What if it’s us who can learn something from Gen Z about work?

Maybe the kids are onto something.

[Photo: ATHVisions/Getty Images]

If there were ever a truth about generationalism, it’s this: Every generation has the same complaint about the generation that came after it. Kids these days don’t want to work. They want everything but don’t want to work hard enough to get it. They all want participation trophies. We’ve all heard some semblance of these accusations in some fashion or another. In fact, we’re all probably guilty of delivering our own version of these generation-dividing dispositions. However, if every generation says the same about the next, then, inherently, how true can these criticisms really be? Perhaps, instead of there being an impediment in the work ethic of today’s “kids,” maybe they’re actually noticing something we “adults” aren’t ready to admit.

Maybe it’s the reality that entrusting one’s entire career to one organization might actually be a losing proposition—a perspective change that shifted between the boomer workforce and Gen X. Or maybe it’s the idea that work-life should be balanced with life-life—a dispositional shift from the Gen X workforce by millennials. The truth is, they (millennials) were right, just as we (Gen Xers) were right. And right now, today’s kids (Gen Z) are probably noticing something that we can’t fully comprehend: The rat-race orthodoxy that most of us have built our........

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