Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / Breaking Gen Z Myths: What the Digital Generation Really Wants at Work (w/ Brian Elliott)

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Breaking Gen Z Myths: What the Digital Generation Really Wants at Work (w/ Brian Elliott) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome item change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Flower and Tom McGrath. Let's get into it.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Hello, change Makers, welcome back to the Deck Show. I'm
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Tom McGrath, joined as ever bite Tim Flower and let
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: me just break the fourth ward.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Tim.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: In one of those days we've done a lot of
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: recording we've done. This is our third show of the day,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: and not not to not to sound, but this is
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: a demanding thing. But one thing that one thing I
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: do find that happens when we're recording a lot in
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the course of a single day, to do the introductions
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: and I just rolled straight in there. Yeah, you know,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: just got like a boom bon boom. But I thought
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: for this one, for this one, the last of the
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: day and certainly, you know, arguably one of the best.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: No one will know what the other ones were. So
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: I was gonna say to.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Say that, you know, I thought I would stop and say,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: how you do?
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 0:52
  Speaker 5: Good time? I've talked to you what three or four
• 0:55
  Speaker 5: times today, and I feel like I haven't talked with you. Yeah,
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: World traveler, right, just got back from Australia. Great trip
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: down to Melbourne and Sydney, both our Decks events and
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: Gartner Symposium, then one day home and shot down to Dallas,
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: and next week is Nashville, and then it'll be Orlando
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: and Boston, and you know, a little bit of a
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: head could in between. I'm glad I'm home to it
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: for a bit of time to recover. But it's I
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: told everybody, it's the best job in the world. Being
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: able to jump around and and just talk with people.
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: It's really cool.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: I tell you, I'm jealous of the Nashville trip. I
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: wanted to see that place. Yeah, I always wanted to visit.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: It's a lot of fun.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Oh that was ladyship, that was that was our guest.
• 1:41
  Speaker 6: Cheating, cheating, and you as well, all over the place.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: So that's what happens when you record free, free, in
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: it free in a day, I think, but Hi, Hi, Brian,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: how are you.
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: I'm doing well? How are your tom?
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: I'm doing good. I'm doing good.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: And Brian is a co founder of his own advisory
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: fir Mkelliott Advisors, and he's also a writer of articles
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: and at least one book. Have a Future Works, which
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: explores how technology and innovation are shaping After you try
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: to say that's your from a work I've read Brian
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: that probably articulates the theme of much of your work.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Is that accurate? Would you say?
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: That's right? That's right.
• 2:18
  Speaker 6: I spent a lot of time working with executives and firms,
• 2:21
  Speaker 6: helping them understand trends when it comes to things like
• 2:25
  Speaker 6: workforce flexibility, technology, generational differences, and basically help them think,
• 2:31
  Speaker 6: you know, forward about how do we build organizations that
• 2:33
  Speaker 6: are better for not just organizational outcomes, but better for
• 2:37
  Speaker 6: the people that work in companies.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: And it is precisely that theme. I mean you mentioned
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: generational differences. It was precisely that theme that first caught
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: r I when we were looking at your work and
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: we enjoyed your writing on it, and we wanted to
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: talk to you a bit more about it, and we're
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: going to We're going to discuss today Generation z in
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: for workplace, which you know sometimes gets a bit of
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: a bit of a bad rap, right, sometimes gets a
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: bit maligned. I have to say, personally, I privileged to
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: call a lot of Generation Zia's colleagues. You know, I
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: think some really outstanding colleagues from that generation. I'm sure
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: you know you can't generalize in any direction too broadly, right,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: but from your perspective, Brian, what are some of the
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: major misconceptions about gen Z in the workplace today.
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: One of them is one that's basically gets slathered on
• 3:34
  Speaker 6: every single generation, which is kind of a kids these
• 3:38
  Speaker 6: days really don't want to work exactly. So I'm gen
• 3:42
  Speaker 6: X myself. Back in the oh my gosh, nineteen eighties nineties,
• 3:47
  Speaker 6: when I was coming into the workforce, we were known
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: as slackers, right. The boomers ahead of us didn't think
• 3:55
  Speaker 6: that much of us either. We then turned around and
• 3:57
  Speaker 6: thought the same thing about the millennials. And now this
• 4:01
  Speaker 6: is getting slitherered on top of gen Z as well.
