Autor Jason Dorsey: Choques generacionales en el trabajo: cómo cerrar la brecha

Gene Marks (00:00)

Hey, everybody, it's Gene Marks. And welcome to another episode of the Paychex THRIVE Podcast. I recently spoke to Jason Dorsey. He is the president and lead researcher of the Center for Generational Kinetics. Do you know which generation is most frustrated by Gen Z? You'll find out in this conversation. If you'd like to know how to manage the generations in your workforce, there are anywhere between four and five of them in the workforce. You're going to find that out, too. And which generation is the biggest part of your workforce? You'll find that out, too, along with a bunch of other stuff. So, tune in. We're going to get to Jason's conversation right now.

Jason Dorsey (00:35)

Welcome to THRIVE, a Paychex Business Podcast. Your blueprint for navigating everything from people to policies to profits. And now your host, Gene Marks.

Gene Marks (00:47)

So, Jason, first of all, thank you so much for joining me. I have a million questions for you. I saw you speak at a conference a few months ago, and you were just amazing on stage. I loved your presentation. So that's why you're here, because I think you've got a lot of great advice and content to share with our audience. So, thanks for joining.

Jason Dorsey (01:05)

Thanks for having me. That's fun. I love speaking at conferences. You know, it's my thing. So great to see you come full circle. And I get to be on your stage. So, yeah, a lot of fun.

Gene Marks (01:13)

I mean, you're really good at it, and, you know, and it's good, and you communicate really, really well. Your topic is amazing. So, we're going to get into your topic and your advice, but first of all, so you're a president and lead researcher of the Center for Generational Kinetics. So, you're also the author of a book called Zconomy. First of all, tell me about the center. What exactly does it do?

Jason Dorsey (01:33)

Yeah, at CGK, our mission is to separate myth from truth about generations, because much of what is said about generations, it's just not real. It's a cute meme. If somebody has a kid, and then they think the whole generation represents that. That sort of thing. So, we want to separate myth from truth about generations through original research, which is what we lead, and then we share that, usually with business leaders, entrepreneurs, executives at conferences around the world. Lots and lots of TV shows, over 200 TV shows so far, really trying to advance the conversation, understand the strengths of each generation, and then help generations lead across. So, if you're younger, how do you work with people who are older than yourself? If you're older, how do you inspire and connect with people who are younger than yourself? Like, that's really important right now as we have four and even five different generations in the workforce. So that's a lot of what we do at CGK. And we do it for all kinds of companies all around the world. 200 studies, it's just. It's incredible. So really.

Gene Marks (02:25)

So, you make your money. I mean, you do. You speak. So, you make money from that. You know, obviously you promote your business on the media and then you do... It sounds like your core revenue stream is from research and consulting that you do for companies that are trying to figure out how to deal with the different generations in the workplace. Is that my... Is that right?

Jason Dorsey (02:42)

Yeah, pretty much, yeah. I speak at all kinds of events. Tons of industry conferences, lots and lots of sales meetings. I've just done a bunch of sales kickoffs, tons of management meetings, workforce events. Really anywhere where people see and feel those generational differences. And what's interesting about that is it's across industry. So next week, I'll speak in manufacturing, I'll speak in technology, and I'll speak in hospitality. That's pretty normal for us. Just really a wide swath. And I get everybody's data, which is really what makes it exciting. So, when I get that data, we can customize it, but it goes into our trove of data to help us continue to reinforce and understand all the different data points and trends that we see. And then on the research side, we lead lots of original research. Interestingly, I would say half of our research client share. I'm the spokesperson for Hilton this year. I do research for lots of big companies, and then we help them to share what they discover. But about half of our research, we leave for companies and they don't share it because they use it to inform their strategy. So, we're sort of their secret sauce. And it's a ton of fun to get to do that. So, yeah, I love it.

Gene Marks (03:42)

Why do you think companies are so interested in this? What's driving it?

