Stop Managing Generations. Start Building Better Workplaces | #81

So welcome once again to the Connected Leadership podcast by Zentano. My name is Dave Morris, and this is a Voices of Leadership episode with a very special guest. In my work with leaders, I often get asked the question, how do we manage different generations with different needs and perspectives? This question, however, is often preceded or followed by observations of why certain generations are a challenge. So what if I told you that this is the wrong question to be asking?

My guest today is Francesca Wild Brown or Cheska as she prefers to be known, who works at the intersection of early careers, social mobility and organisational development. Cheska believes this is the wrong question and what we should be asking instead is how do we build workplaces where different generations understand each other, share knowledge and succeed together? The shift in emphasis from managing people to understanding them is very key here. It is more inclusive, more collaborative.

and likely to produce better outcomes. So today we're tackling one of the biggest leadership challenges that exists in the world right now. This goes beyond managing a multi-generational workforce into rethinking how we bring different generations together in order to succeed. What's powerful about Jessica's perspective is that she sees both sides, what businesses expect and what young talented people experience and the gap in between the two.

This promises to be an insightful and thought-provoking conversation that might just help you find a better way to lead. So, Cheska, without further ado, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Dave. Excited to be here.

Yeah, I'm excited to talk you as well. This is a topic I think is really close to my heart as I have got young daughters that will be going into the workplace in the not too distant future. And I think there is some work to do here. I think you'll agree with me.

Mm. Yes. Yes, definitely.

So I think we'll start off because many people might not know who you are. Just talking a little bit about your early life and your early influences and how that all came about. So I guess my opening question is what shaped your confidence and your life perspective growing up? Perhaps you could just.

Gives a flavor of that.

Yeah, definitely. So I grew up in Cheltenham. I went to an all girls school there. And I think, you know, a lot of my confidence and kind of the perspective I have came from the environment that I was growing up with. and particularly that confidence wasn't like an innate quality that I was born with.

Mm-hmm.

I think both my parents always joke about, you know, I was never shy, but

There definitely was, you know, a bit more reservation until I became a little bit older and went to secondary school.

Mm-hmm.

and in particular, the when I was at secondary school and being in an all-girls environment, it gave me a lot of freedom to speak up, to take up space and try things without being overly conscious of how I was being perceived. I definitely learned that, you know.

the not being perceived part because I wasn't trying to impress boys, which I know a lot of teenage girls are trying to do. as they do.

They do, yes they do, yeah.

even my mum always tells me that I used to wake up like 10 minutes before leaving to school and I wouldn't brush my hair and throw it up into like a messy bun, because it really wasn't anything I was thinking about, which meant, you know, I could really focus on the work I was doing and just showing up and being there rather than how I was being perceived by people of my own age. You know, it really

encouraged young women to be kind of whoever they wanted to be and have the space to discover that. And that gave me a lot, a lot of confidence going into the working world and, you know, the kind of space that I could take up in meetings and boardrooms. I was also like exposed to adults and professional environments really early on, particularly through my mum. She had her own business and I used to come to her events and help out, giving out name badges, making teas and coffees. Sometimes I'd find her in hotel divine

with meetings and I'd wander up there after school. So this really built my confidence as well and made me very like comfortable having conversations with people who were a lot older or more senior than me. And again, like equipped me going into the working world, you know, my job involves talking to very senior HR talent leaders at FTSE five hundred, two hundred and fifty companies.

right.

And that kind of gave me the confidence to know, you know, I can go into that room and talk to them about something that, you know, they might think they know about, but

as it's been, you know, a few years since they were entering the workforce. And as we'll talk about today, you know, how those kind of things have changed, giving that confidence

Hmm.

to be in that room and offer recommendations and perspectives on how they can shape their policies of bringing young people into their workspace.

Yeah.

I think it also, you know, through that made me aware and kind of entering the world of work is that confidence isn't, you know, like a fixed personality trait. It's really something that has

as I've kind of given some of those examples, been shaped by my exposure and the encouragement that I was given growing up as well throughout that. I think because quite often it's seen as a capability or often mistaken as that, you know, the first person who speaks in a room or presents something really polished, it's not necessarily, you know, that that person has more potential, but it's, you know, potentially that they've just had more opportunities to practice or more exposure and more opportunity to be there in the workplace. And

Yeah, that's definitely had a really, really positive impact on my working life and how I've gone forward into it. But, you know, very, very aware that that was given to me and encouraged through the environments that I was in.

Yeah, I think you're right. I confidence is definitely a skill. It's not an innate trait.

Mm.

It is a skill that you can develop. And it sounds like from your early life experiences, you were encouraged to do some things that built your confidence naturally, which has been really valuable as you've gone into the world of work, as you say. And you're now operating at a very senior level with some very senior people. that's really important to have that confidence to do that, isn't it?

Yeah, definitely. I, you know, it was helpful that I'd already kind of built that enough about myself and in confidence in my abilities before going even to university or into the world of work, knowing that I can show up as who I am and also, like I said, kind of have those conversations, not be afraid to say if I don't know or put my hand up to try something new. and I think that's all kind of part of that confidence. It's not not just necessarily how you speak or standing up there, but it's being willing to try.

new things and different things and particularly the work I started doing, which was in a very, you know, fast growing small business, it was a lot of stuff that I didn't know and I was constantly learning and trying new stuff. And again, it's that that confidence and that like trait being taught to keep trying and not being afraid

Hmm.

if you don't always have the right answers as well.

Sadly, your experience isn't the same as everybody else's. We'll come on to that

Night.

later on in terms of how younger people see the workplace. many don't get that grounding and come into the workplace with that degree of confidence, sadly. And that's part of the problem. I'm sure we'll get to that later on. But like many people early in their career, clarity doesn't always come straight away. So guess my next question is, when did you start to discover what mattered to you in terms of

Mm.

choosing a career? Because I think my oldest daughter is 13. She hasn't got a clue what she's going to do.

Ha.

to be fair,

might be jobs that are going to be invented in the next five years that she doesn't even know are going to exist. So how did you manage to do that?

Well, she's definitely not alone and I was

No.

quite probably the same. I did not have an, you know, neat career plan when I was heading into university or leaving school. I just knew that I enjoyed education, wanted to continue. So I went to LSE and studied philosophy and economics because those were my favourite subjects at school. They were the ones I was good at, not because I had any particular

pointing towards a profession that I wanted to go into, but I was just interested in them. I also knew I was kind of interested in the wider business world. I said, you know, both my parents having their own businesses, seeing that really first hand. So I knew that I was interested in that side and was probably going to go down a more corporate route.

Okay.

but I didn't know what I wanted that to be as a job. and that kind of continued through university. I got exposure to lots of different businesses and what work

people were doing. Most of my friends went on to be consultants. but I kind of realized that that probably wasn't where I wasn't for

Wasn't for you.

me. not unless I didn't try. I say it wasn't for me because I didn't get through quite a few of the the assessment centres. So that's that's my my way of saying it now. But I went straight into into a startup doing influencer marketing and and really honestly I just wanted to stay in London.

Yep.