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: You can actually trace back by the way headlines go
• 4:07
  Speaker 6: all the way back to Plato basically say, you know,
• 4:09
  Speaker 6: this next generation just doesn't have the work ethic that
• 4:11
  Speaker 6: we ad did.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, do you know what I was at an
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: assembly at school. The head teacher did in assembly and
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: he read out that famous quote, you know, and then
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: revealed at the end of it, but it.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: Was, you know, you know, two thousand years old basically.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: And but you know, you know, one thing you'd have
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: to acknowledge about gen Z, right, is that they've been
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: through some pretty significant events which will have inevitably shaped
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: their perception for world and their and their perception of work. Absolutely,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: pandemic stands out early exposure to digital tools as well.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: How do you think define their expectations around work in
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: the workplace?
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah, where I was going to go next on this,
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: to some degree is exactly that, which is, it's not
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: true that they don't that they don't want to work
• 5:06
  Speaker 6: as a group. It is true that they have different expectations,
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: They have a different desire from a work life balance perspective.
• 5:12
  Speaker 6: They also are in a generation that has higher anxiety
• 5:15
  Speaker 6: and higher stress and if you think about sort of
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: the impact on them of social media, of the pandemic,
• 5:23
  Speaker 6: and at least you know, in the States where I
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: operate gun violence in schools, this is a generation that's
• 5:29
  Speaker 6: had a lot of stressors put on it throughout the course,
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: you know, of its entire existence. Anothery're coming into the
• 5:37
  Speaker 6: workforce at a time when the economy is not booming
• 5:39
  Speaker 6: in the same way that it was. They themselves were
• 5:42
  Speaker 6: you know, sort of traumatized in some cases by the
• 5:44
  Speaker 6: pandemic itself, and so we should expect that they're going
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: to have some challenges in terms of how they adopt
• 5:51
  Speaker 6: and show up in the workplace itself, and the support
• 5:56
  Speaker 6: that we need to provide them in terms of mentoring
• 5:58
  Speaker 6: and coaching, but also just really engaging and listening to
• 6:02
  Speaker 6: them and understanding their own perspective.
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: And Brian, I love the title of your book, How
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: the Future Works. I think it's a compelling title to
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: dig into and read more. But you explore how technology
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: enabled flexible work. I think the reverse is also true.
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: Flexible work forced the issue. Technology had to work, and
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: it needed to be accepted and it needed to be
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: in the functioning is a little bit different than having
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: the right capacity. You need the bandwidth to be able
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: for all the technology to function. In general, how do
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: you think gen Z has adapted differently to the tools
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: that they need to use compared to other generations, especially
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: for those in management positions. There's typically a generation gap
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: when you move from an individual contributor to management. So
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: I'm curious how the different generations are adapting.
• 6:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a huge set of challenges and differences there,
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: right because gen Z, but also millennials are digital natives.
• 7:00
  Speaker 6: They grew up with an iPhone or an Android phone
• 7:03
  Speaker 6: in their hands. They are very used to conducting and
• 7:08
  Speaker 6: building and maintaining relationships digitally as well as you know,
• 7:12
  Speaker 6: in real life. And for those of us that are older,
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: that have kind of grown into these tools over time,
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: that just feels very unfamiliar. And I think it's one
• 7:20
  Speaker 6: of the reasons why you see some of the gaps
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: between managers and younger generations when it comes to things
• 7:27
  Speaker 6: like a return to office, because.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: Two factors.
• 7:32
  Speaker 6: One, there's a lot of misconceptions about what gen Z wants.