Jason Dorsey (03:48)

I think they're feeling the pain. I mean, candidly, they're feeling the frustration. And it takes. It looks different in different companies, but here's how it frequently comes out. I'm communicating and I just don't feel like they're listening to me or they're not doing what we need them to do. They're not engaged. Engagement looks different. Tons of conversation about return to work. Is that a thing? What does that mean? How do we do hybrid? So that's created Just a lot of problems on the sales and marketing side, which is much of our work, people are buying differently today than before. So things that work to sell 5, 10, 20 years ago don't work right now. And then many of the businesses that we work with, you know, they're trying to bridge a lot of different generations, but with a limited set of services or products. So, at some point, it's the humans in between that have to be able to sort of adapt and make it, show them how it fits or why it doesn't fit and so forth, so they can best serve them. I just feel the pain today from generational differences is much more acute. And when executives and leaders who are our primary client group, they're being asked to do more with less, more with less, more or less. There's more transparency, there's more accountability. And in the environment, we're in, the people side of the business really shows up. And generational differences are just costly. If you don't get them right, they're just costly. Turnover goes up, miscommunication can be safety, and then people lose sales. I mean, it's a real, real expense to many of these businesses. And what's interesting is virtually all of the solutions that we uncover through our research are pretty much free. They're very low cost. It's just they don't know that it would work. Right. And so, we're able to go and find that for them and then show them how to do it.

Gene Marks (05:25)

Jason, when I saw you speak, you went through, and this is like, over the course of. I forget how long you spoke, 45 minutes or an hour, but it was. You were really going through each generation that's in the workplace and kind of summing them up. One thing that struck me as well is that you said, you can't group all the millennials as one. There's, like, older millennials and the younger millennials that are in the workplace. Let me start with that. Okay. Talk to the millennial generation. And why, why are you breaking them out?

Jason Dorsey (05:54)

Yeah. So, if it's okay, I'll just sort of preface this before somebody starts attacking me. At CBK, we, we, we view generations as clues and not a box. And if there's one thing you get away... Get from the conversation today is that generations are clues and not a box. You can't say, Jason, I was born in 1975. You know, tell me all about myself, which, you know, obviously you're in Gen X, right? Because you did ask that skeptical question. But the idea is that generations and studying generations helps us to create context, and that's really what we're looking for. Different events have different, you know, sort of formative impacts, depending on your life stage and so forth, and technology advancements and so forth. So, looking at generations as clues and not a box helps us to build more connection, trust, and influence. And that's, I just, I think it's really important to say that up front. We don't put people in boxes. What we do is we look for a head start to faster connect and understand. That's really it. So, when we look at millennials, my generation, right, we're a huge generation. We have the worst generational branding of all time, because we came of age and everybody attacked us, like, oh, your pants are falling off and you won't work on your birthday and your mom's here, and all these sorts of things. But what we find is it's much more nuanced than that, just as you would expect, right? So, there's about 80 million millennials, for example, in the U.S. and what our research shows is somewhat what you said, Gene, which is you definitely have and are starting to see more of a divide between older millennials and younger millennials. Now, some people will argue that those are different generations. I don't fully agree with that, but what I see is that it's different life stages, because you do have such a long age gap between the youngest millennials, who might be around 30 right now, and the oldest, who are well into their mid to late 40s. Like, of course there's differences, right? Thank goodness there's differences.

Gene Marks (07:34)

I mean, there are many millennials that are of that age now. And I think a lot of people don't realize that. That it's, you know, these are older people now that have been in the business world now for 20 plus years, right?

Jason Dorsey (07:44)

I did my first TV show talking about millennials, I was on 60 Minutes or the first big one I did, I think I was in 2006 or 2008. And back then, it was like, millennials are from another planet, you know? But what we're finding is that millennials are really two generations, not one. And the way we think about it is you have one part of the generation we call these megalenials in our research. Those are the millennials who are just out there doing what it takes, right? They're going to work. They're just moving on with their lives, and they're looking around going, what is all this conversation about millennial? In fact, they're saying, I'm not a millennial. Don't call me a millennial. Right. So you have this group, but that group doesn't tend to get the media headlines. I've already done several media interviews today. Nobody wants to talk about the millennials that just keep going through life. They're actually the largest part of the generation, but there's another part of the generation that grabs everybody's attention, and we call these me-llennials, and those are the ones that are really struggling to pull themselves forward in all these different ways. And I'm going to sort of show with my hands, which doesn't work for an audio podcast, but on video on your YouTube channel, it looks great. So you sort of see the generation splitting over time, and as more time passes, they get further apart, and then they stop being able to identify with one another. And this is where it gets really wild. It turns out, of all the groups that we look at in the workforce, the group who's most offended by millennials acting entitled are other millennials who do not feel entitled because we think the rest of generations giving us a bad reputation. When I speak at all these events, I'm like, look, the millennials in this room, they're dressed appropriately. They got here on time. They're taking notes. These are the millennials we should be talking about, rather than the ones you're seeing on Facebook or whatever, right? And so we have to really reframe the entire generation away from sort of the pop culture memes and really look at the amazing millennials who, by the way, given your audience and you have such enthusiastic followers, is millennials are the largest generation in the workforce today. People think we're not working. There's more of us working than anyone else. And there are more millennial managers than any other generation in the workforce today. We are really miscast. So definitely on a soapbox to change that conversation. So, for all my millennials out there who are working, I see you. I see you.

