In his book, 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People, David Yeager looks beyond the existing workplace and considers the experiences of young graduates and Gen Z employees:
Millions of new graduates, after spending years in college with total control over their time, entered a mostly work-from-home workforce during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. They needed a mentor-mindset manager. They rarely got one. When I interviewed dozens of Gen Z employees for this book, I heard about managers’ apathetic mindsets. The new hires reported that their managers neglected them for months, then fired them for underperformance. Many managers practiced extreme enforcer mindsets, even mandating nanny-cam software to track employee productivity so that they could punish truants. Derisive CEOs such as Elon Musk accused at-home employees of pretending to work.
While some of us may (rightly) believe that the issue is more complex, the ramifications are very real—for Gen Z and for you. Recently, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have also examined similar stories in the workplace. What have you observed of Gen Z employees?