• 7:36
  Speaker 6: Even in that realm, they're not the ones that want
• 7:39
  Speaker 6: to be fully remote. Matter of fact, gen Z is
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: least likely to want to be on either end of
• 7:43
  Speaker 6: the spectrum. They don't want to be full time in
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: the office. They don't want to be fully remote. They want,
• 7:47
  Speaker 6: you know, a couple of days a week, but they
• 7:49
  Speaker 6: want it for socialization and mentorship. Older generations kind of
• 7:53
  Speaker 6: grapple with us more. They're more likely to be at
• 7:55
  Speaker 6: either end of the extremes. But also older generations of leaders,
• 8:00
  Speaker 6: specifically folks like me who grew up building culture by
• 8:07
  Speaker 6: walking around the halls of offices, by conducting all hands
• 8:11
  Speaker 6: literally going from city to city. Sometimes when your teams
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: who are distributed just aren't used to thinking about the
• 8:17
  Speaker 6: role of digital tools in building connection. We think about
• 8:21
  Speaker 6: the digital tools as productivity tools, right, It's the way
• 8:23
  Speaker 6: that you send a memo, but it's not the way
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: that you really connect with people. Younger generations get it.
• 8:28
  Speaker 6: They understand that both things are important. I want to
• 8:31
  Speaker 6: meet people in real life, owner break bread with people.
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  Speaker 6: I want to get to know you. But we can
• 8:35
  Speaker 6: have a very active social life and conversation through the
• 8:40
  Speaker 6: digital platforms that we use at work. And there's just
• 8:43
  Speaker 6: a lot that leaders could learn from younger generations about
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  Speaker 6: what that looks like, what that feels like, and how
• 8:49
  Speaker 6: to do that. That actually ends up being critically important
• 8:51
  Speaker 6: when you think about the fact that any company past
• 8:54
  Speaker 6: any minimum scale is distributed across cities and countries. So
• 8:58
  Speaker 6: as a leader, if you really want to engage your workforce,
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: you're gonna have to play both an in person role
• 9:03
  Speaker 6: and a digital to do so.
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: And you touched on something there that I think is
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: worth a little more conversation, the concept of or the
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: need for socialization and mentorship. I grew my career on
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: both parts, right, especially the mentorship feedback loops, both giving
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: and receiving feedback, connecting with people. I'm gen X as well,
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: and it's important to me. But there are also times
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: just leave me alone. I need to go and be
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: my own place, right. I don't want that, but when
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: there's a need, it needs to be there. Hybrid work
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: can sometimes impede that it may not fit the right schedule.
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: I'm curious how companies can actually design a hybrid strategy
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: that takes that into account, that meets those needs.
• 9:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, what I've seen work really effectively is to have
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: this conversation not happen at the top level or completely
• 9:54
  Speaker 6: at individual's discretion, but to find the spot in the
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: middle that's the sweet spot, and that usually is actually
• 9:59
  Speaker 6: at the team level. So you'll get functions that figure
• 10:03
  Speaker 6: out sort of what the guidelines are for a part
• 10:05
  Speaker 6: sub part of the organization. Because, for example, the needs
• 10:08
  Speaker 6: of sales teams can be very different from engineering teams.
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: If you are a team of junior salespeople, there's a
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: lot more value in having people together a lot more consistently. Right,
• 10:19
  Speaker 6: So three days a week together where people are doing
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: calls to customers in the same space so they can
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: ask each other questions and bounce ideas off of one
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: another can be really beneficial. From an engineering perspective, it's actually,
• 10:33
  Speaker 6: you know a job that often people want more isolation,
• 10:36
  Speaker 6: more heads down time, more separate time, and so you
• 10:39
  Speaker 6: might figure out that for that team, the right answer
• 10:41
  Speaker 6: actually is one week a month, one you come together
• 10:44
  Speaker 6: to talk about what the goals are for the next quarter,
• 10:48
  Speaker 6: how we did in the last month, And importantly you
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: spend a sizeable portion of that time just on socialization,
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: right meals together, deeper conversations and getting to know one another.