I just loved it. And so I took a job

That was interesting, that paid well, and basically allowed me to stay in London and kind of explore a little bit more about what I wanted to do after finishing university. and influencer marketing was a really interesting industry at the time because it was just after COVID, or kind

Yeah.

of, you know, just as everything was starting to open up. So it was a super fast growing industry. People were using social media more than ever. and often when I talk about it, I say that it's a it was a little bit like the Wild West at the time, because

Yeah.

no one was really sure what.

influence marketing was meant to look like. Like they didn't there was no ROI measurements, there was no speci specific predicted outputs that businesses were looking for. So it was super interesting because lots of people were throwing money at it everywhere.

Okay.

and kind of being part of that was really, really interesting. I was given a lot of responsibility really quickly and kind of started to progress within my career and was earning well. But it really made me realize that progression alone kind of wasn't

enough for me in terms of like what I wanted out of my day to day and out of my life. you know, I could continue to work there, become more senior and earn more money, but I didn't feel like I was really contributing to anything. in that I

Okay, what was missing then what was missing for you?

think I loved the contribution from a smaller company perspective, but I didn't feel like I was making any difference on a, you know, a wider level. In fact I felt like I was doing the opposite. you know

kind of one of the stories I use is we were advertising contact lenses and I was talking to an influencer and they were like, Yeah, perfect. I'm love to do a video and some Instagram stories about it. And I was like, great, you know, what what's your prescription? And I'll make sure those get sent over. And she was like, just send zero zero contact lenses. And, you know, this influencer, and I get it, you know, wants to make money, but was advertising something that she'd never use, would never use once and you know, was going to tell all of her followers that this is something that they should be using.

I'm working towards and I was actually, you know, being part of this industry, I'm kind of contributing to the worst of it where people are being, you know, hoodwinked into using products that people are saying are amazing, having never even used them.

Mmm.

and I mean, we already know how the kind of bad effects that social media has on young people with, you know, bans coming in as well across Australia and you know and the UK. So I think I thought I was like, this isn't really contributing.

To society on a wider level that I would like to be a part of. Like I don't feel proud to be like, you know, I'm selling these products to people who have never even used them and are lying, basically. so even though I'd kind of left university, got this role, and it was growing, I really started to question like, actually, do I want to be doing something that is more connected to my values with my work? And it's actually for me, it's not just about the

prestige or the money or the progression, but actually it is about having something that connects with my social values too.

And that's really important, isn't it, for a lot of people? I totally agree with myself. That is really important to me. So you're in this fast growth business, there dare I say, lacking a sense of purpose. And

Yeah.

there was a question from an integrity point of view from you as well as to this, is this really what I want to be doing? Am I doing good for society? And you decided not, I guess, is the answer. So how did you make

Yes.

the shift towards something more impactful?

Hmm. Well, now that given me a bit of a sense of I kind of knew a little bit more what I was looking for. So it made

Yeah.

it easier to start to narrow that down. And as with I think a lot of people with careers, it was a bit of luck.

Okay.

I I got a message on LinkedIn from the company I work for now talking about the work that they do all around social mobility in early careers. And that just made complete sense to me. You know, as I was talking about earlier, how I was quite aware

throughout particularly leaving school and going to university, that the qualities that I had that helped me succeed at work and at uni, you know, that confidence side of things or how to communicate in professional environments was really closely connected to my upbringing, the opportunities that I'd been given. And the idea that these advantages were influence influencing like who gets hired rather than just the potential didn't really sit comfortably with me. And it's never something I'd put a word to.

I wasn't really aware what social mobility was, but hearing the team at the Ladder Group talk about it and the work that they were doing to help people access opportunities, you know, early talent to get into amazing careers and develop these kind of skills really resonated with me. And I was like, wow, that is something that I genuinely care about because I've always been kind of aware of the differences of the opportunities that people around me have been given. So it was a bit of luck.

really like getting this message and going, actually wow, that is something that I care about and really connects with it. and I came into their commercial team so I was still kind of using that business side of the work that I'd always been interested in, but now getting to combine it with the social values that I really cared about.

It's interesting because obviously we've heard, especially particularly in political circles in recent years,

Mm.

the terms levelling up and diversity and inclusion being important in the workplace and all that. And I agree that is important. But I guess my second question is, you've discovered this passion for social mobility and everything that comes with that. Why do you think social mobility matters both in leadership and in business so much these days?

No, it's a great question. And you know, I think there's a lot of different pieces and research and data that you can read about it. But

Mm-hmm.

how we talk about it, you know, at the Ladder Group really simply is that, you know, talent is spread everywhere, but access to opportunity is not. You know, two young

Okay.

people can have exactly the same underlying ability.

But one who may have parents who understand the professional world. They may have had access to work experience. You know, they've been in rooms with senior business adults at dinner parties. and they've got a network that will

Yeah.

help them navigate decisions. So, you know, I imagine most people listening to postc podcasts will know of young people who've come to their offices for work experience because they're a client or they're a family friend and they've been in there. So we see it happen all the time. And because

Hmm.

this young person has had these experiences, you know, they are much more well positioned when going into interviews or assessment centres for these roles. So, you know, this other person with the same level of ability might be coming into an office for an in-person interview and that might be the first time they've ever experienced being in that environment. And you know,

Yeah, absolutely.

and if you think how that can affect your performance and you know how you're coming across in the interview perspective, it can have such a really big impact.

And, you know, when businesses are recruiting, we hear it all the time, like they think they're assessing for potential, but often it's looking at prior exposure when they're, you know, some of the biggest feedbacks we hear all the time is, they're just they're not quite client ready or they're not quite polished. Like, well, we're not expecting a 21 or an 18, 19 year old to be polished. And if they are, that's probably because of the environment they've been in. But we hear it all the time.

So they end rewarding the candidate who actually understands how to speak in an interview, how to structure an answer, how to dress and demonstrate, you know, then commercial knowledge and awareness. And these things like are useful, obviously, but they also are things that you can teach people when they join, you know, and they're very

Mmm. Mmm.

quick to be picked up. And they aren't always an evidence of you know the intelligence or motivations or long-term capability that businesses

might need. So I think even though there's quite an obvious moral case for this, and you know it's the right thing that we should do and it's the right thing that businesses should do, I know that that doesn't always fly when you're look in a boardroom and trying to make those kind of decisions. So for me and for when we're talking to different leaders, like the clear business argument is that organizations are recruiting from narrow

Grounds because they're

Yeah.

looking at certain institutions and networks, and they are just missing out on a huge amount of talent who aren't passing through these assessment processes because of the lack of kind of the exposure that others have had, or they might not even have the confidence to even apply to go into that assessment process. And because of this, businesses are creating teams who are more likely to think in very similar ways, they don't have the broader representation.

the different experiences or people who question the ways of understandings or even you know fully represent the customers or the communities that these businesses are operating in. So I think when we're saying this business, it's not it's not about like lowering the bar for what you're looking for, but it's about making sure that the bar that you're assessing with is measuring for actually the right things so that you can bring in that diversity of thought into the business.

Yeah, I love the phrase you use talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity isn't.

Yeah.

I think that's a really powerful phrase. And so obviously the latter group, you help other organisations to access those broader talent pools.

Yes.

And actually, as you said, I mean, we have a problem in this country with the demographics, don't we? That there

Yeah.

are going to be less and less people in the workplace compared to the people who are going to be retired in the next few decades. And people are even moaning now, well, there's not enough talent out there. Well...

