The Youth of Today

This year, as Youth Day approached in cold South Africa, I found myself thinking about the leaders we work with and about how often the topic of “today’s youth” comes up. How do I lead today’s youth? They are so different. We train them and then they just leave. No loyalty.
They don’t have the same work ethic. And so begins the inevitable debate about generational differences and, often, the negative associations with each, and I find myself, firstly, as a millennial myself, getting defensive and secondly, once I have brought myself back into my growth mindset, wondering, how could we actually be inclusive of each generation and celebrate these differences?
As always, the best place to start is with awareness and understanding. I recently watched a short TikTok video (#Millenial remember?) in which Rajiv Talreja, a business coach of 18 years, explained why each generation went to work. To paraphrase him, the grandparents of
today’s youth went to work for survival, for basic necessity. This meant that they took a job and they didn’t leave that job. Even in the face of an abusive boss or terrible work conditions, they remained, opportunities were limited and they needed to survive. Then came the Information Revolution and the rise of IT and brands - greater opportunity. This generation, the parents of today’s youth, didn’t go to work for survival, their parents had taken care of
that. They went to work for standard of living. Get a job, make enough money to buy a house, have a car, send kids to school – their mindset, can another company offer me better pay? If so, I will take it. And here begins the sense that loyalty has reduced… but did our grandparents truly have loyalty? Or did they just have no options? Nowadays we live in a social revolution. Today’s workforce doesn’t need to worry about survival (grandparents took care of that) and they don’t need to focus on standard of living (parents took care of that). Today’s workforce wants quality of life - quality of workplace, quality of job, quality of environment, quality of role, of opportunities, of learning, of rewards of of of… But how do
businesses and their leaders get that right? For one, let’s move to the top of our brains, where growth, curiosity and creativity live. Let’s ask questions – what is Tik Tok anyway? How can we celebrate the different ways of working, ways of living that our youth live by? How can we make our teams - our young, upcoming, people - feel respected, listened to and understood, instead of having the baby boomers just sighing despondently and saying “ ugh, the youth of today”, with an exaggerated eye-roll to boot? As part of the youthful workforce of today, I would like to thank the grandparents for surviving and thank the parents for the standard of living that you provided. But now, let’s take a page out of the book of the youth of today – after all, aiming for quality of life, as they do, sounds quite nice doesn’t it? Just the food for thought we love to explore, at The Three Cs. So how do leaders lead the youth of today? How do they create a workplace, where people WANT to come to work, because it offers them growth, stimulation, pride, happiness, joy and quality of life. This encompasses the basics, of course, like a safe work environment (emotional and psychological safety included), competitive wages, equal opportunities etc, and it extends further, to believing in what they are coming to work to do. Believing that they are adding
value, believing that the company they work for is ethical and just, believing that they are part of a greater social good. Feeling included!
Leaders, give the youth of today these things and I will take you a bet now that if you do, you will see what true loyalty really looks like!