• 11:01
  Speaker 6: From a mentorship perspective though specifically and coaching, we all
• 11:06
  Speaker 6: know those moments happen irregularly in the feedback is best
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: if it's actually in the moment. The trick behind all
• 11:13
  Speaker 6: that is, in order for me to have a great
• 11:16
  Speaker 6: feedback conversation with a salesperson, I don't necessarily have to
• 11:20
  Speaker 6: be sitting in the same room because, for example, the
• 11:22
  Speaker 6: customer probably isn't these days. Either it's probably a session
• 11:26
  Speaker 6: that we've done with a customer over zoom, or it's
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: been you know, a call or a presentation. It's quite
• 11:32
  Speaker 6: easy then to say, great, now that the meeting is over,
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: let's hop on a call. And literally you can do
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: this with a phone call and say, hey, let's go
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: over what did you hear? What did I hear? What
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: would I have done differently in your situation when the
• 11:46
  Speaker 6: customer is objecting to X, or Y or Z. And
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: so what's really most material is that in order to
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: coach people and to train them, this doesn't happen through
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: regular scheduled events. It actually happens through through feedback that
• 12:01
  Speaker 6: is timely and actionable and in the moment. And you
• 12:05
  Speaker 6: can do that in any variety of mediums. It's more
• 12:08
  Speaker 6: important that you think about how you make sure it
• 12:10
  Speaker 6: is timely and actionable than it is whether or not
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: you're sitting side by side.
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: To do it right. So let's flip from the individual
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: humans or human connection to a different topic, and maybe
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: an exercise for me and Tom to go back and
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: look at our episodes. I'm sure we've got some kind
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: of a record set where we mentioned AI. It wouldn't
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: be a deck show without mentioning AI. What what do
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: you think the challenges are or even some of the
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: opportunities for gen z the in the topic of AI
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: leveraging it both for skills development, work culture learning. Where
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: do you see AI fitting into the modern workplace?
• 12:47
  Speaker 6: It's a huge opportunity, but also right now, it's a
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: huge challenge for people. And I'll give you an example
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: of how some of these same techniques might apply when
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: it's describing how teams need to figure out what their
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: patterns are for working in person, why we get together,
• 13:01
  Speaker 6: and what we do when we're together. The same is
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: true when it comes to generative AI. What's happening today
• 13:06
  Speaker 6: in too many organizations is management hands out the tools
• 13:10
  Speaker 6: and says we expect you.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: All to use these to.
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: Get more productive, right, And there's not a lot of
• 13:15
  Speaker 6: support or training being given to people. There's not a
• 13:18
  Speaker 6: lot of room for experimentation. But there's also not even
• 13:22
  Speaker 6: the conversation as a team that says what's acceptable use
• 13:26
  Speaker 6: and what's not. Is this okay for me to use
• 13:29
  Speaker 6: it this way or not? Here's a specific thing about
• 13:32
  Speaker 6: gen Z. They also don't tend to ask for help.
• 13:35
  Speaker 6: They're less likely than past generations to go to their
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: manager and say I need help with this. And so
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: what can happen, especially when you think about giving them
• 13:43
  Speaker 6: generative AI tools, is they may sit there and say,
• 13:46
  Speaker 6: I'm not sure if the way I'm using this is acceptable.
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: So either I'm not going to use it at all,
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: or I'm going to use it and not tell anybody
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: because I'm afraid that I'm going to get in trouble.
• 13:57
  Speaker 6: Either one of those is risky from a team respective
• 14:00
  Speaker 6: and certainly from an individual perspective, because you may not
• 14:03
  Speaker 6: know if your application is right or not. So the
• 14:06
  Speaker 6: better solution here is to actually have the conversation as
• 14:09
  Speaker 6: a team to talk about, Hey, I'm using this to
• 14:12
  Speaker 6: create you know, the first draft of a report, or
• 14:16
  Speaker 6: I'm using this to create you know, the draft of
• 14:18
  Speaker 6: an email out to a customer. Those are both going
• 14:21
  Speaker 6: to seem acceptable to most people. But let's talk it out.
• 14:23
  Speaker 6: Is it acceptable for me to use it to respond
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: to a memo from my boss? Do people think that's okay?
