What Gen Z gets right about work – and how we can learn from them
Here's a thing I never thought I'd say. No word of a lie, there's a vein standing out on my forehead as I type, but here goes: Baby Boomers could really learn something from Generation Z.
I know, I know. But hear me out. It's not teaching Granny how to suck avocados or persuading Grandad to wear sliders and pull his white ankle socks up to mid-shin level.
We can safely disregard side-by-side texting instead of talking, situationships instead of relationships, and don't even get me started on the return of the mullet along with ditching booze.
No. Far more astonishingly, this inter-generational wisdom has to do with work. Yes, that dirty little word that makes anyone under the age of 28 shudder.
It turns out that the prospect of employment has pretty much the same effect on people in their 60s – to the detriment of society. The International Monetary Fund (the world's nanny) has just declared that public health improvements mean '70s are the new 50s' and they are urging those of retirement age to keep grafting instead of putting their feet up.
Detailed research into a one million-strong cohort aged 50 and beyond has revealed that someone who celebrated their 70 th birthday in 2022 had the same cognitive function as the average 53-year old in 2000.
Physical tests including grip strength and lung function bears out the evidence that retirees are fitter and sharper today than ever before, which begs the question – over in the IMF at any rate – why on earth are these taxpayers retiring when they could keep working and contributing even more than they have already?
I think we all know the reasons and off the top of my head the first three hit the G-spot multiple times over; golf, gardening, grandchildren. Good books, bad behaviour, surfing like those silver foxes in wealth management adverts. Nordic walking. Repairing stuff. Art history courses. Cruises!
My husband retired last year aged 64 and he's never been busier. Who knew pottering and researching the Durham Light Infantry could take all week? Weekends too! Why, he's off to Belgium with our elder daughter this week to bone up on Bruegel and swoon at the Ghent altarpiece. Beats working for a living. Or does it?
Not according to the scoldy IMF, which is warning that debt-laden governments can't afford to let growing numbers of fit and sharp older people lean back and enjoy a long retirement. Increased life expectancy along with falling birth rates is creating a demographic time bomb that will catastrophically impact the public purse.
And that's my husband's problem, because…? Sorry, the deal was that he and everyone else in his generation put the hours in, dutifully paid their taxes and could thereafter joyfully spend every waking hour in the National Archives.
I know that sounds facetious. In truth, I'm not entirely economically illiterate. I get it. Unfortunately. the IMF doesn't. Like all big institutions, it fails to grasp the single most important variable: human nature.
Thus it is calling on governments to whack up the pension age, slash early retirement benefits and 'encourage' (i.e. bully) us into staying in our jobs for the sake of… fiscal patriotism.
Far better to apply psychology. Sell it to us as a positive choice; studies consistently show that working longer is better for mental health, boosts social engagement and reduces loneliness. But, crucially, those jobs need to be part-time. Oh yes, and available.
I don't know anyone over 50 who has successfully re-entered the workplace after redundancy or a career break. So maybe the IMF could remind employers that age brings wisdom? Along with reliability. Oh, and a wonderfully old-fashioned willingness to actually go into the office. Which brings me back to Generation Z and their preposterous, princessy insistence on a work-life balance to avoid burnout. Preposterous at 25 but not at 65, when there just might be something in it.
Enter (drum roll please) the golden age of micro-retirement. This was coined a while ago but Gen Z are huge converts; it is essentially taking a sabbatical every few years to take selfies in Uzbekistan or make kimchi.
It can be for six weeks or six months but the main thing is that it feeds their souls. Anyway, the young'uns then return to the workplace, refreshed and broke because the kimchi market is, like, already saturated?
So taking a leaf from their book, how does a micro-retirement appeal to all you lively, productive pensioners? Of course micro-retirements are predicated on employers playing ball. But then if they are so desperate for fit and fit-for-purpose older employees, surely they can get creative?
In fact, put a 65-year-old woman in charge of the rota and she'll sort out the logistics; job shares, part-timers, skilled workers on contracts. Complicated? Not at all. In fact, positively simple after bringing up a family, juggling half terms and caring for relatives, all while holding down a full-time job.
But does this sort of hot-desking equate to upheaval? Again, no. Retirees are the generation who still speak to one another, making holiday (oops, sorry, micro-retirement) handovers a breeze.
Sure, the technology may be a challenge initially, but think on this: because they've spent many decades navigating life's big challenges, older workers don't sweat the small stuff. And what employer doesn't dream of that?
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