Gene Marks (09:52)

You are being noticed, and you're being acknowledged right now. Now I remember another presentation. And by the way, I this, I, like, this is from memory, Jason. Like, that means a lot. I mean, I mean, what, what you... What you talked about really resonated, you know, but I do remember you saying that the generation, the, the, the common stereotype is that us old guys, you know, I'm a Gen Xer, you know, we hate the, you know, the younger types, you know, the Gen Zers or whatever. And I remember you say, like, you know, and again, we can only generalize here. Or so, you know, all of the caveats. But, you know, in general, you. You've been finding, your research, finding that the, that the generation, hence the youngest generation in the workforce, the Gen Zers, are the millennials. Am I right about that?

Jason Dorsey (10:35)

Yeah. What we're starting to see is that historically, at least over between your generation and mine, the big sort of collision or divide or conflict, if you will, was between Gen X and millennials, because Gen X was a little more like boomers, even though they want to admit it. Sort of like, shut up and get back to work. Right? So, there's sort of that thing going on. And then now, as millennials have gotten older, Gen Z's coming in saying, oh, wait, we don't buy into this whole thing that millennials, you know, you have to do things a certain way or this way or that way. Now, interestingly, this has always happened, like every single time, every new generation that enters the workforce think someone before it is out of touch and thinks the one after it has it easier than they did. This has always happened. And that's why, you know, I get invited to speak at all these different conferences and meetings and so forth, and it's a blast. But sometimes they'll say, well, just talk about Gen Z, right? Or just talk about this generation. And I always say, no, because if you only talk about that one generation, they feel picked on and everybody else is going, well, what about me? Do me. Let me see if this really works. What we're trying to create is called generational context, which means we're trying to understand the lens, you know, other generations through the lens of our own and even see how we view them. And it's a game changer.

Gene Marks (11:44)

So much fun, you know, I wonder, my son's going to kill me. He's a manager at a very large international firm and he's a millennial. And he, this is his first year as a manager, so he's dealing with younger staffers who are Gen Zers. And he's just bitterly opposed. I mean, like, complains about them all the time. I mean, it's exactly what you just said about the generations, you know, just like, you can't, useless. And meanwhile, it's, I think about myself personally. So again, I'm a Gen Xer. When I hear these stories, I'm a little bit more chilled out about it. It doesn't bother me as much. Like, I recognize that Gen Zers are in their 20s and, you know, they're kids. We were, I'm like, a little bit that much more removed from that generation where I could be more chilled out. This, we're trying to get some advice here. I mean, I love, I'd love some of your, your context here, but I, I'm wondering how you feel about, you know, you... Does it make more sense? The manager level class right now are up to their 40s, like you said, and these are millennials, and they're dealing with the next level down, which is Gen Zers. It almost seems like if you're running a large team or an organization, a better organizational approach would be to almost skip a generation. Meaning, you know, for the Gen Zers coming in, you have them report or at least be mentored by Gen Xers or boomers that are in the workforce because they might be that much more, you know, predisposed to dealing with them better than the next generation up. What do you think of that?

