Work Is Broken. Gen Z Can Help Fix It | Amanda Schneider | TED

I’d like to start with a little game of “would you rather”.

So I'm going to invite everyone to go ahead and stand up.

Alright.

Take money off the table.

Would you rather stay in the same job that you're in right now

for the rest of your career?

If so, you're going to go ahead and take a seat.

Or would you rather

change jobs every year from now until you retire?

If so, you're going to remain standing.

Some of you are looking at your coworkers right now.

(Laughter)

Alright.

Looks like around 60/40.

You guys can go ahead and take a seat.

So about 60/40,

with the majority preferring to stay in the same job.

Now Gen Z will make up 27 percent of the workforce by next year.

And when we ask them this same question,

the majority of them said that they would rather change jobs every year

from now until they retire.

While tenure, loyalty and longevity

have often been thought of as reasons to hire someone,

our Gen Zers thought,

"Would I rather build the collective insight

from multiple different companies,

or only deep insight from one company?"

I share this to highlight

just how differently from our traditional work norms

Gen Z sees the world.

And we have a choice.

We can ignore them,

we could study them to stereotype them,

but how did that work for all you millennials in the room?

I want to suggest, rather than stereotyping,

we look to Gen Z as prototypes to help us build a better future.

When we prototype something,

we keep the aspects that work,

and we iterate on those that don't.

Now I've spent my career researching

and writing about topics that matter to the world of workplace design

and the knowledge workers who inhabit those spaces.

If that's you or you manage a team of office workers,

I'm glad you're here,

because I want to argue that this topic, right now,

has never been more important.

In fact, I want to suggest that work is broken.

But don't worry, in the next 10 minutes, I'm going to take you on a journey

to understand why I say that and give us some inspiration,

some "what ifs" to fix it.

Now let's start with my story.

My father instilled in me a deep curiosity for the working world

when I was very young,

and my mother instilled in me a deep desire to become a mother.

I wanted to do both,

and I wanted to do them well.

And I was blessed with a phenomenal start to my career.

But then came my second desire.

I was blessed with my first son less than a decade into my career,

and the transition was really tough.

Here's why.

Most of my paycheck was going to daycare.

When we found out we were pregnant with our second son,

before we even called our parents,

we called the daycare only to discover that even with sibling priority,

he wouldn't have a spot until he was seven months old.

And I found myself,

because of the standard accepted 8 to 5 work hours,

I was waking my kids up to rush them to daycare,

to rush to work, to rush back, to pick them up,

to feed them dinner, to put them in bed.

We were spending more waking hours apart than together.

And I hit a moment where I asked myself,

"What's the point?"

And sadly, this is the moment many women like me leave the workforce.

But if we're honest,

I would guess, in the tumultuousness of the past four years,

many of you have also had your own "what's the point" moment.

So I'm going to invite you to close your eyes for just a minute.

When was your "what's the point" moment?

Alright, you can open your eyes, but keep that moment in mind

as I challenge that the norms our working world are built upon today

are based on outdated rules that no longer apply.

We still generally work banker’s hours,

a norm created when it was mostly men working

with stay-at-home wives.

And does anyone know why our kids have summers off?

Most believe it was so they could help with the harvest.

But today, our kids mostly aren't farming.

And our linear career paths

are built so that life peaks in your mid-career.

This is at the same time our duties caring for our elders

and caring for our children peak as well.

It's a recipe for burnout.

But here's the good news.

In the past four years,

we've seen a massive shift in how knowledge workers work.

Hybrid work is on the rise.

This is the perfect time to rethink norms for the next era.

And the solution in my research comes from looking at the youngest generation

in our midst.

Adam Grant calls this a "Vuja De" moment.

It's seeing things we've seen many times,

but with fresh eyes.

Now my research team and I have intensely studied Gen Z

and how their perceptions will affect the future of work.

Here are three of the most interesting things that we've learned.

Number one,

Gen Z is blind to their own physical-digital fluidity.

One of the most memorable moments in the research

was when we were talking about hybrid work,

and one of our young Gen Zers said, "Permission to speak freely."

I said, “Of course.”