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: You can kind of take this to the further extreme
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: of like what's socially acceptable use of technology. I think
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: most people reacted to Google's AI created letter from your
• 14:42
  Speaker 6: child to the Olympian and said, Wow, that's just weird.
• 14:45
  Speaker 6: You know, we wouldn't do that. That example sort of
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: still fits in the workplace.
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: So Brian a little bit different topic, but I think
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: it probably applies to pretty much any younger generation as
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: they've kind of matured through through the years, years and
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: through the workforce. I'm curious about expectations for a long time,
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: we as employees have a real strong expectation about how
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: things should work based on our experience with consumer technology.
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: Especially everyone turns to the iPhone, it just works right,
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: it doesn't there are no failures there. I'm curious in
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: your thoughts about technology and especially the employee experience shaping
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: gen Z's expectation for workplace tools and technology. Is there
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: in this generation, gen Z, is there actually less patience
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: for tech failures. I'm curious how you think companies can
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: assure ensure that their digital environment meets the expectations of
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: the emerging generations.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:45
  Speaker 6: I think that that started showing up already with millennials
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: even before gen Z.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: Right. Think about it this way.
• 15:50
  Speaker 6: If you were somebody that grew up with an iPhone
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: in your pocket, and you grew up with a set
• 15:54
  Speaker 6: of applications that were high quality from a consumer perspective,
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: if you show up at work and you're used to using,
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: you know, the Jetson's tools.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: This is going to age me.
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: Also, I'm used to using the Jetson's tools at home,
• 16:06
  Speaker 6: but you get handed something from the flintstones at work,
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: your reaction is probably not going to be terribly positive, right,
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: And that happens a lot in organizations that are you know, larger,
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: that have been around for decades, where the back office
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: tools in particular are just really creaky and painful and
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: hard to use, and it ends up in you know,
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: wasted time. And there's just a lack of tolerance from
• 16:31
  Speaker 6: younger generations for that because they know there are much
• 16:34
  Speaker 6: better experiences out there and much better ways to build
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: those types of experiences as opposed to relying on you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 6: antiquated technology to do it. So you will get people
• 16:44
  Speaker 6: that want to drift into organizations that use those those tools.
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: I worked at Slack for a number of years. I
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: was actually an our developer platform.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: There.
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: There were organizations that adopted Slack because they knew it
• 16:56
  Speaker 6: was a way to recruit talent. Target a large retailer
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: in the US. One of the first places they started
• 17:04
  Speaker 6: using Slack was with their technology team, but it was
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: also in their recruiting organization because they knew that engineers
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: who saw them using Slack and interacting through Slack would think, Okay,
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: this is a more modern organization, and it was a
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: way to lure that talent in. So I think this
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: ends up mattering a lot at the end of the day.
• 17:22
  Speaker 6: I also think this is back to the.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: Perspective that.
• 17:25
  Speaker 6: One of the things that we did our Future Form,
• 17:28
  Speaker 6: the think tank that I ran for a few years,
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: surveyed ten thousand office workers around the globe every quarter
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: for three years. One of the things that we found
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: is that companies that invested not just in modern tools
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: but in training to teach people how to use them
• 17:42
  Speaker 6: didn't just have higher productivity scores. They had had higher
• 17:45
  Speaker 6: scores around topics like sense of belonging inside of their
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: teams because people were finding ways to use those digital
• 17:54
  Speaker 6: tools to bridge gaps between teams and organizations. And I've
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: got some good stories from what I've seen work in
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: that realm as well.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: There's definitely a kind of paradox, it seems to me,
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Brian around gen Z with regards to the whole notion
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: of hybrid work.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: On the one hand, you know, they're young still, they
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: want community, they need mentorship, and these kinds of things are.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: More easily attained in person, arguably.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: And yet I hope it doesn't feel like a sort
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: of a general and unfair generalization to say. But when
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: certain organizations, when they start to push for a return
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: to office, they will often find the most resistance from
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: younger employees. And I wonder if you see some tension
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: between what gen Z perhaps wants and needs from employers
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: in this area.
