The world of work is changing. And maybe it’s not so bad. However, as a hospitality employer, I can’t help but be surprised when new recruits – often fresh out of school or university – inform me that they would really prefer not to work Friday or weekend. “It’s work, unfortunately,” I have to tell them.

I am clearly not the only one who has sometimes been perplexed by “generation Z”, those people born between the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2010s.

Channel 4 chief executive Alex Mahon raised eyebrows this week by suggesting the latest cohort of young people pose a threat in the workplace because they “don’t have the skills to discuss” or “the skills to be at variance “.

Research by Channel 4 in 2022 also labeled almost half of Generation Z as “young illiberal progressives”, or “Yips”, – for example much more diverse in their sexuality than previous generations but, paradoxically, less tolerant .

Of course, older people have been complaining about “the young people of today” since at least the 5th century BC, when the Greek philosopher Socrates lamented that the youth of Athens were not showing enough respect to their elders.

However, as a hospitality employer, I can’t help but be surprised when new recruits – often fresh out of school or university – inform me that they would really prefer not to work Friday or weekend.

So, is it just the same age-old complaint? Or is it really impossible to work with Generation Z?

As a businessman, I meet many bright, confident and sociable young people. More than 60 percent of the thousand people working for Divers Eateries plc, the company I helped found, are under 23.

But I see both the good and the bad – and Alex Mahon is right. Today’s new generation starting to work is facing serious problems, on a scale that I have never seen in 40 years of activity.

When joining the business, many young servers and bar staff are unable to show initiative or even smile and chat with customers. So now we often have to teach them these basic skills.

New recruits tell me that they prefer not to work on Fridays

And it’s certainly true that many – especially those fresh out of college – don’t want to listen to viewpoints different from their own. Fortunately, there are few surer ways to find people with different opinions than yours than by working in a bar or restaurant.

The young people I meet often have a strong and commendable sense of justice, as well as a belief that the world should be a fair and logical place. But a few changes expected by the general public usually change these ideas quite quickly.

I remember a young woman who had to smile and bear it after serving her strawberry ice cream to a woman, only to be asked why it was pink and told that she was a “stupid girl.”

But alas, the customer is always right, even if it is obvious that he or she is not right. And for someone who has turned away from the idea of pure justice, that is anathema.

One of the most remarkable things I’ve observed in recent years is that few of the young people who start working for us have ever held a job of any kind – whether it’s newspaper rounds , service in a store on Saturday or menial work. during university holidays.

They never had any real-world experience to temper the totally unrealistic view of life they were nurtured at school – and particularly at university.

Of course, schools and universities have a duty to build students’ confidence and self-esteem. Yet in a society where too many teachers work in fear of debate or being written off, and where “self-care” is prioritized, this too often feels like coddling.

As a result, people now enter a job believing they can dictate their own terms. That’s not how life works, and it never has been.

Everyone from the bartender to the mason to the lawyer to the brain surgeon must start at the bottom, which usually means doing the smallest tasks.

More generally, we must ask why the UK university system so often fails to provide adequate and realistic preparation for adult life and the world of work for so many of its graduates.

They must serve their sentences and earn their stripes by earning the respect of their peers. This is how adult life goes.

However, we regularly see young people coming in for interviews and acting as if they are interviewing us; as if our company was there only to meet their needs for salary, hours, responsibilities and flexible work from home.

And they often expect everything at once. A study this year found that 52 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds expect an annual promotion, meaning bosses have to invent new titles to keep them happy.

Nevertheless, it is surely a mistake to demonize young people for failures for which we, the older generation, must bear much of the responsibility.

It is not the fault of young people, for example, that they have lost key years of socialization due to Covid lockdowns and the subsequent shift to online teaching. (And many young people are bitter that they gave up such key years of their lives to protect more vulnerable older generations – only to have those people turn around and call them “snowflakes.”)

But the worst part, in my opinion, is that they have been told a lot of nonsense about what they can expect in the world of work – and the responsibility for this cannot be placed on their door.

Too many teachers fear debate and prioritize self-care

Still, amid all the gloom surrounding Gen Z, all is not lost.

I have seen many examples of people who initially struggled with their social skills, flourishing in just a few months. I’ve seen young people who were initially hesitant to take on the busier evening shifts, quickly began volunteering for them after realizing they were the most fun and productive.

I’ve seen many people quickly understand that clients can have all sorts of opinions that they themselves don’t agree with – and come to accept this as a crucial lesson of adult life.

Most importantly, they learn not to view any opposing opinion, or even gratuitous rudeness, as a personal affront.

Young people seem to complain a lot about generational injustice. But it was not easy for them. For example, the housing rental market has become very dysfunctional and extremely expensive, which in many cases leaves people with no choice but to live in their homes. This therefore gives them less incentive to find full-time employment and take on responsibilities as independent adults.

So I think Alex Mahon’s comments about Gen Z should be taken seriously, but not so much by them as by us, the baby boomer generation who have made so many decisions that have shaped their lives.

We need to solve the housing problem so that young people have reasonable places to live at reasonable rents.

We need to introduce them gradually to the world of work so that they can learn the social skills that years of confinement and online learning have prevented them from acquiring.

But above all we must ask ourselves two questions.

First, why are 50 to 60 percent of college students studying for degrees that contribute nothing to their job prospects?

Second, why do they – much more, in my experience, than people who start working straight out of school – have completely unrealistic ideas about the workplace and ridiculously inflated impressions about the value of their qualifications? ?

More generally, we must ask why the UK university system so often fails to provide adequate and realistic preparation for adult life and the world of work for so many of its graduates.

This all depends on older generations, not theirs. And if everything were to be fixed, then perhaps young Gen Zers wouldn’t face such a painful wake-up call.

Hugh Osmond is a director of the Divers Eateries plc hospitality group.