Embracing Gen Z & A in the workplace

Source: McCrindle 2024

​

​​​​​A speaker at this event who recently joined a scale-up full of Gen Zs after many years in the traditional corporate world, said among other interesting insights that knowledge is no longer an asset (esp. for us more seniors). It sounds like obvious statement when you read it but I would like to elaborate on the topic a bit more as I fully agree with this statement. Knowledge is no longer a power, a tool exclusive to the elders, because it's so massively and readily available at the tip of your fingers that EVERYONE has access to knowledge. And hey! Guess what!? Those Gen Z and A little rascals know how to use the AI tools to get to the knowledge better and faster than us. What we know, is ChatGPT and we're so enthusiastic and amazed by it, that we have no need to look any further for other new AI apps and tools, yet those younger clever-clogs probably already consider ChatGPT an old people's app (just like FB).

​

So while we gaze in awe and praise our own brilliance at how we've mastered ChatGPT, the younger know-it-alls will be yet again…2 steps ahead.

​

I am going to use an old term of Japanese manufacturing technique and apply it to Knowledge! Just In Time (JIT) knowledge. Since we have all this knowledge in the palm of our hands, perhaps we won't need to study a topic beforehand as much, we don't need to memorise so much stuff. If and when you need to remember something, find out more about something, learn about something, you just turn to your phone and BAM! There it is. And it's not just there as it was before...No more Google bibliography providing a long list of links to click on, no more browsing through pages and pages of websites hoping that somewhere on those webpages or articles, you'll find something relevant to what you're looking for. Instead, you get detailed executive summaries, analyses, graphs, videos getting right to the point, covering all your needs and curiosities in seconds.

​

So yes, I fully agree that knowledge is no longer a superpower. Which brings us to the burning question: What do we elders bring to the table? Experience one might say. Wisdom. Balance. You could argue that we are the strategists, the big thinkers, the critical thinkers, those who know how to connect the dots. We know what to do with the knowledge, because not just about having easy access to it, but it's knowing how to use it, leverage it and where and how to apply it.

​

Now, in the discussions I have with peers my age across different industries and sectors about Gen Z, there is a certain disappointment even disdain for this generation. A generation that may never turn up for the interview they agreed to have (ghosting), a generation who already from the first interview will ask about working hours, remote work and wellbeing benefits, who may turn you down because you're simply located too far away. Then those who do join the workforce speak a language we don't understand and communicate in a different way. And it seems to be a pervasive topic. You may have come across articles stating how many CEOs fire Gen Zs only months after hiring them.

​

As with every ageing generation, we tend to dismiss the younger generations as lacking something or other.

​

There's this meme that says 'A person who is 70kg on Earth, weighs 26.5 on Mars. So I'm not fat, I'm on the wrong planet'

​

So guess what? We think that Gen Z are fat, but they're not fat. They're on the wrong planet, and that planet is our 'old-school corporate world' (which is actually our current corporate world). It’s the wrong habitat for them. It's like throwing a fish in a forest and expecting it to survive.

​

In this old-school corporate world that we feel so comfortable in, we expect the younger generations to admire, look up and aspire to be like their seniors. To patiently observe, learn and gradually grow and evolve. We are expecting and demanding that they adapt to us. This is the exact process that you and I followed when we entered the corporate workplace a few decades ago. The elders led, we followed, learned and gradually grew to become yet another produce of the system.

However, the dynamics have now changed. Covid brought a seismic shift in the dynamics between employers and employees. Until Covid, it was always the employer who had the upper hand, the power. Covid, remote work and wellbeing not only shifted this dynamic but flipped it around. More often than not, in hiring interviews, it's now the interviewee choosing the employer and no longer the other way around.

​

Enter Gen Z (and soon Gen A). To add to this seismic shift in power dynamics, comes the arrival of Gen Z who on top of their demands around purpose, transparency, flexibility and all that great stuff, come with their tech savviness and built-in AI that makes them have the upper hand in today's world. At Microsoft we used to say that security features are built-in not bolt-on. That's exactly the difference between Gen X and Gen Z+. The new version of workforce2.0 have AI built-in, where we have to bolt it on, if we manage to do that at all!

​

So whereas when we entered the workforce we adapted to the corporate environment accepting it as it is without challenging it because we were actually in awe of it, now it's us (the 'boomers' as my kids call me) that have to adapt to the younger incoming generation. It's the technology stupid! They are a digital native generation that demands a workplace that uses AI to the core. If you were a 25 year old today and you were looking for a job and in the interview they told you that as a company '...No, we don't use AI, we don't have Co-Pilot and don't really use ChatGPT..' would you go? Hell no!

​

Our corporations are becoming mausoleums. Who on earth wants to work in a mausoleum? No wonder their ghosting us!

​

Now, sharing some more thoughts around our generational differences (Gen X vs. Gen Z) which I think are more augmented that any previous 2 generations:

Gen X and all the generations before us….we are truly hard core analogue. Our education and all our interactions with information, was predominantly through reading. Reading (and writing) are slooooowwww brain processes, and our brains have been wired accordingly. However, the digital native generation, those babies that were dumped on the high chair with a phone playing baby YouTube videos to keep them quiet while the parents enjoy their dinner, and whose world thereafter was dominated by audiovisual content and gaming, their brains work at lightening speeds compared to ours. Their brains have been processing billions and trillions bits of information not only at significantly higher speeds but at such early ages. So even though I am not a neurologist, I am sure that their brains are being rewired in a completely different way to ours. And the wider outcome and impact of this brain re-wiring remains to be seen. But here's an optimistic outcome: Did you know, that there is evidence suggesting that today's younger surgeons who used be gamers in their youth, may indeed have better hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills?

​

So for them, our world is a slowwwwww world. A boringly slow world. They are an information-impatient generation. No PSTN dial-up internet where the page downloads in 2-3 minutes. They want fast information now. They can only digest snippets of information, preferably in video format. And as an anolgue-turned-digital person, even I find that I lose patience easily when reading long articles that don't get to the point by the 2nd paragraph max.

​

So the way I see it, it's not a discussion about whether Gen Z is a better or worse generation, it's a generation with a completely different brain synapse wiring. This is for me, is the biggest divide between any 2 generations ever.

​

FInally, I believe it our duty as a responsible older generation to understand the complexities of their environment. They are an anxious generation (a term use by the author of the book of the same title, Jonathan Haidt…btw a very interesting read, highly recommended), an overwhelmed with information generation.

​

One of the many interesting points made in the book which I had never really thought about, is that this 'phone-based' generation is exposed to adult information (not adult content but adult information…adult content too but that's the point here) all at once and at a very young age. In our process of growing up, we were exposed to adult information or adult life let's say, gradually with the right content and information coming to us at the right age. We had information gatekeepers. Apart from this concept of being exposed to the right information at the right age, this gradual exposure also meant that we had time to process and digest. Now it's like BAM. Here's all the world's content, history and information in your face. (Among which is countless and pointless, even damaging information. But I won't get into that now as this is not the topic of this article).

​

Of course they're anxious, overwhelmed, confused and disorientated. So perhaps it is our duty to become their grounding force, their lighthouse, their compass.

To conclude: rather than whining about and so easily criticising this new generation, we should adapt the workplace to welcome and embrace these amazing, differently wired, new-age digital natives to allow them to show us the way forward.

 

 

(Does this mean I have to hire my kids? Oh shit....🤣)