Hey, everybody. I want to ask a favor. We want you to tell us a little bit about you. Please participate in a brief survey at CNN. Com/audie. That's CNN. Com/audie. There are some things that I took for granted in my early work experiences. I had to dress a certain way. I actually had to go physically to the office. And even if the role was supposed to be 9:00 to 5:00, it was pretty much understood that being available around the clock made me a far more appealing worker. If things went wrong or a story I was working on got uncomfortable or say I didn't meet my deadline that day, I mean, maybe I could cry about it, but I definitely had to do that in private, like across the street, behind the pillar of another office building, private, never in front of coworkers.

Why are we all acting like we're not human? Why do I have to come in to work as a black person and act like the things that are affecting me as a black person aren't and just put my head down and do my work? But do I personally cry often? No. But will I shame somebody for expressing emotion? No, that's not my thing either.

I am a junior analyst, just graduated college, and my pronouns are pay me. When it comes to additional work, calling me after my 9:00 to 5:00, I go by pay me.

Gen Z has very different ideas about work culture, and researchers, not to mention Gen Z's older, millennial, and Gen X bosses, well, they've noticed too.

How much of this is work ethic? How much of this is work-life balance? Which label you use might depend on which side of the generational.

Divide you're on? I'm Audie Cornish, and today on the assignment, is it Gen Z versus everyone at the office? And how is the generation that dismissed hustle culture and called out the fallacy of work-life balance changing the way that all of us think about work?

To.

Understand how workers in this generation think about their jobs, I called up two young experts. The Andre Brown, also known as the corporate batty on TikTok.

Welcome to Corporate Batty University, where I teach you to be the best at what you do. Today's topic.

How to get a raise. He actually has a consulting company. It's called GenXL.

I work within professional development, so helping people who desire to get into corporate America. Then I also work with people who want to become full-time content creators or be influencers. Lastly, I work with corporations on how to retain Gen Z in the workforce and also how to attract Gen Z to want to work at their companies.

And Maya Irvine, Chief Impact Officer at a company called Jove.

Jove is a purpose-driven marketing company that helps clients and organizations better reach and understand diverse young people globally, which obviously includes Gen Z. But I formerly did HR.

First, I want a table set for everyone. What year was your first job? Mine was in 2001, the summer before 9/11.

Oh, wow. I was not expecting that to be the answer.

I.

Moisturize, okay? No, as you should. Yeah. But I was just like, Oh, wow. My first... I'm a cussper, as they call it. I've actually been one of those Gen Zers who has had a job pre-pandemic. My first job was in 2018 doing public relations for a fintech company, which was quite an adventure in itself.

For everyone, that's.

Financial technology. Yes, financial technology. But I ended up leaving that company and transitioning into politics and was only in politics for two weeks in true Gen Z fashion because I was not aligned with how my boss was treating me, quite frankly. I thought it was interesting that you fight for policies that are supposed to make people's lives better, but you treat your employees like crap. Don't know if we can curse.

On here. You can. Because we're also talking about first jobs. So, Deandre, you first year first job.

Yeah, my first full-time job was in 2021 after I had just graduated college.

Corporate job?

Yes, I worked in City Group within investment banking, but I worked within the consumer bank, specifically on purpose marketing. I remember having one on ones when I first started, and my colleagues were like, Oh, yeah, I've been here 10-plus years. I just remember thinking, Wow, 10 years. Then after 10 months, I was like, Okay, I think I got what I needed to get out of this. I learned a lot and I left from there.

I think it's fascinating that both of you were in the financial sector in corporate environments. You can't get more capitalism, corporate than the financial sector. So you're jumping into the deep end of the pool of work culture as Americans know it and have known it for a really long time, right? Can you give me a sense of what the culture shock was like for you in any of these jobs? What are the ways you started to realize, D'Andre, you said one, I can't imagine working for 10 years any one place as a goal in your life. When I was coming up, it'd be like, hey, if you're lucky, you could work here for the next 10 years. Yeah.

Yeah.

The biggest shock for me was when you receive a job, at least when I was receiving a job as an incoming analyst, they're very strict about the time in which you'll be working. You realize once you actually get into this sector of work, how you will be working really any time if there's something that's taking place. That was huge for me because I am a person, in my head, I think, okay, if I'm working from nine to 5:00, then that's when I'm working. So then to me-.

Meaning you stop.

