we explain the background information of Telkom Indonesia as the empirical settings. We describe the history of its establishment and development. Furthermore, we describe the activities in Telkom, which support its achievement in
financial and diversity management, from the Annual Reports and the observations. In Chapter 5, we discuss the survey strategy as a quantitative method that we used as the first stage of this study. The results show that: (1) there were statistically significant
differences of perspectives on leader-member exchange, generational diversity management, employee engagement, and innovative work behaviours across different generational backgrounds. (2) Generation Y was found as the generation that had the most
different perspective on leader-member exchange, generational diversity management, employee engagement, and innovative work behaviours. The consequence of their different view was that they have the lowest means of the variables compared with the
other generations. It might plausibly suggest that the lower means of Generation Y on LMX, GDM, EE, and IWB compared with other generations are caused by their most different characteristics.

(3) The statistics parameters showed the acceptance of the model proposed, which can be used to improve innovative work behaviours. (4) The analysis of data showed the statistically significant positive relationship between variables, whereby innovative work behaviours can be increased by escalating the quality of leader member exchange and generational diversity management, which was mediated by positive employee engagement.

In Chapter 6, we discuss Telkom leaders’ awareness of generational diversity and its consequences, which is addressed by: (1) Applying new ways to approach each generation member in their unit differently, based on their preferences. (2) Adapting or changing
their leadership style to approach the preferences expressed by the members of their units. (3) Adapting the way in which innovation is encouraged within his/her unit, particularly towards Generation Y. The leaders are also aware of the need to unite the generationally
diverse employees through (1) using corporate culture, “The TELKOM way,” as a means to unite the diversity; (2) the same corporate culture can be employed as a means to enhance the employee engagement in Generation Y to face the competition and
globalisation; (3) as awareness of the importance of innovation increases, the company culture also becomes crucial to support the ability of its members to create novel products or work methods.

Chapter 7 contains the conclusions of this study, as explained in the preceding chapters. Thus, in this chapter we explain the practical implications, which are focussed on the leaders as a representative of company. Their ability to adapt their leadership style to the
preferences of the youngest generation enables them to retain them to have the competitive advantage. Moreover, we describe the implications of this study for previous theory. The results support the previous theory and show that the high-quality relationship
between the leader and his member and the well-managed generational diversity management are predictors of employee engagement, which can be used to improve innovative work behaviours. In this chapter we also discuss the limitations of this study
and suggestions for future research.