No, Gen Z Does Not Have a Work Ethic Problem

Pointing fingers because you're a bad manager doesn't help anyone.

BTS of me rage-writing this post

Since the pandemic, there has been an endless stream of articles lamenting how Gen-Z is unfit for the workplace. Three in four managers find it difficult to work with Gen Z, and 40% admit to being biased against them. Gen Z are entitled, they lack motivation, they have no loyalty, they are “unprofessional”, they can’t communicate… the complaints go on and on.

Gen Z really does have a work ethic problem

I recently came across this article that claims that yes, Gen-Z really does have a "work ethic problem." Of course they are the ones to blame. These younglings know nothing of the virtue of work and what it takes to make it in the workplace. They can't be trusted to handle the most basic of tasks. Maybe we should just avoid hiring them altogether.

Just because young people don't want to do your bullshit job, doesn't mean they "don't have a work ethic." Maybe they don't want to deal with your toxic work environment, your feudalistic power struggles, and your menial tasks.

This year on Building Probable we're going to take some detours from our usual design, tech, and design-tech programming. In this post we'll cover:

1. Gen Z is rightfully unwilling to do meaningless tasks

2. Company "loyalty" is an unrealistic expectation given the past 5 years

3. Technology is changing knowledge work and directive delegation no longer works

The Work is Meaningless and Important

Let's look at the three data points behind Jean M. Twenge’s claim that Gen Z has a work ethic problem.

The number of 18-year-olds who said they wanted to do their best in their job “even if this sometimes means working overtime” suddenly plummeted in 2021 and 2022 (see Figure 1). In early 2020, 54% of 18-year-olds said they were willing to work overtime. By 2022, it was 36%. That’s a (relative) drop of 33% in just two years. It’s also an all-time low in the 46-year history of the survey.

Another item asks an intriguing question: “If you were to get enough money to live as comfortably as you’d like for the rest of your life, would you want to work?”... In early 2020, 78% said they would want to work, but that dipped to 70% in 2022. That’s another all-time low in the nearly 50-year history of the survey. (To be fair, the majority still say they would want to work).

There’s another interesting trend in the survey data: Despite their self-admitted lower work ethic, 18-year-olds in 2021 and 2022 were actually less likely to believe that “not wanting to work hard” would be an obstacle to getting the job they wanted... In early 2020, 54% thought not wanting to work hard might be an obstacle. By 2022, it was 44%, a 19% drop. So, by 2021 and 2022, 18-year-olds seem to be saying that they will be less focused on work, but that this won’t be a problem.

The survey data comes from Monitoring the Future. Other than willingness to work, the survey mostly asks teenagers whether if and why they're using drugs (Gen Z is using less drugs than previous generations if you were wondering).

From these data points, Twenge gives five hypotheses for why Gen Z lacks work-ethic:

1. Pandemic burnout

2. Pandemic reminded us that life is more than work

3. Job market was stronger in 2021-22 and employees could favor work life balance

4. TikTok made quiet quitting viral

5. Gen-Z is pessimistic about a rigged system

While there's probably some truth to Twenge's hypotheses, there's a more compelling reason for the data. The survey questions would be clearer if they were separated into "work at a job" versus "work that interests you." Because the younger generations have a more enlightened perspective on the relationship between job and work.

In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, David Graeber argues that associating work with self-worth becomes destructive when people recognize that their jobs do not contribute meaningfully to society. Capitalism is supposed to promote efficiency through competition, but in our financialized puritan-capitalistic society, we get institutional inefficiency that Graeber calls "managerial feudalism." The prestige of the manager is measured by the size, not the effectiveness, of his fief. To justify the size of his kingdom, bullshit work is required to fill bullshit jobs to create an illusion of productivity— a swarm of buzzing bees busy doing nothing.

37% of Gen Z reports that meaningful work is the most important thing for them. In fact, 1 in 4 say that not finding a job that excites them is one of their biggest worries. They have studied the monotonous grind endured by generations before them. There's no meaning in filling out TPS reports, no excitement in generating shareholder value, no valor in going from "don't be evil" to AI for weapons and surveillance.

Working your way up the corporate ladder prettifying PowerPoints has lost prestige with a generation yearning for meaning. Gen Z has seen through our unhealthy obsession with working for the sake of work. They don't want a role in our productivity theater, to work hard instead of work smart, to do overtime for face time... and we're not happy about it.

In a recent Reddit thread on r/GenZ, a Gen X asks for advice on how to successfully manage Gen Z.

When my sis asked her to do something yesterday the employee responded, 'Oh, it's okay. We don't really need to do that.' This is her typical response to any request. She also tells my sister - her boss - that she (my sister) needs to not work so hard and 'set boundaries.'... My sister is perplexed how to impress urgency on this young woman without coming across as a bitch... Basically, she has to keep covering for this person and it adds to her own work... But she doesn't want to come down hard and make her quit.