Jason Dorsey (13:12)

I mean, it's interesting. In general, what our work shows is you want multiple different generations at each level is where you tend to get the most connection and understand understanding and trust and so forth. So, in a lot of very established businesses, if you look at the sort of the business hierarchy, the traditional sort of pyramid, if you will, it's historically been youngest at the bottom, oldest at the top, right? And you sort of earn your way up through tenure, whatever, success, et cetera, and so you sort of move up there. But that also creates a natural disconnect between those at the top and those at the bottom, not only because of their roles, responsibilities, and experience, but because of the generational gaps that you've really sort of made worse by just having people of different ages at different levels. And so, what we see through our work, we do a lot of work to try to bridge that. So, we'll get, as you mentioned, Gen Zers to work alongside millennials, but also Gen X and baby boomers, because what we actually want them to see is every single generation brings something valuable. Every single generation brings something important. I don't know if I shared this at the event or you heard me, but I was at this really big event I was speaking at, and I was backstage with this, it was a Gen Zer. And he was really nice. I think it was maybe like 24, 25. And he's like, Jason, I don't know why you talk about baby boomers so much. You're like, baby boomers are so great. They're not great. They don't even know technology. And I'm like, seriously? They invented the phone you're using. It's all context. That is a really good point, we try to bridge these as much as possible, and that's intentionally creating teams that have different generations represented, projects that have different generations represented. And look, I mean, I'm, I'm fairly provocative, I guess, in my comments, which is why I get to speak so much. But, you know, there's certain things I hear out there, like, oh, Jason, it's all about knowledge transfer. You know, we just need to, you know, have somebody, shadow somebody for 30 days. I'm like, there is no way on earth I could follow Eugene for 30 days and know everything, you know, and be able to do your job. It just doesn't work that way. Right. We need a lot more time and different types of interaction if we really want to have that knowledge share. And by the way, it should be both ways, right? It shouldn't just be, I have to, you know, learn from you. Like, you're my guru. Maybe there's some things that you can learn from me too. And that's just hard, I think. But the trick is to do it in a way that honors each of the different generations, gives people the space to be who they are. That's where the real problem becomes when we go to somebody and say, you have to do it this way, or else. A lot of people just don't want to do that. True of any generation, by the way. And interestingly, I think when we look ahead, if we look across the business landscape today, and I work in, like, pretty much every single industry, right? I work in private equity. I work in all these different groups. The more you can bridge those generations, the more of an advantage you have. So, it's absolutely worth it for people to take the time to figure it out. But, but I think the key is it's not about older generations catering to younger generations. That doesn't work. And it's not about younger generations catering to older generations. It's about creating this sense of understanding and seeing where people are coming from. Like, I'll give you example that I think will really resonate. You know, I hear a lot of times people say, oh, well, this younger generation, they don't, they don't have work ethic. Like, that's like the biggest thing. Oh, they don't have work ethic. Right. But, but when you look at it, so it's but, but it's interesting because, you know, I'm a behavioral researcher. That's what I do. And that's why I get to work with all these cool companies. And as a behavioral researcher, what you look at it at least the way I do is it's not actually work ethic, it's work style. Like work ethic is a judgment. But really what we're seeing is people want to work differently. And just because you don't do it my way doesn't mean it's the wrong way. And that takes a lot of awareness in order to do that. But as the world changes faster and faster we need everybody we can and we need their best. And generally everything we see isn't about paying them more. Like we do all these studies and very rarely is that the top thing that actually gets what people want. It's usually something else.

Gene Marks (17:04)

Why is that something else?

Jason Dorsey (17:07)

Well, it depends. So right now, what we see, when you look across the industries, there are a bunch of studies going right now. For anybody who wants by the way, to check out any of my studies, many of them are free. They're totally free. Got nothing to sell. It's just you go to my website, Jason Dorsey.com and it's our State of Gen Z studies. If you want to download all of them you can go to our research website which is GenHQ.com and it's just State of Gen Z and you can just download all of them. So, when we look at what else do they want? Well, people want to feel challenged, right? They want to feel included. They want to feel a sense of purpose or mission beyond just, you know, we want to make a buck, right? That's important. What nobody talks about, and I talk about this a lot in my Zconomy book, what nobody talks about is younger generations today most want stability, and it almost never comes up, right? Because if you've gone through two or three years of instability, of course you get to the other side of that and you want stability. And stability is very different than what a lot of companies have been taught to offer. So, these are the sorts of things we have to teach. So how do you message stability? Right In a way that people actually believe? How do you demonstrate that so that people know that they're going to get that? I mean there's good reasons behind the actions that we see and it's helping people to understand those. When people see the truth, they're good.

