A new era: the generational force transforming work forever.

The German physicist and Nobel prize Max Plank wrote in his biography: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it …” (Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33, 97).

Millennials and Gen-Z are becoming the biggest and most relevant age group in our society. In 2020, Millennials became the biggest age group in the US workforce, and by 2025, Millennials and Gen-Z will constitute 63% of the global workforce, growing to its peak of 75% in 2030.

In our families and friends circles, we are already appreciating the profound cultural differences between the older generations (Gen-X and Boomers) and these new generations. The way they form their own opinions, what they find entertaining or interesting, what motivates them, what they see as the new normal and, most important of all, the way technology and video games are an integral part of all of these cognitive and relational processes.

Gen-Xers and Boomers are still debating a lot of issues that these new generations have already made peace with. Topics like gender inequality, LGBTQ+ rights, diversity, climate change, and sustainability, are still being debated by older generations for fear of change. While for the new generations these aren’t even “issues” to be discussed, they are the new normal.

Transposing this situation to the world of work, we’re still grappling in many countries with problems related to gender inequality, diversity, flexible hours, work/life balance, and meaningful work. Take Amazon's recent decision to stop remote working across the board, forcing everyone to go back to their offices. Nothing more anachronistic could have been decided by such a big corporation.

From my perspective, all of this is about to change. No, Gen-Xers are not all about to die (so that Plank can be correct yet again), we're just going to become slightly less relevant, sector by sector, year after year.

We are already seeing cracks in the old establishment pillars: talent shortage, great difficulty in retaining young talent, lack of motivation and engagement of the workforce, and so on. It could be argued that these are the symptoms of a problematic younger generation, but the truth is that these are the symptoms of an old infrastructure that no longer reflects the new generations' principles and aspirations. There is plenty of talent in the market - there is actually an overabundance of technical talent - but very few of those young professionals want to work for an old corporation, hence the corporation is struggling to hire. In Italy, a traditionally-old corporate market for instance, 54% of all job offers are rejected.

Millennials and Gen-Zers are showing great dedication and loyalty to projects they believe in - they don’t want to have a meaningless job in an old corporation. 67% of under-27 professionals in Italy have changed jobs over the past 12 months.

The lack of motivation and engagement we see, at least in the young generations, is because the professional environment sucks the life away from them, constraining them to go to an office that requires a long commute, in a city they don’t like, to work continuously at a desk, without the flexibility to manage their digital life, which operates on an asynchronous schedule.

As I mentioned, all of this, at least in the professional world, is about to change very soon because finding and retaining talent and having it be engaged in the workplace is becoming a valuable competitive advantage that will propel new companies, and those that have the courage to change, to create environments in which people will be able to express their full potential.

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