Gen-Z and the Skills Crisis

With the world as it is now, in these years of holding the baton to be passed to the next generation - well, I hope you cherish the thought of making changes while you can. Perish the thought that you might not!

Some Leaders are Leaning Back

Sorry to be blunt; I'm hoping that temptation to lean on the mantlepiece for a couple of years while the young bloods sort it out is fighting against some inkling that this is your watch, yours to own, and shift handover has never been more front-line than it is now.

The illusion that piles of money are going to make for better things has to die sometime; whether on Snowpiercer or on the train home is for personal consideration. I don't know what will come of my life's work, or if it will make a difference. All I know is that the world is changing fast and precedents have to be set... hard choices need to be made.

Making Change Work for Everyone

You can vote for yourself in this one-horse race, or you can grant dozens, hundreds or even thousands of families an opportunity to flourish as the era of social enterprise takes hold. You can safeguard the mental welfare of countless people by lifting your workplace above the inertia and despair that typifies traditional industry - and nobody can truthfully say it's not like that. They can argue that it's always been this way, which proves the point made by the Industrial Revolution - keep people afraid, and they will do as they're told. In modern parlance, "if they don't like it, they know where the door is."

Gen-Z and the skills crisis are at odds with each other. The young interns want nothing more than to be valued, respected and taught well how to do what needs to be done. When they are undermined, disrespected and expected to learn without real leadership they will go elsewhere, and typically the unforgiving teenager won't go there again.

But they do want to learn, and to excel, and to use those practical, technical minds that brought them to STEM in the first place. And there are mature, skilled workers nearing retirement who would love nothing more than the chance to be valued.

The Ball and Chain

Once upon a time, mass production was born. Hot on the heels of the slave trade, when masters were masters and slaves were slaves. There was no management in existence bar the overseer who kept a whip handy. Morale didn't matter - people were paid a wage and should be glad of it. Since that time, it's become common parlance for people to say, "nothing's going to change around here."

The ball and chain of industrial history has indisputably carried itself past the point of logical encumbrance as leaders clutch to vestiges of humanitarianism over a hundred years old, desperately clawing their way to some perceived version of success against walls that continue to be built. Whichever side of the wall anyone believes they are on, the damage is going to be done and we don't know what that will look like, only that if it's in our power to limit damage, we should. And it is.

Equipped to Turn Tides

If you have come through life with a history of hardship anywhere at all, you are able to empathise with the people you employ. That means you are fully equipped to turn tides of despondence into rays of hope that become real working environments; shining examples of community where people love to be and enjoy feeling loyalty. Is that not worth passing on to your children? Seeing the effects first-hand, they'll like what they see, so they in turn will stand for a version of humanitarian leadership that makes sense. Everybody profits when transformation happens; it takes a certain kind of leader to see through blocks.

So here is Choice. Continue to support the undermining of engagement by doing nothing, or do something about cultural dysfunction today - sow the seeds for a harvest that hurts no-one, and does what it says on the tin.

Talk to me - first off, it's free, and I won't sell you anything - I may just be able to give you the keys to make change work in your favour and leave behind the ball and chain.

kathy@workingtransformations.com