Gene Marks (18:18)

I have to interrupt you, I'm just, sorry, I just. Because you just bring up the stability thing. It is, I just can't agree with you more, particularly when it comes to younger generations. I mean you're younger than me, but there's a whole generation that's younger than you and when you think about that generation, what they're exposed to what they see with the Internet and social media and the news cycles and all that kind of stuff. It is really crazy stuff that they're exposed to. Whether or not it's, it's true or not. It is, it still gets into their heads. When I was growing up as a Gen Xer and the generation before me, you know, we had the evening news at 6:00 and we got the newspaper once a day and that was pretty much it. Unless there was some major catastrophic event, you know. Now these people are plowed with stuff. Just this past week that we started recording this, there was all these reports about there's a 3% chance that an asteroid is going to be, you know, hitting the planet, you know, in the next five years. I mean, you imagine if you're somebody younger, you, you see this stuff and it gets into your head and it scares the, you know, one out of you. And I just, I just want to emphasize your point about the youngest generations wanting that stability. It just seems like it's more important now than it's ever been given the way technology in the news cycle is, you know.

Jason Dorsey (19:28)

Yeah, totally. And without trying to be a downer, I mean, so we've been studying Gen Z since 2016 with our State of Gen Z study and then obviously the Zconomy book. We talk about this a lot. But if we look at Gen Z's emergence, right? So, Gen Z moving into adulthood, right? Going through adolescence, moving into adulthood. They were just pounded with social media and you know, all different ways they got their phone. Younger than any previous generation, connected the Internet, younger than anybody. We'd go on and on, on. They crash into COVID, which COVID is the generation defining event, right? And it wasn't like for me it was 9/11, because I'm a millennial. That was our sort of where were you when moment. Gen Z goes through COVID and it's not a day, a week or a month or even a year. But to use your media example, Gen Z was the first generation to see death counts every day since Vietnam. And unlike, to use your example, you might see it in the evening news. They saw it everywhere, all the time and in video and everything else. You add to that suddenly the, the forced social isolation and all the social distancing, plus maybe we go on and on, their goals are turned upside down. There's real reason why we have a mental health crisis in the United States. Whether or not people want to acknowledge it or address it, it's a significant one. And I hear this from employers all the time, because we get their data. And so that's why things like, if you ever hear me speak, I talk about why we need to offer free mental health benefits. It's one of the top benefits that every generation wants, number one, by the way, for Gen Z. And it's one of those things that people just don't know to offer it. And it's very inexpensive, but it's massive. Like, I'm a researcher who studies behaviors. I'm not a mental health professional. If somebody needs help, we want to get them the right help. And so those are the sorts of things that are beginning to shift the workforce. And I'm definitely going to get trashed on YouTube, I'm sure, for saying this, but, like, for five to 10 years, all of these leaders were taught, tell everyone to bring their whole self to work. Bring your whole self to work. Bring your whole self to work. Well, what happened? We have a generation that listen, they bring their whole self to work and people are like, why are you telling me all of this stuff? Right? I don't want to hear about your personal life and your challenges and your this and that. And it's like, well, we told them to do all that and now they're expecting some sort of a response. There are good reasons behind the behaviors we see. This doesn't mean that we have to acknowledge or accept them and say that they're right. It just means we need to understand people are doing the best they can with what they have. But it's up to us as leaders to figure out how do we bring out the best. And that gets me fired up.

Gene Marks (21:52)

How do we do that? How do we bring out the best? We could talk about this with all generations, obviously. I mean, like you said, there's four or five that's in the workforce. So, I'm actually going to, I'm actually going to switch you, a little bit on you. I mean, we still have all the, half the workforce is made up of millennials. There is still a significant part of the workforce that are older than millennials, Gen Xers and Gen Zers and speaking on that behalf, you know, you get to a certain age where you're starting to, like, downshift a little bit or cruise control, looking towards retirement or whatever. But if you're an employer, you still want to get the most productivity out of your older workers. What advice do you give those employers to do that?

Jason Dorsey (22:28)

Yeah, there's several things. So, anybody listening or watching right now, take notes. Here we go. Yeah. The first thing that we always share to do is we want to separate myth and truth. We want to get grounded in reality. And the easiest way to do that is just data. And so, what we ask people to do is create what we call a generational snapshot. And what that means is you take your team or your organization or, you know, your locations, whatever it happens to be, and you essentially create a pie chart that shows the percentage of each generation that's within that organization. And I always start there because people are stunned. Gene. Everybody guesses wrong. It does not matter how fancy the company is. Every single time they guess wrong because I have them give it to me and then I make everybody guess and everybody guesses wrong.