He said,

"I'm sick of everyone talking about how hybrid is hard.

This isn't hard.

It's just how we work.

This is really a change management issue for you old people."

And as a Gen Xer, that stung a bit.

But if you think about it, Gen Z,

the earliest of whom graduated in 2019, just pre-pandemic,

hybrid isn't hard.

It's simply the air they breathe.

A fish doesn't know it's in water,

it's just swimming.

So let's get phygital.

That's physical plus digital.

Now contrary to popular belief, Gen Z doesn’t want to be fully remote.

They're also least likely to want to be five days a week in the office.

They seamlessly and naturally understand how to blend the two worlds.

So perhaps by studying them,

we can find clues that will help benefit the future of work for all of us.

And as we look at broader research,

most people actually care more

about when they work than where they work.

But if I do my best work at 4am

and you do your best work at 10pm,

to make that effective,

we have to develop new communication norms,

define core working hours for team interactions

and develop new ways of asynchronous working.

While most of us have likely never had this privilege,

the future of work starts with all of us looking deep

to clarify when and where we're most productive.

Number two,

Gen Z expects transparency.

You've likely heard about this from viral

and very public salary discussions on TikTok.

But we all were raised with the golden rule, right?

You all can say it with me,

treat others the way you want to be treated.

But as a working mother who appreciates hybrid flexibility,

to a Gen Zer,

who maybe has to go into the office five days a week

to escape a crowded roommate situation,

perhaps the new platinum rule should be

treat others the way they want to be treated,

not the way you want to be treated.

So let's find clarity through transparency.

We all know that clarity is kind.

And overall, in this five-star-rating world,

people want to know what will make them effective at your company.

It's OK for people to move on.

It's also OK for them to be clear

about what trade offs they will and won’t make for work and their lives.

But our companies must do the same.

My hope is, in the future,

companies have a range of options where some,

as their competitive advantage, are fully remote,

others, as their competitive advantage, are fully in-office.

And there's a range of options where majority of them exist in between.

The future of work will start

with companies boldly declaring their policies

to help all of us make better career matches.

Alright.

And number three, Gen Z insists on inclusion.

Managers can't do it all,

but they're often burdened feeling like they have to.

This can lead to implementation overload, where new ideas feel overwhelming.

All the while Gen Z is saying, “Put me in, coach,”

but they often don't know where to begin.

So let's engage new voices.

Now one of my favorite stories I’ve heard about this

is that of the Gucci shadow board.

In 2017, Gucci recognized that its sales were declining

as its core demographic was aging.

So they put in place a next-gen advisory board

to advise their senior leadership

on how to connect with the next generation

through product development and marketing initiatives.

The result was 136 percent sales growth

at the same time period

that their largest competitor declined almost 12 percent.

The future of work will start

with engaging new voices from new places,

but also all of us being open to hearing them,

even when they don't match what we previously believed to be true.

Now let's return to my story,

which obviously started well before Gen Z in the office was even a thing to study.

But I think you'll find some similarities.

Now in 2011, I left my traditional job

thinking it was a side step in my career.

By 2015, that sidestep was so successful

that we actually incorporated,

and I started hiring other working moms

that had left the traditional workforce for one reason or another.

This group of powerful women

effectively doubled our business

100 percent by word of mouth, year over year,

till ultimately, we were acquired in 2018

by the largest media brand in our industry.

And we were able to do this because we got phygital,

like Gen Z is expecting,

we blended synchronous and asynchronous work.

We found clarity through transparency.

Our work style and culture was not for everyone,

and some left us because of it.

But those retained were the best fit for our culture

and actually helped us build an even more authentic brand.

And finally, we stayed open to new ideas,

even when it didn't match what we previously believed to be true.

So what I'm most proud of

is although this was developed for a group of working mothers,

it grew to include an empty nester,

it also grew to include a single 40-year-old

and even a veteran, shifting its career.

We've proved success not only for those individuals,

but success for the business.

So I'll leave you with this.

Work, as we know it, is broken.

Gen Z can help us fix it.

But it will take all of us to make it happen.

Thank you.

(Applause)