Maybe there is, you're just not finding it. I

Mm.

mean, there will always be a limit to the amount of people that are out there, but I think your point is there is talent out there, but are you looking in the right places? Yeah.

Mm-hmm. And

even when you're looking in the right places, are you coming at it with an open enough mind to accept the people that come, you know, are

Yeah.

gonna apply? Like you're getting in front of them, but internally, you know, we're still having businesses who are saying, Well, we're only recruiting from Russell Group. And even if their HR team are spending loads and loads of time to get in front of talent from lots of different universities or straight from school leavers.

people internally are still saying, you know, coming into that interview process of being like, Mm, well they you know, they didn't go to Russell Group, so are they really gonna do well here? So it's still having that open mind as well of getting in front of them and then un ensuring that they can be successful through that process.

Yeah. Okay. So let's start tackling the big idea. And I said, did allude to it in my introduction. I'd like to start to help listeners to the podcast understand why people are asking the wrong question

Mm.

about generations at work. Cause I think it's a really powerful idea. So perhaps you could just sort of

Yeah.

talk to me about that.

Yeah, definitely. in our space, you know, the question we're hearing so often is how do we manage Gen Z? And

Okay.

I think the language is kind of setting everyone up badly. You know, it's positioning the entire generation as a almost like a problem that needs to be managed or fixed and

Mm-hmm.

trying to encourage them to adapt and work in an existing working world. But

Obviously, there are differences between generations, you know, they have grown up in different environments, but actually a lot of it's contextual rather than capability.

Mm-hmm.

as you can, you know, as you know, people have entered ad adulthood during different economic conditions, different

Yeah.

technologies, different communication norms. and someone entering the workplace today has grown up with smartphones, social media from

Basically, as soon as they could understand what that was,

Mm-hmm.

a pandemic, like increased financial insecurity, and you know, now the rapid development of AI as well. So, of course, this kind of generation coming in are going to communicate, learn, or approach problems differently from someone who started work 20 or 30 years ago. But that doesn't mean that that difference is a weakness or something that needs to be managed.

Because it can bring new ways of thinking, you know, different questions, a greater willingness to challenge processes that may no longer work. And equally, people who've been in the pla in the workplace for longer bring that experience, that judgment, that organizational knowledge and understanding of what has happened before to the equation. So the opportunity isn't about how do we manage one generation into the habits of another. It's how do we create this environment where both of those strengths can be shared.

Yeah.

The organizations that perform the best are the ones that continue to innovate and adapt. And it's very difficult to do that if everyone is expected to think in the same way or follow the same approaches simply because that's how things have always been done. So I think like leaders have an important role in making sure ideas and knowledge flow across generations. And, you know, we'll talk about different ways that businesses can do that, but whether that's reverse mentoring or

encouraging challenges from junior colleagues, you know, building psychological safety and security in the business. but I think that's why leaders should be asking the different question, which is how do we build workplaces in which different generations understand one another, learn from one another, and can succeed together? Because that moves us from this judgment of how do we manage and fit people into these boxes that we've had to this curiosity.

Mmm.

So

we're not trying to just preserve one way of working, but actually trying to build a different and better way of working together.

Well, also, so I think you said something really important is that we haven't got to try and manage these generations or fix these generations. That's not what it's about. And that comes with that as well. Sometimes I'm sure you've heard this. I certainly have from I've heard it from good people as well. You know, that some of these people in the younger generations are entitled or lazy. We put

Yeah.

these horrible labels on people, which are not true. Yeah.

Certainly not in all cases. mean,

Yeah. Definitely not.

there are lazy and entitled people in all generations, let's be honest with you, but it's not the norm, is it? Let's be honest. So

No.

there are some very lazy, sorry, some very unhelpful labels out there.

Mm.

Yeah, and I think you're right, actually. If we shift away from trying to manage a generation or fix a generation or shape everybody in the way that I want it to be, that is a good starting point.

Yeah, definitely. I think I'm gonna have to remember who said this, but there's a quote of like I would ask the lazy person to do the job. I think it's like Steve Jobs or something like this. Because what they mean by that is that they'll find a quicker way of doing it. And that's what

Ha ha ha.

I think it's this this in exactly that, what that label is actually let's not, you know, put the judgment on people of well we think they're lazy or they're entitled, they don't want to work. It's like, well actually if you kind of let's open up the space and be like, Why do we think they're lazy? And often I think

It's because young people like question things. They don't want stuff that takes ages. They're so used to fast information

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

and doing things really, really quickly. And if we can embrace that, maybe we'll find quicker ways to automate the work that we're doing or how we approach stuff. and so I think, you know, these generalized labels are putting these preconceptions for businesses and leaders when young people are coming in, when actually we should be looking at, okay, well, why do we think they're lazy?

Is there something

Yeah.

that we can take from that that's gonna make all of our lives easier so we can be more lazy?

So you mentioned, is very contextual, so it leads on to

Mm-hmm.

my next question really, which is help some of the listeners of the podcast understand what is different about the world that young people are entering the workplace from nowadays compared to, you when I came into the workplace a

Mm.

number of years ago, it was very, different, you know, because there wasn't smartphones, there wasn't social media, there wasn't even an internet. That's how old I am. So it is different.

And I think it's sometimes hard for somebody who entered a workplace many years ago to understand how it's different.

Yeah. Yeah. There there's a lot. I think

Okay.

there's kind of I've tried to think about it into three ways when when talking about it, kind of three three things that, you know, the biggest differences that we're seeing.

Okay.

I think the first is it's so competitive and impersonal. You know, we're seeing it and hearing there's so many news articles about how young people are submitting hundreds of applications and getting little to to zero kind of human feedback. I think

in years and years ago, you know, you'd print off your C V and go into businesses and hand them out over and you'd get that immediate kind of no, we're not looking. Yes, okay, we'll have a look, maybe it's right. opportunity to and the opportunity to kind of put yourself forward in a face and aim. But because

Yeah.

recruitment is so digital and automated, it feels really transactional from from both sides for the young people. So they're kind of harder for them to enter that workspace.

And come into that and they're not getting that kind of feedback and how they can continue to improve. I think also they're hearing so much about AI and how that can fundamentally change or even remove the jobs that they might be applying for. So there's a

Yeah, yeah.

real level of uncertainty that is really different from different generations. It isn't, well, you can definitely get a job you know, working in a supermarket or in a bar and you'll be fine. I think, particularly when we look at like the

cost of living, crisis as well, these kind of jobs aren't able to sustain families or kind of be able to build a career like they used to. So there's this real uncertainty for young people coming into the market of like what can that actually look like and where is there a space for them if they don't already have experience.

Yeah.

I think the other one is there just being a lot less exposure to workplaces and professional environments. I mentioned the pandemic a little bit earlier, but it's hugely disruptive not only from young people not

being in school in person for a couple of years or most of their life, but also for any like part-time work that they might have been doing at the cinema or in their local supermarket or internships or work experience and other opportunities to come in to, you know, mum and dad's office to see how adults behave at work. Like young people are entering organizations now without having had the chance to learn.

the unwritten rules that exist, like how do you contribute in a meeting constructively, how formal should an email be? How and when do you ask for help or build a relationship with a manager? and it doesn't mean that they don't have the ability, but it's coming across like that. And actually they just haven't had the opportunity to practice because of the impact that that COVID had for them. And then finally, the communication and learning norms that they've grown up with have been really different.