Gene Marks (23:11)

Just, just to make sure we, I should have done this at the very beginning, but we're talking Gen Zers and millennials and whatever. So, if you're going to make this pie chart and have the different generations your business, what do you recommend? Being the sort of ages that you would use for each generation. And I realize it's tough to be that specific just as a guideline.

Jason Dorsey (23:28)

That's good. Yeah. So, the birth years. Remember, we're talking clues and not a box. And the birth years can move two to three years either direction. Right. It depends who you look at or whatever. We're researchers. We, we create ours a certain way. Other people use it differently. The easiest way to think about it would be we can sort of... Let's, let's start with boomers. So, boomers are born from approximately 1946 to 1964. That way anybody can total up the ages. Easy peasy. Boomers are actually two generations, not one. Older boomers and younger boomers were very different from one another. Different formative events. One was much more 70s kids, interestingly. So, we could spend the whole time talking about that. Then we have Gen X, who was born about 1965 to about anywhere between 1976 and 1978 to 79. Anywhere in there is sort of the range. There was no one event. It was sort of a slow transitional period. That's why it depends where you live. It really more which generation you're like, geography plays a very big role in generations. So, you have that Gen X role there. So, 65. Let's just make it easy. 78ish. Right. Then you go to millennials. Millennials will be somewhere starting around 78, 79. You could say 80. People have, you know, they have strong reasons for different ones. I have less strong reasons. And I did the research all day, like you do what works for you, these are clues, not a box. And that would go to about 1995, 1996. So, millennials are this big generation. And as you said, Gene, there's really an argument that there's potentially older and younger millennials right now. In all of our research, we cut them older and younger, in case you're curious. Then you end up with Gen Z, who was born starting around 1997ish, maybe 1998. The big reason here, and I'll sort of plant my flag, because we got all these fancy research firms to move the birth years. If you don't remember 9/11, you're not a millennial. And so that's a great analogy. Yeah, you just. It's the bottom line, right? And so, all these research firms went to 2000 were like, you're wrong. Because if you're born in 2000, you don't remember this, so you got to move that back in order to accommodate for memory. And really, you're trying to create fear of the unknown. All right, so that sort of gives you a rough sense.

Gene Marks (25:27)

I'm good with those brackets. Okay, so you're getting back to the advice that you have about dealing with this. So, you create that pie chart. You do the. You do the survey of your employees, and you put them into those. Into those brackets. What do you do next?

Jason Dorsey (25:37)

Okay, so the first thing you want to do is that. So, you sort of bucket those out and you come up with the pie chart, right, that says, we got this percentage of this with that. And then what you do, at least what we teach people to do, is figure out one or two of the key strategic things that you're focused on and see how you're approaching that through a generational lens. So, if communication is a big issue, is that because communication tends to reflect baby boomers and Gen X, and half of your workforce right now is millennials and Gen Z, for example. Or if we look at your retention and we say, well, retention is not really working, and then we look at it by generation, you frequently will see very big retention differences between generations. And so, if we know that we can say, okay, we've got to step back and maybe recalibrate those things to better fit the rest of that workforce. And there's lots of ways to do that. That's a really great first way to sort of get a good foundation to build on, then what we tend to do is, again, I focus on things people can do right away. What we see on training, this is one of the easiest to do. And it works whether you have 10 people at your company or 10,000 or 100,000, is when new people start, what we see is you want to provide specific examples of the performance you expect. This is the easiest way to drive more engagement, reduce miscommunication and increase retention. So, what does that mean? It means if you want people to do something a certain way, you want to make a video of it. If you want them to dress a certain way, show them what it looks like. So much of training is still too legacy. It's written well or we say it. I'll give you example, Gene, you say, okay, Jason, the dress code for the interview today is business casual. What does that mean? Right. I got on khakis and flip flops. Business casual, right. So, we really want to give people examples of that. And then what we also tend to do is we cut data differently. So, this works really well, particularly with mid-size and larger companies. If people leave in the first 30 days, we do not count them as turnover. People who leave in the first 30 days are mishired. That's not a retention issue, that's a recruiting issue. If they leave after 30 days, that's retention issue. And that's, we need to look at managers and see what they're doing. Otherwise people start blaming each other. And we really want to divide those out. And one more like very easy one. The younger you go. Because we do, and our new studies are about to release, they actually include every generation. This year we usually don't release all of those, but this year we're going to. What we find is that the younger you get, the more frequent communication you need. And this is a really fascinating one. So, Gene, I'll just use you and I. So if we were working together and you saw that I did something well, the best thing you could say to me is, hey, Jason, great job. Really appreciate what you did. Like, that's it? Or hey, Jason, you know, your lighting wasn't great in the interview today. You definitely should fix that for the next time. Totally true. Like, I don't know, whatever you say to me. But here's the thing. It's frequency of communication, not quantity. And this is what everybody gets wrong. Older generations, I promised Gene, you were taught this. If your boss is talking to you, you're doing something wrong. Younger generations were taught the exact opposite. If your boss is not talking to you, you're doing something wrong. So then I go study. Well, how much talking are we talking about? And really it's 10 to 15 seconds a week. It's what we call quick hit feedback. It's just having that sense of engagement so that they know, you know, that they exist. Like that's all we're trying to do is drive that sense of communication. They don't want to go to happy hour with you. They definitely don't want to go to lunch with you. Stop inviting them. Right. Just keep them engaged. And quick hit feedback. There's a few.