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that tension and that reaction to a
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: mandate is actually broader than just the younger generations. There's
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: actually some interesting research out there that shows part the
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: issue is just a man in the first place. People
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: have a natural reaction to a mandate, which is is
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: this thing called Reactan's theory, which says you're telling me
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: explicitly what to do in a way that makes me
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: feel like you're treating me like a child not an adult.
• 19:12
  Speaker 6: Therefore you have an adverse reaction to it. In particular,
• 19:17
  Speaker 6: we all know that when organizations do the top down
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: command and there's not a good reason why behind it,
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: like a data driven reason why behind it, then people
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: get even more ticked off. To be blunt, what you
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: can see though, is ways in which you can bridge
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: those gaps. So I've actually worked with organizations that have
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: done things like figured out it's not the younger generation
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: that actually has the biggest challenge. It's actually the people
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: a level or two.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: Ahead of them.
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: More often, people who are ten years into their career.
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: They may be frontline managers, but they also may have
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: a very different situation at home. They have children that
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: are younger, and so therefore the pressure to come in
• 19:57
  Speaker 6: is going to disrupt more for them. There's a bridge
• 20:01
  Speaker 6: point that you can find for those folks between the
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: younger and older generations, though, which is, let's pick a
• 20:07
  Speaker 6: couple of days a week that are our anchor days.
• 20:10
  Speaker 6: Let's focus on specifically what types of activities we do
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: during those days that are more beneficial to all of us,
• 20:17
  Speaker 6: which can include things like you know again, I'll use
• 20:20
  Speaker 6: a sales team as an example, the pipeline review right
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: of what's coming up, but also importantly a lunch and
• 20:27
  Speaker 6: learn you know, brand bag session, the manager holding open
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: office hours to allow people to come in, and then
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: also doing things like show and tell. We expect the
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: junior staff on the team to do practice sessions of
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: pitches and receive feedback. Those types of activities people will
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: look at, both managerially and individually and say, okay, I
• 20:50
  Speaker 6: get it. Those two days are worth the commute. I'm
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: going to get more out of being in person for
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: doing them. And if you lay it out that way,
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: it actually goes down a lot easier than if it's
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: simply a memo from the CEO that says three days
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: a week is the answer. Everybody needs to do it because.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: And you know, burnout is a big kind of buzzword
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: of the moment. But I do think that there is
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: something particularly exacting about continuous digital work, particularly in the
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: hybrid kind of work era, where kind of what hybrid
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: has done, I think, Brian, tell me if you agree,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: is it's kind of unfastened work from its old parameters. Right,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: used to be nine to five, and if it went
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: beyond five, you were very conscious of how long it
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: went beyond five. Once everybody can work from anywhere, work
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: kind of pervades everything in a sense, and you know,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: what can what can organizations do to protect gen Z
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: from the kind of consequences of that kind of work environment.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, in general, yeah, unfortunate.
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: Having worked in the technology industry myself for twenty five years,
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: I feel like I've been untethered from the nine to
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: five for about two decades. We tend to be the
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: first to adopt new tools, but also the first to
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: sort of blur those boundaries between work and home. The
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: best thing that you can do is actually have the
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: conversation as a team about what those boundaries should look
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: like and how we put them in place. And some
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: of this can be really simple exercises. So a conversation
• 22:28
  Speaker 6: that I encourage people to have with their own teams
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: is what are our standard expected working hours. One of
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: the challenges that people have, especially in hybrid work, is
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: teams might be distributed across multiple time zones. Making sure
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: that you're really clear what hours we're going to hold
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: for each other. To have meetings in one on ones
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: and conversations is important. So that might be for example,
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: I had a team where we did this from ten
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: am in the morning till two o'clock in the afternoon
• 22:55
  Speaker 6: Mondays through Thursdays, whether you're on the West Coast or
• 22:58
  Speaker 6: East Coast of North America, expected to be available. That
• 23:01
  Speaker 6: means you schedule your doctor's appointments outside of those hours,
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: you pick up the kids, and deal with things outside
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: of those hours. In those hours, we commit to each
• 23:09
  Speaker 6: other and the other side of it. Because work can
• 23:12
  Speaker 6: bleed into everywhere is what are the boundary conditions? What
• 23:16
  Speaker 6: are the types of things that can cause an outside
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: of work hours escalation? Right, it's a something broke, it's
• 23:24
  Speaker 6: a customer emergency, there's an event coming up that just
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: went sideways on us. We will we will contact you. Then, second,
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: what tool we use to do it? Because no one
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: wants to have to monitor slack end teams and zoom
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: and email and their text messages. If it's an urgent
• 23:42
  Speaker 6: need outside of work hours, we will text.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: You, was our general rule.