Yeah.

They're really used to communicating with fast, digital, and very informal. Rarely will you pick up the phone. It's all instant gratification and messaging and also being able to find information immediately, move through things really quickly. So they're used to learning in much shorter, more accessible formats, you know, watching videos on two times speed, the amount of lectures I watched at 2x speed instead of one. so this can come across as a lack of professionalism

professionalism or as we were talking about the kind of like patients or coming across as lazy or as they can't sit down and focus and work. But it's actually that, you know, they're just used to a faster speed at these things. something we see quite a lot is young people are really quick to follow up on interviews and ring up

Okay.

and need a response and want to know how the process is going and

Clients are well, they're just not patient. They won't wait for the recruitment process. And we're like, well, they shouldn't have to wait six weeks for you to decide who they're hiring. Any no one should anyway, but especially this generation, like they're just so used to having feedback all the time. So it's really thinking about how they're, you know, have always experienced the world and how that's now kind of affecting their thoughts and feelings going into the working world as well.

Yeah, and we'll talk later on about how you manage the expectations around matching the younger generations with the ones that have been there longer, because you gave an example there of, you know, they don't pick up a phone, they just do it all through the

Mm.

smartphone. But of course, in the world of work, is a time when you need to pick up a phone. So and that's a skill that everybody needs to have. So but it's finding those matched expectations and alignment, isn't it?

Mm.

Yeah. So I think what are you saying that the motivations in these younger generations, it's still strong, but it's just been expressed in

different way is that what you're saying

Yeah,

definitely. I think young people are want that feedback and want that motivation to work and have that motivation to work really hard. But as we were saying with

Okay.

this kind of lazy comment, it's just it's it's just appearing in a really different way and

Yeah.

businesses aren't used to that, you know. We're seeing that in the reasons why young people are choosing places to work. Like development is really, really important to them.

We're seeing that come up all

Right, okay.

the time. Like they want to see where they can go in a business. They want to know that there's structured learning and development. So that's showing really strong motivation. But if you don't have that as a business, that might come across as like, well, they're not really trying. But it's because they're not just gonna

Ha ha.

sit and wait for you to to do it. Like they want like they want to know that that exists and that structure is there. And we're seeing that in businesses who have that, that that kind of lack of motivation isn't isn't as much of an issue. You know, they're used to having

Like I'm saying, that access to everything and it being there and them wanting to learn and but they're learning in a different way that older generations have of like you just do the job until you're really good at it and then you can do a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. whereas they want to learn all the stuff around it, those soft skills and wider knowledge and move careers in a more squiggly way.

Yeah.

and I think businesses who aren't equipped or kind of open to that are seeing this as lack of motivation, whereas actually it is.

maybe a lack of interest because it's just not aligning with how these young people are looking at the world of work based on how they've grown up.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. You talk about, you know, they want to know how their potential employer is going to develop them or what the purpose

Yeah.

behind that business is. When I joined the world, you wouldn't dream of asking a question, either of those questions, quite frankly, as you said, you were grateful to get a job and you went in there and grafted for a while and eventually you got somewhere. But that isn't how current generations are thinking about

Nice.

it. It's quite different. So what else? I mean, in terms of

looking at where organisations might be misreading things. What

Mm.

else are businesses misunderstanding about the younger talent that's available to them?

Yeah. I think, you know, outside of that kind of mis misconception around the laziness side is that, you know, young people they're expecting them to arrive like work ready. I think that's one

Right.

of the biggest kind of buzz phrases we're seeing maybe over the last six months.

Okay.

and that's, you know, this misconception that young people are going to come as this fully ready article.

Okay.

but no kind of expectation on like who would have taught them these skills and where these have come from. And often this is coming as a misconception that young people lack professionalism. but actually it's because they haven't been told how they should communicate. They

Mm-hmm.

haven't, you know, been given enough context in terms of how do they ask for projects or how do they network.

For a business is something we hear all the time at big, you know, consultancy, accountancy firms, like you've got to network to find the projects. But for a young person, they don't know how to do that, and that might come across as a lack of initiative. So often businesses are, you know, seeing these young people come in and putting these labels on, like a lack of motivation or a you know, not being professional professional or not having initiative, when often that's because.

they're not given the space to learn how to do those skills and there's too much expectation that they will have that.

Yeah.

Yeah, we use, I mean, we hear about the skills gap. I think the point you're

Yeah.

making is it's not actually a skills gap. It's an exposure gap because, you know, I remember I had I had a paper and I was 12. I also used to go out at the end of the week and collect the money. So I was there was a number of things I was learning about work. I didn't realize it at the time in terms of, you know, putting yourself out there, grafting, talking to adults, all of those things. And I had mates that worked in retail on a Saturday and had a Saturday job. And again,

Mm.

they're they're learning some skills that, as you said, lot.

youngsters don't get that exposure anywhere near as early as we did. So therefore, how can they turn up to work, work ready or even anywhere near work ready? Yeah.

Yeah.

So rather than labeling them, perhaps if we thought about, you know, we're recruiting for potential, I just think is what you said earlier on,

Mm.

recruit for potential, and then develop the people that have gotten that potential.

Yeah, exactly. You know, there's a real like contradiction, as you're saying, like of how we treat early talent. You know, we're recruiting people because they're early in their careers and they have potential to be amazing in the business, but we're and businesses are frustrated that they're not that kind of fully formed professional and they have to recognise that hiring early talent really does take commitment to development.

Yeah.

You can't recruit for potential and then manage them as if

they've already got experience. And that links a lot to retention because we're seeing that often as well. You know, young people are leaving jobs, they aren't staying as long as they used to. But that's really because if expectations aren't clear for both sides, you know, what is a business expecting this person to come in to do and what is that young person being expected to do, then they're going to be disappointed and they're

Mmm.

not going to feel like they're delivering or kind of falling short of of why. I think also something is that young people, the kind of motivations for work are different. Like

we were saying about progression means so much them, so does additional bonus like compensation outside of a salary. So what perks do you have? Healthcare, dental care, you know, money off groceries, gyms, wellness, all that kind of stuff also has a big impact for them in coming into the world of work. and also that sense of purpose, like wanting to know that what they're doing is actually building towards something.

And that's where that hard work and that dedication comes from. And that motivation might be different for different young people. And that because that motivation might be making lots and lots of money. It might be making a wide better difference to the world. It might be learning all the time and growing their like intellect. But understanding that motivation about the young person will make, you know, businesses much, much more successful in their managing retention and seeing that output from young people.

And you don't have to cater for everyone. You just need to understand what kind of motivations work well in your business and make sure you're looking for people who have those.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's move the conversation on a bit because I'm interested in how AI is sort of impacting

Hmm

all of this. And you mentioned the fact that obviously people coming into the workplace now are coming into a world where AI is big and is growing rapidly. So what should leaders understand about how young people use artificial intelligence?

Mm. Yeah. I mean, for a lot of young people and maybe you see your door, Dave, like AI is just a normal part of how they learn and work. You know, it's not

Yeah.

necessarily a conscious decision to be like, right, I'm gonna adopt AI now, as businesses are saying all the time, we're gonna adopt AI, we're gonna use it. You know, it's something that has been embedded in all of the like tools and platforms that they use.