Gene Marks (29:06)

Great advice. We only have a minute left and I just one final question. I'll just, I'll throw a little bit of a curveball here. If there's, you know, we're going to get back to Gen Z. We've been jumping around the generations when. Because you've done the research. I'm sure this won't be that hard a question to answer. Give me one surprising thing about Gen Z that you think that most employers or you know, businesses in general that are selling to them don't know about them.

Jason Dorsey (29:31)

Yeah. So, in our latest study, I don't know if these are surprising. They could be scary. I'll give you two or three quick ones. We found that 63% over 60%, probably the easiest way to say it, of Gen Z believe in universal basic income. They believe the federal government to provide a basic living wage to all adults. That number has gone up every year that we've asked the question. So that it's a reflection. Yeah, sorry.

Gene Marks (29:54)

Yep. Stability.

Jason Dorsey (29:56)

Yeah. So that's really interesting. Gen Z also has emergency accounts, might be 50 or $100 or $200 hidden away on Venmo Cash app wherever else because an emergency account gives them what stability. And to us, the most concerning one is that a majority of Gen Z today do not believe they will ever be able to financially afford to retire. And that's really scary because if you're 25 years old and you really believe and just go through it, Social Security won't exist, Medicare won't exist. You won't be able to buy a house because they're too expensive and rates are too high. And I go through this whole long list and you really believe you're going to work for the next 60 or 70 years. That really changes how you approach work. And so, the way I like to think about it is sometimes people will complain to me and they're like, Jason, Gen Z won't even take all this paid overtime we offered them. I'm like, well if you're 25 and you thought you were going to work for 70 more years, would you want to work extra? No, you'd actually want Fridays off, which is exactly what they ask for. So there's good reasons behind all of these. Doesn't make a right or wrong, but if we understand where people are coming from, we can give them the space that they need to be who they are. And we can bring out the best in every single generation. They're all equally valuable. So that's my soapbox.

Gene Marks (31:08)

Jason Dorsey is the president and lead researcher for the center for Generational Kinetics. He's the author of Zconomy and he is an amazing keynote speaker. So, if you're watching this and enjoyed this interview, you will find by inviting Jason to your group, regardless of the size, you will find that you will get great return on investment. He is just fantastic. Jason, great conversation. I got through two of like the 15 questions I wanted to ask you back. We have a lot of other issues in the workplace that we need to talk about and you're a great go to guy to discuss. So, I hope you'll come back sometime.

Jason Dorsey (31:42)

Thanks. I'd love to. Thank you, Gene, for having me. Thanks for the great work you do.

Gene Marks (31:46)

Thank you. Do you have a topic or a guest that you would like to hear on THRIVE? Please let us know. Visit payx.me/ThriveTopics and send us your ideas or matters of interest. Also, if your business is looking to simplify your HR, payroll, benefits or insurance services, see how Paychex can help. Visit the resource hub at paychex.com/worx. That's W-O-R-X. Paychex can help manage those complexities while you focus on all the ways you want your business to thrive. I'm your host Gene Marks and thanks for joining us. Till next time, take care.

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