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4 WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM GEN Z WORKERS  
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Sonali Kolhatkar
October 1, 2024
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_ Gen Z is left to deal with massive systemic failures—climate
change, pandemics, and genocide—as individuals. Why are we shocked
then that they are prioritizing their own physical and mental health?
No one else is doing so. _

, smallcurio – CC BY 2.0

 

My oldest born is a high school junior, taking his first steps into
the hypercompetitive and bewildering world of undergraduate college
applications and future careers. So, I was drawn to a recent headline
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Fortune proclaiming, “Bosses Are Firing Gen Z Grads Just Months
After Hiring Them—Here’s What They Say Needs to Change.” The
story covers a new study
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hiring trends among employers and rather than examine what employers
need to do to attract and retain new graduates—generous salaries,
good benefits, work-life balance, creativity, and job security—it
was a diatribe against new graduates.

Not only do employers
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young people of a “lack of motivation or initiative,” they
complain that they are “late to work and meetings often, not wearing
office-appropriate clothing, and using language appropriate for the
workspace.”

Nowhere in the story is it mentioned that the class of 2024 entered as
freshmen the year the world shut down. The COVID-19 pandemic and its
resultant lockdowns impacted
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people disproportionately. At a time in their lives when social
interaction was just as important as academic work, if not more, they
were forced to isolate, albeit for good reason. But their mental
health suffered and we as a society made no systemic effort to address
it. Instead, they were left to their own devices, to care for their
mental health, and to sort out their attitudes toward work and
careers.

Also, nowhere in the story is there an acknowledgment of the fact that
young people’s futures have been sacrificed on the altar of
corporate oil profits. As the world burns
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faces storms
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as catastrophic climate forecasts
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Gen Z’s future, society demands they sport good attitudes and behave
as though nothing is wrong and no mass intervention is needed to
rectify the situation. Instead, Gen Z has to face climate devastation
as individuals.

What the Fortune story
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the study of newly graduated employees _does_ mention is how schools
are trying to prepare kids for the corporate grind, citing one high
school in London that “is trialing a 12-hour school day to prepare
pupils for adult life.” This is shared with no sense of irony about
the fact that workdays in a civilized society ought to be no more than
8 hours long.

Employers are apparently
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for workers who have “a positive attitude and more initiative.” If
that sounds out of touch, there’s more. A career adviser told
Fortune that young hires would do well to “[b]uild a reputation for
dependability by maintaining a positive attitude, meeting deadlines,
and volunteering for projects, even those outside your immediate
responsibilities.” In other words, if you want to keep your job,
take on more work than you were hired to do.

Long hours and extra work are part of the ethos of a dying corporate
culture where workers sacrificed their lives and well-being for their
bosses, and—a few decades ago—might have been rewarded with enough
to live on. That capitalist contract is defunct. A separate September
2024 study
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Gen Z salary satisfaction showed that 87 percent of those surveyed
felt they were underpaid. A Pew study from May 2020 concluded
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today’s youth “are on track to be the most well-educated
generation yet.” This naturally leads to high expectations of
employers. But nearly half of those surveyed in September earn only
between $30,000 and $60,000 a year, which in today’s economy is not
enough to live on. If young workers lack a positive attitude, they
have good reason.

Pew
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found that “Members of Gen Z are more racially and ethnically
diverse than any previous generation.” In the past year especially,
young Americans have watched an unfolding genocide in Gaza aimed at
people who look a lot like them. That genocide, funded by their
parents’ tax dollars and their college endowments, has played out in
horrifying detail on their Instagram and TikTok accounts, inuring them
from the political punditry downplaying Israel’s culpability. Their
college campus protests and encampments haven’t worked to stop U.S.
funding to Israel.

It’s no wonder that Gen Z is breaking from older generations by
being disproportionately
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unapologetically pro-Palestinian. It’s also no wonder that they are
jaded about their own future in a nation whose government actively
cheers on the extermination of their Palestinian peers.

Gen Z is left to deal with massive systemic failures—climate change,
pandemics, and genocide—as individuals. Why are we shocked then that
they are prioritizing their own physical and mental health? No one
else is doing so.

A February 2024 Stanford Report
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on Gen Z workers interrogated the employment values and expectations
of young people and concluded that they “question everything and
everyone—from their peers, parents, or people at work,” and
“[t]hey are also not afraid to challenge why things are done the way
they are.” They prefer collaboration and consensus over hierarchy
and, most importantly, they value mental health and work-life balance.

Gen Z workers grew up seeing their parents bring work home, work after
hours, work overtime without compensation, and make themselves
available to answer phone calls and emails at all hours. In return,
they watched older generations suffer mass layoffs, failed union
drives, and stagnating salaries. If they reject the idea of one’s
work life ruling one’s home life, it seems that young workers have a
lot to teach their older peers and employers rather than the other way
around.

In spite of myself, I often urge my 17-year-old to focus on getting
good grades so that he can get into a good college and land a good job
that pays well enough to live on. But such logic assumes we live in a
merit-based economy where hard work pays off. Those of us who are 40
and older know firsthand how much of a lie this is. I can tell my
snarky teen barely humors me when I urge him to prioritize his grades.
And I can imagine him doing the same to a future boss who might urge
him to have a “positive attitude” at work.

Rutgers University public relations professor Mark Beal, author
of _Decoding Gen Z_, told
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“Gen Xers, boomers, even older millennials, they live to work. Work
is driving them. It’s energizing them.” Meanwhile, “Gen Z works
to live.” They prioritize their mental health over Wall Street’s
financial health.

Are they on to something? Instead of excoriating young people for
prioritizing their well-being overwork, we would do well to learn from
them. Gen Z is shifting our collective ethos to normalize asking what
bosses owe workers instead of the other way around.

_This article was produced by __Economy for All_
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a project of the Independent Media Institute._

_SONALI KOLHATKAR is the founder, host and executive producer of
“Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on
Free Speech TV (Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku) and Pacifica stations
KPFK, KPFA, and affiliates. _

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* Gen Z; Work under Capitalism;
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