Mm-hmm.

and I think a lot of businesses are trying to, you know, ban it or control.

the use of AI in organizations. But when you're looking at this younger generation coming in, that's completely unrealistic and it's not productive either.

Mm-hmm.

You know, really businesses should be thinking about, okay, well, how do we use it well and how do we capitalise on the skills that these young people have gained, having just been exposed to it from a young age and using it all the time in their day-to-day, and you know, learn from them in order to use that within our business.

Cause as we know, you know, AI is super helpful. I use it all the time. help people,

Okay.

you know, research, structure their thinking, improve how they want to communicate, work really efficiently. But obviously there's a risk that people become dependent on it. And I think businesses really, yeah, shouldn't be thinking about how do we control it, but you know, how do we use it well. and this is really, really important for early talent because they're not gonna not use it, but we

Okay.

need to ensure that there's enough underlying knowledge.

for them or enough access for them to underlying knowledge to know whether the answer they're given is is sensible or not by AI. Like even if you ban using ChatGPT, they're going to use it on the side, like we know they are. So you've got to make sure that they have the access to say they've used it, have the skills to be able to question whether it's right or not, and the access to ask people what the real answer should be. You know, my husband's a lawyer and it's an example they use all the time of like they've had

AI to help review or draft contracts to kind of speed their work up. But if a young lawyer is using that, then they might not have had the chance to understand or even been taught why a certain clause goes in or why it might be good to use or why it might not be. Or, you know, AI has been known to fabricate some cases to give some ideas, but they haven't been, you know, taught to critically challenge or, you know, who to ask to look for that. And

it's not about kind of stopping them from using it entirely, but you know, leaders setting those expectations on how it's used and kind of encouraging the conversation about it. So I think there's so much to be learned from young people and how they use AI to speed things up, but you want them to be forthcoming about it. You want them to say, well, I've used it to do this. This is what I've got, with a senior who can go, well actually, you know, that's not quite right because of X, Y, Z, but this is is right. And, you know, it's brilliant that that took you a lot less, like, could we find a way that it

we can get it so that it gives you f the full right answer, or there's always going to have to be that level of kind of critical thinking, but at least you're teaching the junior person how to critically think and analyse it. So those kind of expectations and that open conversation needs to be set within a business that it isn't being hidden by juniors. They're not turning up and be like, hey, here's my full work that I've done entirely by myself, but actually that they are, you know, having that conversation and how it's been used, because I think

lots of seniors can learn from different ways that could be used that might be helpful for them or the wider business, but also so that young people can continue to learn those skills that they need and ensure that they're not kind of turning up things which aren't correct and don't work.

So I think I think you're right. I think obviously you say AI is here to stay whether we like it or not whether it will advance is quite the speed we think it might who knows

Yeah.

we'll find out won't we but But but but actually I think you made a point younger people have grown up with it. They're going to use it That's probably even more true as the next few years go past We need to have some guardrails around it clearly. It can't be the

Yeah.

can't be the Wild West I mean you talked about Influencer marketing being the Wild West and that didn't go too well did it but so we do need some guardrails, but I also think this

concept and maybe you can speak a little bit more about this. This idea of reverse mentoring where

isn't just the older or more experienced generation mentoring the younger ones, it works in the opposite direction. talk to, because I think this is a huge opportunity, Chesco, I really do.

Yeah, definitely. And it's something we're seeing, you know, businesses starting to do more and more of. You've like senior C suite or managers being paired with junior early career talent, not partly just because, you know, they're there to be a mentor and a sponsor to help that young peop person pick up some of those skills that, you know, we were talking about how they haven't had the exposure to before and kind of helping them to navigate that, but also because, you know, young people have so much to teach.

us and like kind of how they think and the way of working. you know, I had and have had a mentor who works in the commercial world and we're constantly both teaching stuff each other things. He definitely teaches me

Okay.

way more, but often he'll talk about something and, you know, I'll just go, well, we just get Chat GPT to do that. Like can we just put it in there and then everyone else can access it. Or what happens if we, you know, set up this automation so that it does that for us automatically every day. And he's like, I didn't even know it could do that. And but because

you know, I've grown up with technology more and more. I'm just used to using it for those kind of things all the time.

Mm-hmm.

I actually learn a lot of my AI tricks on TikTok, which I know he definitely doesn't use. So

No, I know would I frankly but yeah, yeah, okay interesting

But it's

things like that where he's then leaving going, that's so interesting. Like I didn't realize, you know, we could have used it in that kind of way. And then gets him thinking about other ways that that could work from a wider business. And for senior leaders, particularly if they're in different departments, and obviously very different job descriptions and roles that they're doing day to day, you know, getting a young person with a fresh kind of perspective on how things could work, hearing how

you know, they've always collected all their data on a spreadsheet when actually, well, if they connected their CRM to Chat GPT to the spreadsheet, they could, you know, fill out all of those forms in five seconds. It might not be something that they would have thought of or connected themselves. So I think it's such a brilliant opportunity to not only overcome some of the challenges we were talking about around young people not necessarily having the exposure or the skills to understand or navigate the world of work through preparing them with a

someone who's been in the world of work for much longer, but also to kind of capitalise on the understanding of what these young people have been exposed to and actually their different way of thinking and solving problems.

Yeah.

And I think they really do approach things with this kind of efficiency mindset of like, well, how can we do this as quickly as possible? Cause I'm so used for things being quick and have less patience for that's just how we've always done it.

And I think that's really kind of linking to that that question that we're asking of like around a multi-generational workforce is actually how do we create that co-learning opportunities and reverse mentoring is one that we've seen to be a really, really great way to do that.

Do you think some of the best results that you're seeing are from initiatives like that, where there is this co-learning across the generations in the workplace?

Hmm. Definitely.

I think especially for big businesses, like smaller businesses, if you can encourage a idea based organization, then kind of what I mean by that is one where people feel really confident to bring ideas and run with them,

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

which is quite hard to do on a large scale and really see that benefit. So for big businesses or even, you know, like medium sized businesses.

having that connection and opportunity is, you know, seeing such huge, huge benefits, not only for the progression and the engagement of the young person, but exactly for how that kind of older person is then thinking about how they approach their day-to-day work and maybe what they then go and tell their teams to look at and how that could work.

And that shifts onto my next sort of area of focus really, because obviously this is a leadership podcast and I'm interested in the leadership

Mm-hmm.

capability gap really, because this is going to shift the spotlight back onto leaders really. what do you think leaders need to do differently based on what you're saying? A

Mm.

leader who's listened to this and thinks, I'm slightly one of the older generations. What do I need to do differently now?

Yeah, definitely. I think kind of linking from this is, you know, it's not just simply managing or leading from the front, but creating the conditions in which people feel like they can share and perform well

Okay.

and kind of perform in themselves, you know, as we were saying much earlier about it's not about trying to lead to put everyone into their box and follow one way of working. Leading isn't about getting everyone to do the same thing.

No.