You stop at five and you.

Start at nine.

That's not my understanding of how the financial sector works. You work-.

Well, that's what I'm saying. So it's like that was a.

Shock for me. Maya, for you, Workday?

Honestly, my biggest shock was exactly what you said. For context, I am first generation low income, which essentially means I am the first generation to go to college and grew up low income, Queens, New York. So I had absolutely no prep into what I was supposed to be expecting into a work environment like that, because none of my family has ever worked in a work environment like that. As soon as I entered that work environment, I was making more than my entire family at 23. So when I got there, I was very culture shocked by the way that I was supposed to be upholding capitalism. A more specific example is not being able to talk about my salary. But in my head, I was like, Oh, well, isn't that how pay gaps continue to be perpetuated?

I want to ask you guys about some of the headlines that you hear about Gen Z. Nodding, eyes closed. What are the things you hear?

Lazy.

We don't want to work.

Yeah, that was lazy.

Constantly asking for raises. We complain too much.

Entitled, yeah.

Yeah, entitled. Yeah. A lot of what they said about millennials, to be honest.

And Gen X, they were called the slackers. Yeah.

I remember being about millennials of like, millennials would never be able to buy a house because all they care about is Avocadato Toast and Starbucks, right? I think that narrative is certainly put upon the younger generation, each generation. But for Gen Z, that's definitely some things we've heard.

There is data now, and they often survey, I think, high school seniors to find out their attitudes about work, their hopes, their dreams. You can get a snapshot of a moment in time. And some of the things they learned are actually quite interesting and are from the last couple of years. So the number of 18-year-olds who said they wanted to do their best in their job, quote, even if this sometimes means working overtime, plummeted between 2021 and 2022. Not interested in overtime.

That doesn't shock me.

Yeah, I don't think I'm surprised by that. One of the main reasons I'm not surprised by that is I know there's this huge trend now about people wanting to work on their passion projects. It's like what I do for my five to nine after my nine to five, and that's where you really get to do the things that you're passionate about and really invest into yourself.

Which gets to another thing, the number of considering work to be very central part of their lives. It's just plummeting. Yeah.

As somebody who's watched their mom work their entire life, I personally agree with that statement. As I mentioned, I used to run HR at Juice, so I did a lot of the hiring and recruitment. We would ask Gen Ziers what their dream job was, and Gen Ziers will respond, I don't dream of labor.

Now I'll be your Gen X manager. Okay. You want to leave at six. You don't want to do anything to show me you have initiative outside of the boundaries of your work, and you want your pronouns to be pay me?

I will say this, and this is what a corporate baddie is, and that's what I call people that follow me were corporate baddies. Yes, you can have these strong boundaries. You can really stand up for what you want in the workforce, but you also have to do your job. And I really stress that because if you're not-.

Do you need to stress that? Do you get the sense that people don't understand that?

I think the corporate baddies understand it, and that's why I always say, are you a corporate baddie? Yes, we stand up for ourselves. Yes, work is not our life. But when we do show up to work, we come looking our best. We give our best performance between nine to five, let me stress. We give our best performance. We dress our best. But after that nine to five period is over, you get what you get. I'm sorry. I gave you my best.

The reason why I'm asking this is because there was one more bit of data I found interesting. Eighteen-year-olds in 2021 and 2022, they were less likely to believe that not working hard would be an obstacle to getting a job. So basically, there's this disconnect. There's a sense that you shouldn't have to work more, et cetera, but you still should be able to get a job and keep a job fairly easily. And that's where you start to feel, I think, maybe the differences from this very new generation work culture and everyone else.

Maya? Yeah, I actually don't feel like the data necessarily disconnects. What I mean by that is as generations continue to come, they get increasingly more progressive. I think a lot of what Gen Z is asking for is for living wages and living conditions that should be universal, that anybody should have, not just us, that we shouldn't have to feel like we constantly have to ask for money. But obviously we live in an economic time where it's tough for a lot of us.

What do you think you feel performance should be tied to?

I feel like performance should certainly be tied to KPIs. What are KPIs? Sorry. Key performance indicators that are very specific to their job. For example, what's the percentage of retention with your clients? What percentage of your clients are happy? We have specific ways that we're measuring that as it pertains to their specific work and their job level. That matters. But we're not measuring people on whether they're staying till 6:01 or whether they're staying till 6:05. I don't think that it's fair for Gen Z to be, demonized is a strong word, but criticized for asking for a living wage and acceptable working conditions in this way.

