Why do we expect our youth to have the same work ethic when we have given them a different perception of this world from the basics, the upbringing?
Important to state upfront, this piece I cannot (yet) substantiate scientifically. This is my thinking and view of the current and future labour market.
Youth are different in the world. I personally find generalising difficult, so to my mind there is no one ‘the’ youth. Looking at this generation, they actually have different needs. The words freedom, responsibility, a fast career or more work-life balance are typical. Wanting to contribute to a better world and being genuinely concerned about world issues is something that comes into play. The Corona era with all its restrictions, loneliness and closure contributed to the above even more.
As adults, why do we think this is strange? We have partly shaped this generation ourselves. We have brought them up based on our values and standards that are different from those of our parents. In fact, the world is already different for us. Whereas our parents lived a fairly orderly, in a relatively simple world, we have already experienced the acceleration of all technological and innovative developments. In a few years, the world has suddenly become much smaller. Information came to us and the first shifts in our labour market were a fact. This made us uncertain about our, then reliable overview world, how it develops, about the security of your job etc.
We have imparted these basic and unconscious perceptions to our youth. If you think about perception and what values and norms we have raised our children with, surely they cannot help but be one starting with a different view of the world.
No single view, but a lot of diversity in needs and insights. Let us think about that when we facilitate youth so that we can retain them within our organisations and let them flourish optimally.