It's

about giving people the space and the opportunity to show the different

traits and motivations and contextual understanding that they have that might allow your business to perform or even your team perform way, way better and creating that environment. And I think kind of a few different ways that businesses can do that, particularly with younger talent, you know, like leaders

Mm-hmm.

with younger talent, I think one really key one is explaining the why, not just the task. And

Okay.

young people are really want to understand the reasoning behind

you know, a decision or why they're doing a piece of work. You know, we spoke earlier about them wanting to feel like they're contributing to something and kind of part of a wider thing. And sometimes that can be seen as challenging authority. You know, Dave, you said you would never have asked when you joined, you know, what's my progression look like and how

No, exactly.

do I get there? And it might look like a bit entitled of like asking all of these questions, but a lot of the time it's that they just want to understand the context because they're trying to understand how to make those decisions for themselves.

So it's not saying you have to justify every small action, but it's really that you need to connect the task or the work they're doing to this kind of wider purpose or the customer they're working with or the business goal or their personal development because that will, you know, help them be motivated and produce better work that they can then deliver. And, you know, hopefully if they understand, you know, where this is coming from, they also might be able to spot some changes for efficiencies or ways that they could approach it in a different way, rather than just being like, you need to fill out this, you know.

Yeah. Yeah.

spreadsheet with all of these answers.

I think another one is you know giving really regular and specific feedback. you

Okay, yeah.

know it's it's not necessarily a new thing, but for again for early talent, like they are so used to this constant feedback mechanism and saving those for formal reviews, you know, makes it, you know, feel

They might feel like they're not progressing or they're not getting the opportunity to learn because they don't know what they need to do better. I mean, it's not a huge generational difference, but we're hiring, you know, eighteen, nineteen, twenty-year-olds into our business and they are constantly asking us how they can do better, what feedback, what we can tell them. And even

Okay, yeah.

when we tell them people that they're like, No, I need it like more specifically or more detailed, like what what can I do? So, you know, being like, you just need to be more professional in those kind of situations isn't

helpful, like they really want to understand what they can do and kind of walk through those opportunities with them and really making sure that that feedback is formal, it's feels normal rather than something that's really formal. And that kind of links with that co-learning opportunity as well. Like if you're able to give feedback at the end of a meeting, you know, it's creating that opportunity where a young person might also feel like they could do that as well and be like, actually, you I think we missed this opportunity here because this client was talking about X and we started going down this different route. Like

is that something we should follow in the future? So creating that environment where feedback can be really easily given makes such a big difference.

What would you say to somebody, because I've heard this said to me as well, more than once, so some of the younger generation when you give them feedback, particularly feedback about areas they can improve on,

Yes.

they can't handle the feedback. Have you heard that before?

Yeah. I

yes, yeah, definitely. And I think obviously different people will have kind of different ways of experiencing feedback. I you know, some

Yeah.

of it's is they maybe haven't heard it and you know, it takes time. And you know, we we had this really recently in one of our meetings, we gave feedback about a particular, you know, how a particular event went and could quite visibly see that

the kind of youngest person on our team was really like disagreeing and really uncomfortable, asked a lot of very harsh questions

Mm-hmm.

and made everyone feel really, really uncomfortable and quite obviously hadn't taken it very, very well. And we all kind of left that being like, well, that didn't feel very productive. Didn't feel like she really took that. and, you know, she's you know, obviously maybe she can't take feedback and she can't deal with it. But what

Mm-hmm.

we did is we kind of took a step back and we went instead of assuming that she can't

deal with feedback or can't take it. one of the team kind of pulled her aside and was like, look, we just want you to realize that that isn't how you react in a professional environment. Like that's not the type of body language you should display or the type of way that you should ask questions to a senior team member when they're giving you feedback about a piece of work. You know, it doesn't need to be accusatory.

Mmm.

And through this conversation, you know, she

It came out that she was having, you know, a bit of difficulty at home and had just had some bad news on her phone before coming into that meeting. So it was already, you know, on a higher level. And we discussed with her how it is okay to to let us know those kind of things. And

Mm-hmm.

actually that can help with regular context. But also she acknowledged that, you know, that is, you know, she did react in that way. And actually she's never been given feedback, negative feedback in a professional environment. She's used to it from, you know, friends or teachers or parents, and you can react like that and no one will call you out. And she was actually very

that you know, really acknowledged that and welcomed the fact that we kind of instead of being like, You shouldn't act like that, you know, that's not okay, or ignoring it and just writing her off as someone who duck can't take it. We had that very open conversation to be like, well, you know, why did you act that way? How did that make like why did that make you feel that? and that isn't kind of, you know, even if it did make you feel that way, that isn't something that you can do in a professional environment and how you respond. And that meant kind of then moving forward you actually haven't seen that kind of reaction again.

Interesting, yeah, okay.

And I think that was kind of gonna be one of my last points,

which is, you know, really listening before making any assumptions or decisions with young people and taking the time to understand, you know, where that's coming from before applying like a label like they're lazy or entitled or can't take feedback because, you know, I think these young people are more used to talking and they are more open to

exposing, you how they're feeling and understanding that and taking the time to to see that within a young person means that often you can avoid that behavior. You know, in the past people would just conform and be like, right, that's that is how I am and that's how everyone else is working. So I will do that as well. And we're definitely not seeing that the same in the young in young people. And some of it is they just have to learn and they have to be taught. But also you have to take the time to teach them and have that conversation with them.

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah.

Yeah. And everything you were saying, I mean, I've been saying on this podcast for a while and Rich has been saying it as well, is that I think in terms of where leadership is going in a world where we have AI and.

these things is the human skills. Some people

Mm.

call them the soft skills, but I think that's got negative connotations in itself because people think well soft skills don't really deliver a profit. Well actually human skills do. So let's not call,

Yeah.

let's call them what they are. It's the skills that are needed to be a human being and value other humans. So things like listening skills, things like you said understanding and empathy. I coaching skills, I would say that

Yeah.

as a professional coach I would say that, but coaching skills are really important. As you said explaining not just the what but the why.

I think that is really important. I'm not sure a lot of leaders and managers have been taught to have these skills by the way and that's part of

Mm.

the problem. You talked about creating psychological safety inside a business and that's really important as well. And the fact that these younger generations they expect dialogue. They don't just want a hierarchy that tells them what to do and expects

Exactly.

them to fall in behind it. They actually want some dialogue. So there's a lot to get right here probably. A lot of challenges for all generations here isn't there?

Mm. Yeah, definitely. And I think that that dialogue thing is is so true. Like particularly that feedback element, you know, often they just want to understand where it's coming from and what they should be doing. And it can come across as defensive because actually what they're trying to do is understand how the decisions they maybe made led to that outcome and what could be changed in order to get to a different outcome each time. And it might come across as a lot of different questions. And there's definitely, you know, learnings that they can learn in terms of like how do you ask those questions in

professional environment and what's appropriate and what isn't but it's really they just want to understand and quite often feedback has just been given as like this is just the way that we do it so you have to do it this way but they are a lot more eager to question and be like well why have we always done it that way and why does doing it that way cause a better outcome versus how I did it. So it's definitely a lot more about being willing to have that open dialogue and not taking it as someone doing it because they disagree with your feedback but because actually

They just really want to understand it so that if they are acting on it, they're acting on it in the right kind of way and it that it's consistent.

So think my next question, we may have already answered some of this, but I was going to ask you, what are young people really looking for

Mm-hmm.

from work? I you've talked about they want clear progression and development pathways. They need to understand what that looks like. There's a desire for a degree of transparency. I'd imagine that's not just about progression though, it's about other things as well.