It sounds like what you're saying also is that some of our ideas of what performance means- Correct.

-are really different. Performance is just being physically there is not a sign of good performance.

I think a lot of Gen Zs, speaking for myself included, we started work virtually. That was my reality. Now trying to get a whole bunch of people who started work in the middle of a pandemic on a computer to now have to come in an office every single day a week, it's just unrealistic. I think it should become a thing where we have the option. Do we want to work from home? Do we want to work in the office? Or do we want to do both?

I also think that we sometimes forget the nuance in that specific conversation. Gen Z wants to go into the office to collaborate, whereas other generations actually want to go into the office because they believe that they work better in the office. And then we also have to consider that Gen Z has been extremely open about mental health. Like, as somebody who has ADHD and a bit of trouble focusing, I do a lot more work when I am at home by myself with my cat, Cardi B, playing in the background, versus when I'm in an open office space with 10 other people who are talking, collaborating, etc. Do I go there for those specific moments when it matters? Of course. But if we want to talk about productivity and efficiency and getting work done, if we want that to happen, I should probably be able to do that in a space where I can do that in the best way for myself.

I'm Audi Cornish. We're going to take a short break. Stay with us.

Hey, this is David Reind. I'm an audio producer at CNN, and I want to tell you about our Five Things podcast. Our mission is really simple, to give you the top headlines from CNN in five minutes or less. We'll get you caught up. We'll give you some crucial context, and then let you get on with your day. We post multiple updates throughout the day, so you can check in when it's best for you. Again, the podcast is CNN Five Things. Listen on your favorite podcast app.

Okay, so while I'm talking to Maya and D'André, I keep thinking about the data that I'd seen about generational differences, as explained by this researcher that I actually follow pretty closely, Jean Twanky. I start to wonder what kinds of work policies would young workers actually be more amenable to?

I think another big one would be mental health days, having days where we can just, hey, look, I'm not coming into the office today, and I don't have to lie and say, I'm sick, or I'm not feeling well. My mental is just not in a good space today, and I just need some time for myself. I need to be alone. I can't take this on or take this responsibility on right now.

Yeah, we definitely have those. We definitely.

Have that. This is blowing my mind because my default setting is like, no matter how bad things are, I'm going into work. If I am in work and things are bad, I keep it to myself that it's just so important to.

Maintain thatthat. Do you feel better when you do that?

No, but I get my work done. I mean, it's done.

But okay, yes, your work is done. And I mean, that's a great thing. Personally, I love the feeling of having all my tasks complete. But how do you as an individual feel, yes, I've done all my work, but I still am not in a great space. How does that make you feel as a person?

It's funny. You learn to... That's where the word grind comes from, right? You learn to roll over your own, I guess, needs. I'm even afraid to say the word needs. You just roll over that because you know what it is? I was raised in a period where if you were to tell someone something like that, it would be seen as a sign of weakness. You'd, in effect, be telling a manager or boss, I can't handle the workload. And then that raises other questions. Well, should you be here at all? I know as a person who's often the only person of color in the room, I didn't want to open that box.

That was going to be my next question. I'm curious to know from you too, Maya, not only being a person of color, but also being a woman in a workforce, do you feel the need to have to just continue to grind, grind, grind and not make time.

For yourself? Oh, yeah, for sure. But I think in general, to put it in a bow, Gen Z is asking for a more human approach to leadership in the workforce. Whereas previous generations, nobody really cared if you gave a F or liked what you were doing, if you liked the person next to you, et cetera. Irrelevant. Yes. I literally remember a boss telling me, You can leave. If you have an issue, bye. I'm like, Okay, understood.

I think even to that point, that's why Gen Z is just so they put themselves first in the workforce too, because the fact that a boss can just tell you you can leave that simple, it lets me know. What that registers in my head is- You don't really care. Oh, I'm a person. Yeah, you don't really care. So why would I dedicate and give my whole life to this job that can remove me when the wind blows?

Have you ever had to say no to your Gen Z colleagues when they ask for something? Oh, absolutely.

The same thing that I'm praising the generation for- Here we go. -i've had to level set with them about what's doable. I've certainly had conversations with my employees about, Hey, agree, in terms of not wanting to work hella hours and all those things. But it's not hustle culture for you to be working full-time at your full-time job. I've had to say that. It's not hustle culture for to work 40 hours a week because that is what you signed up for, and that is in your contract. Okay, but do they.

