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Speaker 1: The money show business unusual.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure you've seen in many of the offices

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Speaker 2: that you work in that so many of the people

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Speaker 2: you work with now are much younger. And we've heard

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Speaker 2: on this show before and had a discussion about how

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Speaker 2: the gap between the parents of today and the children

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Speaker 2: of today has probably never been greater. In other words,

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Speaker 2: no other one generation following the other has had such

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Speaker 2: a big gap between them because of cell phones and

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Speaker 2: because of social media. But is there something really changing?

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Speaker 2: Is it a one off? Are we seeing Is it

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Speaker 2: true that young people, you know, something you hear all

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Speaker 2: the time, just don't want to work. I sort of

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Speaker 2: put that in inverted commas deliberately Adreta and I do

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Speaker 2: is the Africa MD at Jack Hammick Global Advita, Good evening.

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Speaker 2: I'm not a part of the conversations younger people have

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Speaker 2: about older people, only part of the conversations older people

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Speaker 2: have about younger people. And you keep hearing the same

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Speaker 2: thing sensitive, Oh, they don't work, or they come to

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Speaker 2: work later, or they're always looking at their screen. Is

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Speaker 2: this just the older generation being the older generation?

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Speaker 1: I think that every generation does that to the one

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Speaker 1: succeeding it, but to be fair, I think there's probably

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Speaker 1: something genuinely different here with gen Z in the workplace,

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Speaker 1: and it's probably not directly generational, but probably more contextual

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Speaker 1: if we think about it. They enter the workforce during

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Speaker 1: or close to a pandemic which destabilized the social contract

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Speaker 1: of work for all of us. But importantly, their parents

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Speaker 1: or their role models were probably burning out inside organizations

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Speaker 1: that weren't always displaying loyalty to them. And they also

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Speaker 1: came of a professional age where there was much higher

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Speaker 1: informational transparency and they could see what companies actually valued

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Speaker 1: versus what they say their value. So yes, definitely, I

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Speaker 1: think there are some ways in which they may be

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Speaker 1: perceived to be entitled or a little bit lazy or sensitive.

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Speaker 1: But they're just exercising different boundaries than their generational predecessors

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Speaker 1: in relation to the informational cues that they're getting, and

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Speaker 1: I think that surprises organizations and probably feels quite uncomfortable.

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Speaker 2: Sure, I never thought of it like that, because I mean,

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Speaker 2: one of the phrases you hear that seems to be

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Speaker 2: related to the generation we're talking about is the phrase

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Speaker 2: quiet quitting. Now, people of my generation will will often

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Speaker 2: with pride say when I was young, I worked hard.

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Speaker 2: I did this and you know, I worked all the

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Speaker 2: hours in the day, and they see anything less than

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Speaker 2: that is quiet quitting.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, completely, And look, I think the contextual clues matter,

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Speaker 1: or the context in which you have grown up professionally

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Speaker 1: probably matters. But a lot of the research shows that

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Speaker 1: a lot of the disengaged employees were in fact all

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Speaker 1: the millennials and gen X workers people probably mid career

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Speaker 1: and mid disillusion method. But the difference was that gen

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Speaker 1: Z brought visibility to this conversation. They talked about more,

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Speaker 1: especially online. They named it, and suddenly this behavior, the

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Speaker 1: quiet quitting that it existed in organizations for probably for

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Speaker 1: a while, had something of a hashtag. And I think

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Speaker 1: looking and why they disengage's probably quite important. It's very specific.

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Speaker 1: They feel uncareful by a manager, they don't have a

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Speaker 1: sense of belonging, they can't see a future at the company.

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Speaker 1: And so for me, as somebody who's in the people

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Speaker 1: consulting space, I don't see these as motivational issues or

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Speaker 1: not wanting to do hard work. I see these as

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Speaker 1: relational issues. Did the company hold up its end of

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Speaker 1: the deal? And when you frame it that way, I

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Speaker 1: think the disengagement kind of makes more sense.

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Speaker 2: I mean, there's a fundamental difference here is that. And

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Speaker 2: I have no mandate to speak for my generation. But

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Speaker 2: I don't think I can hold my employer responsible for

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Speaker 2: my mental health. I can hold them responsible for acts

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Speaker 2: that are cruel or abusive towards me. That I can

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Speaker 2: absolutely do, and trust me on this I will. But

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Speaker 2: to say, well, well, they didn't take steps because they

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Speaker 2: didn't notice Stephen was suffering from depression or a mental

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Speaker 2: health episode, I mean that is something that's kind of

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Speaker 2: foreign to me. I mean, I'm not saying it's healthy.

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Speaker 2: I'm just saying it seems it's quite a foreign concept.

