May 18

May 18 Creating opportunities for our let down generation By John Zogby

Help wanted signs abound throughout the nation and the Mohawk Valley. Employers large and small understandably complain that it doesn’t seem possible to fill job openings – and not just the low wage jobs. Good jobs that require skills with potential for personal growth and promotion. What is going on here? We are clearly in a troublesome moment and we face a new generation of teens and twentysomethings who are wary of going to work. I have been researching age cohorts for two decades and think it’s useful for me to share some of what I have learned over the years both as a professional pollster and employer.

Please note my use of the term “age cohort”. Let’s begin right there. A person is said to be in an “age group” as part of the regular life cycle. We know that generally speaking, late teen and twentysomethings are mainly focused on the self – relationships, looks, individual needs. Thirtysomethings begin the process of family, homeownership, career. Fortysomethings are concerned on sending their kids through school, thinking about retirement. And so on. But an “age cohort” is when history intervenes into the lives of young people and inculcates a set of values that they will more or less keep with themselves for the rest of their lives. Young high school seniors and college-age men were certainly thinking about girls, sports and beer on December 6, 1941. But they became the “Greatest Generation” about patriotism, responsibility to something higher, and sacrifice the next day when bombs dropped on Pearl Harbor. Boomers, their children, became rebels with the pervasiveness of television and the sight of civil rights demonstrators being chased by police dogs and beaten by fire hoses, along with actual video of deaths in Vietnam. Gen X – I call them “Nikes” – were the children of divorce (for the first time one in three marriages were being dissolved), abortion, the loss of a war, shortages, and political assassinations. They were left to fend for themselves, to just “do it”. Millennials, our First Global Generation, were schooled in fast-changing technologies. They were able to witness and network with people all over the world in the palms of their hands, to become global citizens.

Today’s 18-25-year-olds, Gen Z, are who I call the “Let Down Generation”. Look at what they have faced already in their young lives – two recessions, the near complete breakdown of many familiar institutions that we normally rely upon for safety and comfort, uncertainty over the short and near-term future. They are the most stressed and suicidal of any age cohort. They, the children of the Nikes who started out as very independent and entrepreneurial, now have little trust. In many ways, they could become another “Lost Generation” – exemplified by the post-World War I writers like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner.

The good news is that they do truly want to right the ship. They are talking to us and letting us know what they need. And their requests are not based on entitlement or laziness, but rather experience. They do require paid mental health days (in addition to regular sick days). Like their older siblings and neighbors – the Millennials – they are very socially conscious so they need a broader purpose, be a part of something larger than themselves. This can be global like climate change, or taking on poverty, or it can be within their own community. They want to be part and proud of their employer’s corporate citizenship. Needless to say, many are burdened by debt so they need some assistance, or at least come counseling. Remember, they are independent thus they are looking for a challenge, for work that has meaning. They do need to feel that work is not simply something that they compartmentalize as “a thing I hate but have to do”. I have said that they are entrepreneurial and we must remember that this does not mean that they all will start a business – rather it means empowering them with something that is their own, that gives them meaning, that fosters their already ingrained spirit of independence. And, unlike Boomers who were nurtured in the notion to “not trust anyone over 30”, these young people want and need mentors.

And if they seem to be here today and gone tomorrow at work, it isn’t because they have no commitment. It means that they have not grown up thus far with any sense of permanence. How to handle that? Make sure that their experience is the best possible one so that they are equipped to handle their next gigs – and that they give you the best possible recommendation for their replacement. None of this is easy. None of this comes from entitlement. It simply is the way it is and they are pointing out who they are. Embrace that and let’s not leave them out any more.

John Zogby (@TheJohnZogby) is the founder of the Zogby Poll and Zogby companies, including John Zogby Strategies, and author of We Are Many We Are One: Neo-Tribes and Tribal Analytics in the 21st Century America

Special thanks to The Genesis Group for facilitating this article. The Genesis Group is a civic organization that unites Business and Community Leaders working to advance regional Economic, Social and Cultural interests, and to foster unity and cooperation in the Mohawk Valley region of Upstate New York.