63 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury 26 May \ on: What is your country’s cultural code for work? earth
I've really noticed this moving around from a generational perspective -- the younger folks I've hired need to be dealt with really differently from the older. Here's a caricature:
Older: grind and live for the company in order to make it big.
Younger: maintain their own identity, work is more to pay the bills.
So far so good -- it's a choice based on values. What isn't a choice based on values is that the younger folks often feel entitled to the same fruits of the older folks' strategy: they want to make it big, but figure it's their birthright or something. They eventually realize that the corporate world is not that concerned with their self-actualization, and then they get upset, and either leave, or languish.
Not sure if the ones who leave find greener pastures elsewhere. Not sure how it will play out for either group en-masse over time.
As you interact with your Gen Z employees, have you relied on any tried-and-tested ways to boost their motivation and maintain their focus on the job at hand?
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Half of it is the usual stuff, just more emphatically: find out what they care about, work with them to connect that to as much job-related tasks as possible. In white collar work it's almost always possible for a manager to find ways to do this because there are so many degrees of freedom. Most managers are inept, sadly.
The part that's unique to Millennial / Gen-Z is to gently get them to understand that the workplace doesn't exist simply to help them self-actualize. This is obvious to the point of absurdity for other demographics, but often a necessary caveat for this group.
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