The Real Gen Z Problem Managers Aren’t Talking About

Click here to watch the video now!

Let's get one thing straight. Gen Z is not lazy. They are actually just missing early reps.

I was speaking with somebody just the other day, and they said the problem with Gen Z, "they're lazy. They just don't want to work," yet the data doesn't support that. We're going to cover today what leaders need to know and the unintended consequences of these missing reps. And for those of you who are parents, you probably find it interesting as well.

When you look at the data, you are starting to see a massive shift in how and when people show up for their first jobs.

We shared the data point from last year that said 15% of Gen Z had a job before 15 or 16 years old. The rest of the generations are about 36% - the older you get, from millennials to Gen X to boomers, the more likely you are to have those jobs. But let's look at data from just a couple of weeks ago, that Gen Z number actually shrank from 15% to 12%. That means even from a year ago, we have fewer Gen Z having those early reps.

What's happening is that when they show up for their first real job, clearly, they don't have some of the skills that maybe previous generations had when they showed up for their first real jobs. When I host my podcast and I interview CEOs from different business verticals, I always ask them about their first job. What I find is that they always say things like babysitting, paper routes, and mowing the lawn.

In January, I decided to put that question in the survey to see how the different generations panned out. No big surprise today, Gen Z, they're not babysitting, they're not doing the paper routes, and they are not mowing lawns to the same degree as other generations did as their first jobs. But clearly they have to be doing something right, and so some of the jobs that Gen Z does,that previous generations did not do, is things like pet sitting and walking dogs, tutoring, and sports officiating. I thought it was pretty interesting to see how the types of jobs have shifted. But again, remember, a much smaller number of Gen Z are working versus previous generations.

MISSING REPS FOR GEN Z Vs. ALL OTHER GENERATIONS

Babysitting: Gen Z 16% vs 25% other Gens

Mowing lawns/yard work: 6% Gen Z vs. 16% other Gens

Paper Routes: 3% Gen Z vs. 10% other Gens

GEN Z MORE LIKELY TO HAVE THESE JOBS

Pet sitter/dog walker - 11% Gen Z, 5% other Gens

Tutoring - 14% Gen Z, 3% other Gens

Sports official - 5% Gen Z, 1% other Gens

FRONT OF HOUSE RESTAURANT JOBS - THE TRAINING GROUND

1 in 4 Gen Z's first job is a restaurant - significantly higher than other Generations

Restaurant Front of House - 24% Gen Z, 16% other Gens

This next data point I found super interesting, Gen Z is much more likely to have a restaurant, front of house as their first job, versus other generations.

Restaurants are the first place, and we might think that's intuitive, but here's the thing, we're not talking enough about...

The So What? Now What? is that when we think about training young people in a restaurant, we're training them about how the operations work, how to run food, how to prepare food, what we're not teaching them is the idea of accountability, the idea of communication, the idea of human connection. They're showing up to the first jobs without these basic skills, due to the missing reps. For leaders out there who actually take this to heart. Not only are you going to have better employees when they're younger, but we're also going to have better prepared leaders in the future.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this one, and please take this one to heart. Thank you.