This is an incredible example of how broken our perspective on work is. The Gen Z employee is doing what her older manager cannot:

1. evaluate the difference between meaningful vs busy work

2. set boundaries against busy work to maintain work life balance

The reaction is typical of the work-is-virtue generations. We rarely question the whether the task is truly necessary to accomplish our goals. When asked why something needs to be done, we struggle to establish a compelling reason. In a workplace full of bullshit jobs, where compliance is rewarded over creativity, critical thinking is a skill purposefully set aside to atrophy.

Gen Z rightfully expects meaningful work (as should any employee). Meaningful work is energizing, empowering, and exhilarating. It turns effort into impact. If we can't create a context of purposeful work with consequential goals, then we shouldn't blame Gen Z for treating it as a bullshit job.

Resource for Thee, Resource for Me

One of the most frustrating complaints I read is that managers think Gen-Z lack loyalty to the company. The oldest Gen Z has at most 5 years of post undergraduate work experience. This is the generation that experienced a worldwide pandemic, followed by reckless hiring, then endless layoffs. How we can expect "loyalty" from a group so mistreated by work?

In 1979, fewer than 5% of Fortune 100s announced layoffs. In 1994, 45%. In the 2008 recession, 65%. After the post pandemic hiring spree, companies slashed staff repeatedly. It is estimated that 1.5-2m Americans are laid off every month. The unassailable US tech industry, which recently powered the S&P to historic highs, has seen an endless stream of layoffs since 2022.

Job hopping is often cited as a reason that Gen Z are less loyal to companies. The data corroborates this story. Zoomers are more likely to have shorter tenures than older generations. While a portion of this may be involuntary due to layoffs, there's good reasons for Gen Z to voluntarily switch jobs.

A job is an exchange of time and effort for money and growth. Since all Gen Z has known is a shaky job market where "loyalty" is rewarded with severance, it's only natural to prioritize the personal and transactional benefits of a job. Job hoppers enjoy better salary increases and more raises than tenured employees, hardly a win for team loyalty. For a generation concerned with meaning and growth, job hopping is a great way to find the right meaning-mission fit as well as growth fit across different workplace dogmas.

Loyalty is earned not owed. When we treat people as little more than resources, we shouldn't be surprised when they treat the workplace as such.

Accept the Things You Cannot Control

Millennials like me emerged into the professional world on the cusp of the now computer and internet dominated workplace. These two technologies fundamentally changed knowledge and creative work. Our managers, one or two (sometimes three) generation above, were trained when collaboration meant one person dictating what to work on, by who, and how it all should come together. Instead of operating machines (because they didn't have knowledge work machines), managers operated teams of humans. This defined their work culture.

Our managers inherited a management style from an era when vast rooms were filled with drafters painstakingly inking each individual column, wall, and door. Knowledge was acquired through careful step by step guidance from a more experienced hand. To precisely coordinate this collaborative effort, managers needed to be good at directive delegation. Establishing a command and control structure, where tasks are planned, delegated, and reconciled was essential to the smooth functioning of the human powered production machine.

Managers who are used to direct delegation face frustration when when younger employees refuse to do tasks they see as menial and meaningless. They did what they were told by their seniors, so why should they not expect the same from Gen Z? Managing people as limited resources limits outcomes. Augmented by computers and the internet, a single person is capable of so much more than even just a few years ago. AI tools promise to extend individual productivity even farther. This expanded potential should be managed differently.

Managers need to move from a lead role into a support role. Well run teams should require very little active management, especially in the form of micromanaging task delegation. Instead, managers should leverage their experience to communicate clear objectives and remove roadblocks and bottlenecks. This paves a path for individuals to leverage their creativity, energy, and resourcefulness to find and implement impactful solutions. Instead of telling Gen Z what to do and how to do it, tell them what to achieve and why it's important.

Gen Z is Not the Problem, We Are

Every generation that enters the workplace encounters bias from the older generation. Millennials were once called lazy and entitled. Now, all of the sudden, we're "the most productive?". I refuse to participate in this reactionary social engineering fueled by bad management and click-bait professors of psychology.

Gen Z was the first generation that had an inseparable online life. A life enabled by Gen X and fabricated by Millennials. Part of our lives are hidden from the world, embarrassing photos collecting dust in tucked away yearbooks. Gen Z's childhood is but a search away, their youth harvested to feed algorithms we used to traumatize them. They watch powerless as we destroy our planet, as we dehumanize and massacre, and as our representatives appropriate their language while turning a blind eye to their concerns. After emerging into the professional world facing constant turmoil and disaster in their formative years. We then deny them their first opportunities, treat them like children, and complain when they don't want to do meaningless work building a future they don’t desire.

It's a sign of failure to expect the next generation to pay the same dues we did. As we rise into leadership and management positions, we should create opportunities for them to explore new ways to tackle old problems, providing a wide safety net for failure. Their inexperience is their advantage! Without years of conditioning constraining their solution space to past limitations, they can question our outdated methods and innovate based on the possibilities of today.

Our work culture, sprung from a human-as-machine-for-production age, hollowed by managerial feudalism, calcified by the professional management class, no longer fits the talent profile of today's youth. Gen Z does not have a work-ethic problem, we have a workplace problem.