Believe that, DeAndre?

Yes, I think that we still do understand, okay, yes, we're working a full-time job. It's a 40 hour work week. Cool. That's fine. I think it's when things are happening outside of that and we're not following our contract. We're not following what our job.

Descriptions are. Because I'd be afraid to say that to someone. It's not hustle culture to work here.

I will say I think I have a little bit more leniency because it's Gen Z to Gen Z. I don't know how I would be receptive. Oh, yeah, how would you? Right, that's true too. They're like my age. So we're on the par.

Okay, fair. You don't want a middle-aged.

Workaholic telling you that? Exactly.

Okay, cool, cool, cool. Other things you've had to say no to or Deandre, advise people, maybe even in the comments of TikTok to be like, Whoa, hold on a second.

I do know one, and I actually made a video about this too, and it's about if I have to work during PTO, I am going to swipe my business card on my PTO as well. I hate to bother you on your vacation, but I've been seeing a lot of transactions on your business card, and I want to know- Well, actually, I hate to cut you off, Jack, but you all keep sending me emails, so I keep swiping a business card. This is a business trip now. Well, actually, you're not allowed to- Well, you all stop sending me emails and I'll stop swiping that card. I'll notify the team. Right.

Because they're saying if you're going to let work bleed into life, then maybe I should take advantage of that in other ways. Okay, but now you're dealing with the.

Company's money. Right. That was the whole conversation about, well, how does this play out? That's what I ended up starting to make videos about that as well because it was like, this is a funny little bit, but it's also very unrealistic. What really needs to be talked about is making yourself unavailable during paid time off, then hey, well, if you're going to ask me to do something, let me swipe my card as well.

What advice do either of you have for people in the workplace who are of another generation?

There has to be a benefit of the doubt that underlies in this conversation. We have to acknowledge our assumptions and the stereotypes that we have about other generations because we all have them. I think often when non-Gen Zs comes to the conversation, there is a fear that we're going to be very hype, very passionate in that conversation. But I also think that that passion comes from fear and anxiety ourselves. I think that when Gen Zers approach conversation, we automatically think that we won't be heard and that we will be shut out. But the truth of the matter is a lot of non-Gen Zers want understanding because they want to better navigate the workplace.

That's good. What I like to always say is similar to other parts of our lives outside of just work in general. We have to be accepting and willing to change in order for change to happen.

Before we wrapped up, I asked them for their thoughts and even questions for the researcher, Jean Twengie. After all, she wrote a book called Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, silence, and what they mean for America's future.

For my generation, what I would want to know is when it comes to our values and things that we value is money more important, or is it a place where mental health and companies that are doing good within communities are more important?

Right. I can't exactly answer that because these surveys don't ask that exact question, but they come close in a couple of places. There's questions about what's important in a job. And yes, money is definitely important, more so than it was in the '70s, but Gen Z doesn't have the peak in that. That was actually Gen Xers or about early '90s. The other thing that really pops up in that is there's a question about, do you want a job that's directly helpful to others? That's where Gen Z stands out. They're more likely to be seeking a job where they can be directly helpful to others than millennials or Gen Xers were at the same age.

In some ways, that's where you see a culture clash. Do you think Gen Z has a work ethic problem, or do they value work in a different way?

I think from what they're saying themselves, they may have a work.

Ethic problem. I'm asking about the word problem. What's the problem to your mind looking at the data?

One symptom of some of these attitudes is, for example, the idea of quiet quitting, that you're going to keep your job, but you're really just going to do the bare minimum.

Or as we heard from Maya Irvine in this conversation, she says, I'm going to do what I'm contracted to do and paid to do, and that I shouldn't be expected to do more and not be paid for the more. Right.

I think that's where you can start to say, well, okay, how much of this is a problem? How much of this is work ethic? How much of this is work-life balance? Which label you use might depend on which side of the generational divide you're on, whether you're a manager or a younger employee, because sure, that question is about overtime. Maybe we shouldn't be working overtime. Maybe we should have a better work-life balance and have work-.

Or just paid overtime. I do think maybe it's a Gen X thing, and I also was a high schooler in the 90s, but the idea that you had to work, you were very replaceable, and you did the most to stand out, which meant doing what you weren't asked to do and definitely doing it for no money. When I described that life to these young people, they were like, What? Why?