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: And if you do that then it's much easier to
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: say to people, you know, figure out when you do
• 23:51
  Speaker 6: work on your own schedule, but you should feel free
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: to turn off notifications outside those hours, except for the
• 23:57
  Speaker 6: one tool we just said we'll use to notify you
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: if something is really urgent. So that, I think that
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: kind of boundary condition is helpful. The other side is
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: a more personal lesson that I learned. I'm one of
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: those leaders that always said, you know, I work weird hours,
• 24:12
  Speaker 6: crazy hours at times, and I would always say, look,
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: I'm sending this at nine or ten o'clock at night,
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: but don't worry. I don't expect a response tonight I'm
• 24:22
  Speaker 6: just getting it out of my inbox. And luckily one
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: of my co authors, Sheila, said to me, at one
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: point in time, you know that doesn't work right? You
• 24:32
  Speaker 6: send that out at nine or ten o'clock at night.
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: I happen to also be working. I see it in
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: my inbox. I now have a choice. Do I address
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: it now or do I spend all night thinking about it.
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: So we all want to treat people as adults, but
• 24:46
  Speaker 6: as a leader, you're much better off using things like
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: scheduled send in email or in slacker in teams. If
• 24:53
  Speaker 6: it's not that important, why send it tonight? Why not
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: just queue it up and send it out in the morning.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Say you in point I have to say, and you
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: know that we've kind of mainly addressed you know, zoomers
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: as a as a challenge to the state as quote.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: But you know, let's look forward because one day they'll
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: veil forge and form their own status quote work, and
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: it will have its own positives and negatives, no doubt.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: What do you think that will look like long term?
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: And what the leaders and companies prepare for.
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: These are very purpose there's driven this for the anxiety,
• 25:31
  Speaker 6: for all the anxiety and stress nature of gen Z.
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: They are also very purpose driven. They are also very
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: committed and hard working when they believe in something and
• 25:40
  Speaker 6: in a cause which is actually wonderful and something to
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: tap into. The Other aspect that can be really beneficial
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: is thinking about them right now in terms of how
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: they can provide reverse mentoring. So, especially when you think
• 25:52
  Speaker 6: about them as digital natives, our opportunity to learn from
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: them how to build digital community and how to do
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: that at work in a way that feels appropriate and
• 26:01
  Speaker 6: reasonable is also a way in which we can actually
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: tap what they're capable of doing right now in a
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: way that a lot of us, says, especially Gen X
• 26:10
  Speaker 6: and boomers, aren't quite equipped to lead.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, I agree with. I agree with the generalizations.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Actually, you know my personal experience that they are they
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: are very purpose driven and as well as kind of
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: a little lovely anxious sided For any zoomers listening, you know,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: one day you'll look at Generation Alpha, which is the
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: one coming next, and you'll think, oh my goodness, you know,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: and you'll have all kinds of generalizations and issues with them. So,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: you know, so it goes from Plato to to today.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Am I right?
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: Brian that's right, that's right.
• 26:46
  Speaker 6: They'll they'll look at them and say, kids, these days
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: they're not doing it the way we did it.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: It's never ending cycle and long may it rain. So Brian,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: wonderful topic, wonderful writing. And please tell the audience where
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: they can find you and follow you, etc.
• 27:03
  Speaker 6: I am on LinkedIn. You can find me there, Brian
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: Elliott and Tom and Tim.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: Thanks very much. It's been a wonderful conversation with it too.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Good stuff, Brian, Thank you, fantastic, Thank you.
• 27:15
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