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Speaker 1: I agree, But I think there's research that shows that

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Speaker 1: mental well being has remained at its post pandemic lows

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Speaker 1: with no recovery options in sight. But the link between

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Speaker 1: mental health and productivity is actually the business of imperative.

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Speaker 1: And so when I speak to leaders, I say high

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Speaker 1: stress reduces cognitive capacity, it reduces decision making quality and

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Speaker 1: problem solving ability, which then can't be seen as a

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Speaker 1: wellness conversation. It has to be a performance one. So

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Speaker 1: gen Z arguably being the first generation to grow up

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Speaker 1: with the language of mental health. It's just articulating the

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Speaker 1: issues better. They're not absorbing the pain in the same

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Speaker 1: way that you know the older generation did. They're not

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Speaker 1: being fragile. So we have to look at the business

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Speaker 1: case for taking this seriously, because the cost of replacing

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Speaker 1: a mid level employee somewhere between half to twice there

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Speaker 1: and or salary, So like investing in psychological safety is

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Speaker 1: actually cheap by comparison.

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Speaker 2: No, sure, the issue of flexibility, and I mean this

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Speaker 2: gets to another thing. Oh never at work, in time

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Speaker 2: or in my day, I came an hour earlier, and

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Speaker 2: I mean you know I did. And this is also

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Speaker 2: about being actually at the office where you can see

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Speaker 2: what someone is doing, and you know older people like that.

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Speaker 2: Is this is there a generational aspect to this, and

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Speaker 2: I mean tied to that. I think older people are

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Speaker 2: sort of can't wait to get away from the screen.

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Speaker 2: It's not like that for younger people who've grown up

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Speaker 2: with it. And that is a fundamental difference. It must be.

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Speaker 2: It is.

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Speaker 1: And I think you and I have spoken about this before,

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Speaker 1: and I know you hang on to every conversation we have,

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Speaker 1: so like that there's the caveat that as somebody who's

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Speaker 1: early in your career, you should want to be in

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Speaker 1: the office. You should want to learn at the knee

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Speaker 1: or the laptop of somebody who's done it all before.

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Speaker 1: Because it's not just learning content, it's learning leadership. It's

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Speaker 1: learning decision making capability, how things happen in real time.

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Speaker 1: But I think it is much bigger than gen Z,

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Speaker 1: but gen Z is where it's most acutely felt. The

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Speaker 1: return to offer office mandates are quite a fascinating case

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Speaker 1: study in leadership because the gap between what leaders say

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Speaker 1: and what they actually value is pretty big. And when

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Speaker 1: organizations calime to be data driven, the decision to mandate

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Speaker 1: five days in the office doesn't support that because productivity

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Speaker 1: data in favor of flexible work is quite favorable. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's higher performance, there's better well being. So what's actually

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Speaker 1: driving the return to office is in a lot of

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Speaker 1: cases managerial anxiety at this unfair conflation of visibility with productivity,

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Speaker 1: and that's something that needs to be looked at. So, yes,

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Speaker 1: being in the office is very good for learning opportunities,

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Speaker 1: but at the same time there needs to be a balance.

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Speaker 2: I mean, leaders of officers, CEOs and all the rest

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Speaker 2: tend to be older. The people who make the decisions

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Speaker 2: about who's employed. How do they manage younger people differently?

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Speaker 2: And I wonder sometimes if the the the divide between

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Speaker 2: the two groups can be so big that older people

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Speaker 2: are actually going to try and employ older people where

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Speaker 2: they can someone like me, if you know what I mean,

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Speaker 2: which actually would be a terrible thing to do, be

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Speaker 2: a terrible outcome. But I do wonder if that those

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Speaker 2: thoughts go through people, because in an interview they'll understand

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Speaker 2: each other.

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Speaker 1: That is so true, And I mean, I guess that's

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Speaker 1: another bias that we need to look at it. We

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Speaker 1: can't claim it's an unconscious bias once we speak it

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Speaker 1: out loud. But you are seeing that in a lot

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Speaker 1: of companies. There are companies that are raising the retirement age.

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Speaker 1: There's been a researcher I just read today to say

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Speaker 1: that a lot of South Africans aren't ready for a

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Speaker 1: retirement at the age of sixty or sixty three. And

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's what companies are considering when they're

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Speaker 1: raising the retirement age. There probably is something of you know,

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Speaker 1: like understands like but in order like there's also a

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Speaker 1: tendency to say suck it up, but a cup, But actually,

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Speaker 1: this is the future of the workforce and the people

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Speaker 1: who are approaching historical retirement age. Now we should be

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Speaker 1: protecting the people who are coming up in the ranks

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Speaker 1: because they are are the future.

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Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Advita, so much to talk about with

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Speaker 2: this advert, Advita, I is the Africa MDA jack Hammer

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Speaker 2: Global