One reason that may be the case is unemployment is really low right now.

If you're Gen Z and you got out in the last 2-3 years.

Yeah, and we had the great resignation and we had a lot of labor shortages, that means there's lots of opportunities and that people have more negotiating power to be able to say, Yeah, I want to be able to have work-life balance and not work ourselves to death.

What are some other reasons you think we're seeing a shift with this generation?

Well, I think there's a number of possibilities. Post-pandemic, I think a lot of people just had burnout after lockdowns, virtual school, all of the political instability, the fight over work from home versus not and the idea of just we're just tired. It also was a perspective-taking thing of seeing how many people we lost and life is short.

That's everyone. Regardless of what generation you're in, this was a mass experience.

As a general principle, these types of events have the biggest impact on the youngest people or an adolescence or young adults, to be more specific, because it's shaping their worldview. But Gallup did show overall that there was a decline in work ethic in these years for people of all ages, but they also found that it was the most pronounced for those under the age of 35.

On resumebuilder. Com, they did a survey of bosses. 74 % of the people who took their survey said that they find Gen Z to be more difficult to work with than other generations. And I wanted to ask you about that because a lot of those bosses may be Gen X or older millennial, and it would be a real clash of cultures, right?

It is. I think generation gaps are just as big now as they were when boomers were young and they were fighting with their greatest generation traditional parents.

What about millennials? It feels like that shouldn't be such a big gap.

It is because for one thing, millennials didn't grow up with smartphones. When they were on social media, it was optional and fun. And more Gen Zers experience social media as mandatory and all about pressure.

This gets at something I think is a big thesis in your work, which is that technology itself, almost more than world events, fundamentally can shift mindsets and generations. I also think that I do hear a disappointment in some of the comments from Gen Z age folks where they feel like the veil is lifted now on what it looks like to work in America. And it just seems like they know and they're more skeptical as a result.

Yeah, definitely.

More skeptical. That's not irrational or lazy or weird or any of those things that they know working overtime doesn't get you to some promised land.

Well, I might have to push back on that a little bit because I think a lot of that is based in this really pervasive negativity that seems to have overtaken the country that started with Gen Z and has spread out to millennials. Because if you look at basic indicators, median incomes for young adults are at all-time highs, even when adjusted for inflation. You look at the homeownership rate for millennials, a couple of percentage points behind boomers and Gen Xs, not as different as you'd expect it to be if you spent a lot of time on Twitter and kept hearing, Oh, millennials will never own a house. The economic indicators for young people are actually pretty positive. Yet there's this pervasive idea that the American dream is out of reach.

What about the people who say there is a point in trying to do things differently, even if it's uncomfortable for everyone else.

There I'd be in more in agreement that that's the job of young adults to challenge the standard way of doing things and find better ways to do it, whether that's in the workplace or in society. Gen Z is definitely doing a good job on that, of challenging some of our accepted norms and saying, Hey, there's a better way of doing this.

That's it for this episode of The Assignment. Of course, we always want to know what's on your mind. What did you think? What assignments do you want us to take on in the new year? Give us a call. We love hearing from you. And of course, we might use your voicemail in a future episode of the show. The number to call is 202-854-8802. Yes, I listen to all of them, so please call in. The Assignment is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Carla Javier. Our senior producer is Matt Martinez. Our engineer is Michael Hammond. Dan de Zula is our technical director, and Steve Licktye is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We got support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manassari, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Lenny Steinhardt, James Andras, Nicole Pessarou, and Lisa Namarow. Special thanks to Katie hitman. I'm Audie Cornish, and thank you for listening.

Did you know there's a podcast app that has cross-device syncing? It's called Pocketcasts. You can start listening to an episode of the assignment with Audi Cornish on your smart speaker and then continue it in your car or on your phone when you leave the house. With custom filters from Pocketcasts, you can create episode lists that fit your mood. Maybe you want a health pod like Chasing Life or dig deep on a story with CNN one thing, add in CNN five things, and you can build a list with episodes that are the perfect length for your daily commute. Find your next podcast obsession with Pocketcast's thoughtfully curated Discover tab. Mine is all there is with Anderson Cooper. Listen to all your favorite CNN podcasts on Pocketcasts. Go to pocketcast. Com to get the app.