Today’s CEOs have the unprecedented task of preparing the workplace for four different generations. But how exactly are we supposed to do that?

No one doubts that the modern workplace has changed. Technology and mobility allow employees to work at any time from just about any place. Decisions made by a stockbroker in New York are seen nanoseconds later by an analyst in Hong Kong. But 2008’s economic collapse and the recession that fell in its wake added a new dimension to tech-savvy modern business.

For the first time in modern history, we have four different generations manning the workforce. Traditionalists, those born before 1945, have either continued to work past age 65, citing a bleak economic outlook as reason to stay employed, or have been forced out of retirement due to a recession that decimated their savings. Concurrently, the Millennials who — at about 90 million strong and the largest generation ever — continue to add to a workforce already staffed with the majority of Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers.

With this diversity in age comes a profound difference in business culture. The project management process that previously dictated how a company works has been completely overhauled. Today, workflow has been streamlined to maximize efficiency while minimizing resources. How do modern-day CEOs develop a high-performance workplace that allows members of all four generations to flourish?

Optimizing for Millennials While Remaining Relevant to Traditionalists

A key element of the Generation Collaboration is maintaining processes familiar to older generations without it feeling antiquated to the younger generations. The most efficient way to do that is to simply optimize traditional project management by bringing projects online and encouraging engagement.

As Joel Stein recently pointed out in the Time magazine article, “The ME Generation,” constant engagement comes naturally to the Millennials who were raised by their Boomer parents to have the collaborative, social relationships modern-day workforces need to be emulating.

CEOs who worry that bringing entire workflows online may be alienating to older generations shouldn’t be concerned. Adults over the age of 65 are the fastest growing demographic of online users. A study from the 2012 PEW Internet & Life Project study found that more than half of American adults over the age of 65 are online and almost two thirds of those same people use social networking websites. The shift to online was both seismic and universal, plugging in the majority of every generation alive today.

Democracy Creates High-Performance Teams

This shift online didn’t just shuffle in an era of information; it created an era of democratization that is quickly infiltrating the business world. The days of bosses in boardrooms and employees in cubes are over. In order to optimize workers, employers are increasingly finding that collaboration is key. So much of modern business pivots around adaptability. Creating a system where ideas can be exchanged helps facilitate these changes as needed, while giving employees an understanding that their work matters.

Another tenet of this democratic work culture is alignment through transparency. So much of modern life has adapted to this constant culture of engagement and information. Logging onto Facebook or scrolling through Twitter allows users to garner what others are doing while simultaneously broadcasting their activities. Yet, it is a cultural shift that has yet to truly be embraced by the business world. Companies that establish a precedent of transparency allow employees of all ages to understand what their colleagues contribute. This increases trust in a profoundly fundamental way and allows employees to serve as their own champions and critics. Acknowledgment is something that human beings seek at their core and celebrating successes will benefit morale — and the bottom line.

The Era of Real Time

Bringing business online and creating transparency will certainly revolutionize a company. But putting it in real time will allow it to thrive. The best way for CEOs leading the Generation Collaboration to do this is to think mobile. For Millennials and Gen X-ers, being connected is just a part of life. Within moments of waking up, phone are switched on, emails loaded and “likes” recorded. It seems only a natural progression that work life would emulate these habits.

But, the ability to plug in and work from anywhere isn’t appealing to every person. Many people simply prefer a traditional work environment. CEOs need to realize that, while people can conduct business in Sydney from a smartphone in Dubai, technology is ultimately about freedom, not just availability.

Managing the dawn of the era of real time within a multigenerational workforce is a historical endeavor along the lines of the Industrial Revolution. At its core, Generation Collaboration is about tuning in to the needs of the employees and letting them flourish. Because after all, aren’t our companies only as good as the people that work for them?

Avinoam Nowogrodski is founder of Clarizen.