Yeah, a little bit like what we were just saying, you know, understanding decision making, you know, why they're doing a particular task, what's happening. and I guess it's like it's and transparency and authenticity. Like we see it so much within young people are rejecting jobs or not staying there long because it isn't what they expected it was gonna be. You know,

Okay

we got that copy often businesses were saying, Well, we're hiring lots of young people but they're leaving after six months or a year. You they're the they're the

hopping generation, they don't stay anywhere, they have no loyalty, like they just leave. But when you actually speak to young people, the reason that they're doing that is because there wasn't that transparency or that authenticity from the start. So they were expecting something very, very different when they were going into a business versus what was actually there. And we say this when we help companies do their attraction on their employer branding all the time. We're like, it's not, you know, you have to be honest.

about what you're looking for and what the business is. Obviously you want to present the best side of it, but there's no point you spending loads and loads of time to attract someone who isn't going to be a good long term fit because what you've said isn't actually true and you shouldn't just be telling them everything that they want to hear to try and get them to come work there because that's not going to be fruitful in the long run. And then as we say to the young people that we help to get roles, it's a two way interview. You know, you need to understand if that's the right fit

for you as well as then the business, understanding if you are a right fit for them. And if it isn't

Hmm.

a right fit, don't try and force, you know, a a round pole into a square hole. Like it's not, it's not gonna happen. So

No.

like it's really making sure that that is clear. And if businesses don't do that, they're gonna lose out lose out on top talent. And also they're going to like they're gonna leave.

Yeah, that's fair comment. you talked about this concept of, I think you called it squiggly career. So unlike

Yeah.

when I joined the workplace, you probably expected in many cases to go into an organization, stay there for a while, know, progress at some point. I don't think that's how people look at the job market and the careers market anymore, is it? It's quite different to that. We're allowed to jump all over the place and try different things

Mm.

out until we find what really

Well, like you did, I mean, you tried a couple of things out before you actually found what was right for you.

Yeah, definitely. You know, there's no expectation that the first job you do should be your job forever and as it shouldn't. You how do you know what you enjoy when you're eighteen to twenty one? So I think it's great and and like I said, young people kind of have this this want to learn and progress and they don't that doesn't just have to be linear for them. A lot of them it's just learning new skills and getting new experiences. which is brilliant. But I understand for businesses you also want to retain and keep your talent. So

Yeah, of course.

often, you know, we've

Companies are doing lots of like rotational graduate programs or rotational internships or opportunities for young people to try lots of different roles and departments before settling down and choosing what they want to do because that gives them the opportunity to try lots of different areas and understand what really interests them, or having kind of internal job boards and offering internal roles to their talent first before they go externally to market. Because again, it might be a young person working in

you know, come into their product team, but actually has the skill set and is really interested in the finance side. And if a a level, you know, a role opens at a similar level, then it's brilliant. Even though they've moved teams, you're still retaining that great talent who understands the business. So I think this like internal mobility is is really, really key and encouraging more businesses to invest in the kind of infrastructure and the ability to do that as well, to retain this really top talent and, you know, allow young people to have the squiggly careers that they want.

Yeah. Okay, so let's get into the nitty gritty then of what we think organizations need to do here. So if you pick the biggest practical changes that leaders should make, what would the headline stuff be? Okay.

Okay, I've got four.

so I've tried try and narrow it down. I think

Yeah.

the first, and you know, we've touched on all of these, the first is is hiring for potential not polish. You know, we've talked about this and looking beyond things like who performs the most confidently in interviews because

Yeah.

we know that these are all influenced by background and exposure. So really changing your assessments to examine motivation.

your learning agility, the values and the long term potential rather than relying too much on that kind of subjective idea of, they're a fit, which often we see links to like, they look like me. They went to a similar university, school, etc. Yes, exactly.

I understand them because they look bit like me.

the second is to create really structured exposure early on. You know, we can't, as we were talking about that businesses are expecting young people to come in fully polished. So

Yeah.

We can't critici criticize young people for lacking the experience when businesses aren't opening their doors to allow young people to experience it.

No.

So things like work experience or insight programs, even you know, online webinars explaining their business and how it operates in the industry, mentoring programs, access to their leaders, you know, all help young people to really understand the professional world so that once they join, that exposure can continue. But

they're coming in, you know, a little bit more on the front foot.

Do you, under that heading of creating structured exposures, I think that is really important. Do you also include under that, for example, I go into my local high school where my two daughters go,

Yeah.

they have a careers day every June usually, and I go in and I do some mock interviews and I do something else, they call it career speed dating where these kids are gonna come up and they're gonna ask me questions and find out what I do for a living and try and work it out. But I'm actively, I'd like to do a lot more of that.

I had the time but do you think we need to as businesses do more of that actively get out into because you know to expect a kid come from school knowing what their strengths are what they want to do it's

Yeah.

actually not going to happen I don't think without more exposure for them

Yeah, a hundred percent. I think, yeah, definitely. We we encourage if businesses can bring young people in, way, way better. You know, you're taking young people out of an environment that they might not connect with. You know, they

Mm-hmm.

might be struggling at school, they might not feel very engaged and someone else comes in, it might be quite hard for them to

Yeah.

continue to engage. But obviously we understand that's not always possible. So any exposure that you can give, whether that is coming into those schools.

getting the young people to come in for a h a morning, an afternoon to see what the world of work being in an office is like, or even

Yeah.

like mentoring programs online. You know, I meant used to mentor a young a young girl who was six I mentor from sixteen to eighteen. And it was exactly that, you know, her understanding what her strengths and weaknesses were. You know, no one had sat down with her. And it was really sweet. She we speak was speaking about it 'cause she was about to do an interview for a in like a kind of work experience week programme in a finance firm.

And I was well, what are your strengths? What you And she was Well, I don't really have any. And I was like, look, I've had about four hours of mentoring with you, and I can give you five off the bat that you have. But because

Okay, yeah.

no one has sat down with her and like taught her what those were or what was important in a workspace, you know, I was like, you're always really curious. Like you ask lots of questions, you go out of your way to understand information. and I was like, You're obviously like really good at logic solving, you know, you do lots of crosswords and puzzles and you talk about that. So

you've obviously got those kind of skills. And it was a real kind of like eureka moment for her when she was like, these things that I just do in my day to day life are strengths rather than she's like, I don't really have any work experience. I haven't done anything. So

Yeah.

like I don't really know what to say. and talking through those. And then suddenly she was rattling off more and she was like, well I love doing this. So you know, does that does is that be a strength? I was like, Yeah, yeah, that is a strength. So I love

when a teacher asked me to stand up and do a presentation, like is that trend? I was like, Yeah, that's brilliant. Like you obviously maybe you want to do something that's client facing. So

Yeah.

even these like, you know, short amounts I was it was mentoring for an hour a month with this young girl, like makes a really big difference for her going into that interview.

Well,

if we all did a bit of that, think how many people we could reach.

Exactly.

Okay, so you've talked about it. So number one was higher for potential, not polished. Number two was create structured exposure.

Yes.

What's number three?

So number three is, you know, equipping managers properly. As you said, Dave, like it's it's different kind of skills.

Yep.

and often managers, you know, become managers because they've been really, really good at their job, but maybe not necessarily given the support in order to how do you kind of lead and coach a person, particularly a young person. So that kind of like actual training and follow up information around how do you give constructive feedback, how do you coach, how do you

set expectations and have difficult conversations. I mean, this can be a runoff, one-off workshop, but really things like tools and standards that are set out to give young people the support, to give managers the support that they need in order to effectively manage young people. Like early careers employees, like their experience of the organization is mainly through their managers. So the quality of that relationship is so, so important for that like engagement, retention and the performance.

you know, for all of the early careers programs that we build for businesses, we always have a kind of manager pack on like how do you run effective one-to-ons, what structure should you use, what about performance reviews, all tailored to the business, but really making sure that a manager comes in being like, right, I know what kind of conversations I'm having. Because a lot of businesses end up just having, you know, a HR person ends up being the early careers managers because they have that people skills that you need when you're working with young people, but, you know, they don't have the time and ability to, you know,

take care of hundreds of young people sometimes for businesses. So I think that investing in your managers is really, really important.

Yeah, and reflecting what you're just saying there, so obviously, yeah, I agree. Feedback skills, coaching capability, really important. then think about my career where I've come through financial services. So I was a financial advisor, so which is effective. You do it properly as money coaching,

Yeah.

finance coaching. Yeah, I've obviously gone into the world of being a professional coach for a living. I now do podcasts. The skills I used in all three of those disciplines are essentially the same skills.

Mm.

Yeah.

curiosity-led questioning, listening skills, developing your empathy. There's a load of things. Actually, they're transferable, some of these skills as well. So you can use them in different settings. And I think that's also the benefit of actually developing that skill set, isn't it?

Yeah, definitely. You know, you're

also investing and potentially hopefully retaining your managers as well through that work because you're invest

Absolutely.

like you're saying investing in those skills for them for them to build as well throughout their wider career, too.

And number four.

Number four. so make the kind of rules of work clear. You know, every workplace has unwritten rules, but a lot of young people don't have equal access to understanding them. particularly linking to that point where we were saying, you know, they haven't had that exposure to the

way of working, they don't know what good communication looks like or how a meeting is meant to work, or how do you write an email, the feedback, you really taking extra time to explain these for young people makes such a such such a big difference. We're seeing it a lot in businesses running almost like onboarding weeks, which are really focused on these kind of skills, on

Okay.

how do you, yeah.

How do you have a conversation with your manager and bring up a difficult conversation? How do you structure emails or meeting, how do you structure meeting notes? How do you run a successful meeting? How do you build a successful presentation? Things that are kind of expected when coming into the world of work or aren't really ever taught. And

Yeah.

for some people, you know, they haven't had that exposure. So it takes them a lot longer to pick it up. And that might look like they're not performing at the same level as others, but actually it's just that kind of exposure and understanding. So really running these.

sessions early on or throughout, you know, as they onboard over a few months is ensuring that they will have the foundation to be successful and be able to succeed in the roles they're coming in and really leveling that playing field for them.

Right, okay. So four really good areas to focus on there. mean, there's a lot in that, isn't there? But if we do hire for potential, not polish, if we do create those structural exposure moments for people, if we do equip our managers properly, please do that. We do need to do that. And if we make the rules of work clearer, that does sound like we

Mm-hmm.

can start to evolve our workplaces where multiple generations can start to...

not just exist together, which is not really the goal, but thrive together, which I think is where you're coming from.

Definitely.

Yeah. So we're coming to the end of the podcast. I guess I'm going to ask you now for a bit of a closing reflection.

Yeah.

If there was one shift that you said leaders need to make, what would it be?

Yeah, I think it's it's really going back to what we spoke at at the beginning, you know, stop trying to fit generations into one box and actually

Okay.

focus on how you're designing the environment around them. And

Okay.

saying, you know, every generation brings their strengths, their limitations, their different experiences, but leadership is about creating the conditions in which those differences can complement each other rather than, you know, become a friction. And

Mm-hmm.

that requires curiosity.

So I think my biggest kind of shift from leaders is is be curious, you know, ask young people questions, listen and understand where they're coming from, why they might approach something in a different way. because that's gonna allow you to create that environment for both org both generations, all generations to be able to learn from each other. So the organizations that can kind of bridge the gaps across those generations through that curiosity.

Are the ones that are gonna be super successful. So whether that's just as a leader, you know, asking questions and listening and spending more time with your joint junior employees, whether that's a more formal forum or an actual reverse mentoring program, essentially creating a safe space where people can share ideas and allow people to challenge them as well to in order to be able to, you know, lead your business future forward and be able to innovate. You know, it's

This conversation isn't, as we said right at the beginning, about managing Gen Z. It's about, you know, how is

No.

our workplaces a good place to help people from different generations learn from one another.

Yeah, and it mustn't be, people mustn't think it's all about the younger generation because even some of us who've been in work a long time can still learn stuff. I mean,

Yeah.

I'm constantly trying to update my knowledge on things because I know I will never be the finished article. And I know not everybody thinks that way, but we should actually be humble enough to go, I can learn some stuff from people who've been in work a lot less time than me who have come with different experiences, grown up in a different time.

I think that's important, isn't it? It's not just the younger generation

Definitely.

here.

No, and and and also equally the younger generation learn from what they see. You know, if they're seeing you ask them questions and try to understand that's something that they learn and we can, you know, continue to create that those environments as they as Gen Zs grow up and more generations come into the workplace, continue to have that environment where we're always learning from each other and kind of understanding the different experiences that other people have had and

you know, seeing the potential that that can bring to how we work or how our team or even wider business works as well.

Yeah, okay, there's so much wrapped up in this. I'm sure we could talk for another hour, but sadly we're coming to the end of our time. So Jessica, thanks for

Exactly.

sharing your knowledge and experience. It's really interesting. If listeners want to find out more, first thing, where can they connect with you? And also how do they find out more about the Ladder Group, which is the business that you work for?

Yeah. So easiest place to connect with me is is on LinkedIn. so it's Francesca Well Brown on there. Feel free to, you know, send me a connection. And for the Ladder Group, it's probably our website, it's theLaddergroup.com. So, you know, please have a look at the amazing work that the team are doing there. we also do a lot of work with an amazing charity called the Early Careers Foundation, which is all around mentoring. So please check them out. they work with 16 to 18 year olds to help them access the great to access great careers. So

seeing the work that they're doing and whether you can get involved as well is another avenue.

I'm guessing you're always looking for volunteers for that as well. yeah.

Exactly. Exactly.

Jessica, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Really appreciate it.

No, thank you, Dave. It's been brilliant.

So for anybody listening, I think, hopefully this conversation reframes the challenge completely. And I certainly hope it means you will now be asking the right question and not the wrong question here. So the right question just to remind you is how do we build workplaces where different generations understand each other, share knowledge and succeed together?

It's not about one generation needing to change for the other. It's about how we build environments where different perspectives can coexist and complement each other. So if leaders can get this right, the opportunity isn't just a better employee engagement score, it's a better and more sustainable business performance. And what's not to like about that? So, Chesco, lovely to meet you, lovely to talk to you.

Hopefully it be the last time we have a conversation. I'll follow you a lot closer than I did

Definitely.

before. for every listening, thank you for listening to the podcast. We'll be back next week. But for today, that's it. Thank you.