Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Hello and welcome to Working It.I tried out an AI-powered recruitment tool this week, an activity involving speed of reaction and memory that reminded me of the retro electronic game, Simon. The recruitment game, like Simon, made me 🤬 at my own shortcomings. Practical tasks like this might be one way for recruiters to help get the right candidates amid the deluge of ChatGPT-generated job applications. The FT has highlighted how hundreds of people are applying for every job — with as many as 50 per cent of applicants using AI for their CVs, cover letters and other forms of assessment. I posted about it on LinkedIn and it went a bit viral — check out the interesting comments. A lot of people are frustrated with the broken recruitment system. Have you cracked the recruitment conundrum? Email me: [email protected]. Read on for a look at how to retain and inspire younger Gen Z staff (the ones who get past the AI) and the incoming Generation Alphas.The key to keeping Gen Z happy at work? Gen X mentors I love an original workplace idea (they can be thin on the ground . . .👀) but this week I am sharing a good one, courtesy of author, speaker and researcher Chloe Combi. Chloe is an expert in younger societal cohorts: Gen Z, many of whom are already in the workforce, and Gen Alpha, who were born roughly between 2008 and 2021. The oldest Gen As will soon arrive in the workplace (you may have already had some of them in the office this summer on work experience). Chloe has interviewed more than 20,000 children and young adults for her research — and advises employers on getting the best from an intergenerational workforce. Her top tip? Offer mentoring to new recruits — but you have to get it right. Mentoring is important because one of the key features that marks many Gen Z workers out from older age groups is a desire for a structured plan for career progression 📈, including employer-funded skills training, right from the start of their working life. The impetus for this comes from online culture: rather than wanting to be doctors, footballers or work in finance, many young people have been listening to entrepreneurial influencers outside the “system” — such as crypto traders or beauty start-up founders — and are wary of becoming part of corporate culture. Chloe says that when she talks to Gen Z audiences she is at pains to encourage their entrepreneurial spirit “but it also has to be tempered by realism, and an encouragement that the more traditional jobs and career paths are still massively valuable”. Many of these jobs come with learning and training opportunities — and that’s a lure for self-starting Gen Z. Mentoring can really help to embed and retain younger staff in workplaces. Chloe says there is a tendency for mentoring pairs to be matched on age closeness, but putting a 21-year-old graduate trainee with a Millennial staffer in their early 30s is, she finds over and over again, “a catastrophic pairing, it just doesn’t work” ✋🏼.Why? Millennials have worked incredibly hard and have imbued “hustle culture”. There may be resentment if young people talk about their “boundaries” and refuse to work crazy hours. “What actually works much, much better,” Chloe suggests, “is when you pair Gen Z with Gen X [now in their mid 40s to late 50s].“Gen X are often at a stage in their career where they are quite comfortable — they maybe haven’t reached the top of the career ladder, but they’re not going to be super-competitive with the younger person. They may have teenage children, so they may be a bit more patient — and also I think there is a synergy and a reflection culturally in quite a lot of the values that Gen Z and Gen X share.” Those of us in Gen X may remember being called “slacker” after the cult Richard Linklater film, and “microserfs”, from the Douglas Coupland novel about the early 90s tech industry. Both of those cultural parallels have returned: “When Gen X came of age professionally, it was also post economic crash and it was the beginning of the tech revolution 💽.” It’s Chloe’s observation that “Millennials tend to work much better with Boomers [born 1964 and earlier], who may be at the top of the tree.” Given that many successful people in their late 30s and early 40s are aiming for the top, that gives them a shot at having a mentor in a very high place. Here’s Chloe’s formula for success: Z + X = 🔥 Any other thoughts on engaging and retaining staff? Are you Gen Z with better ideas? Email me: [email protected]. This week on the Working It podcast FT readers (and all of us who work at the paper) really miss Lucy Kellaway, a beloved columnist for more than two decades, who became a teacher in her fifties. Who better to talk on this week’s podcast episode about the changing nature of ambition over our lifetimes? Lucy now works with young people, and talks to me about their expectations, too. Then I talk to Stefan Stern, author of Fair or Foul: The Lady Macbeth Guide to Ambition 🗡. Stefan guides us with tips for the ambitious — and their managers — and I talk to both guests about how to deal with the disappointment of our own unfulfilled striving for status and success. Five top stories from the world of work Why I no longer crave a Tesla: When does a business leader start to harm their brand? Pilita Clark explores Elon Musk’s extreme pronouncements on X, alongside the EV car market, which Tesla currently dominates. (This article has been a hit on Reddit, which is not something that happens every day at the FT.)JPMorgan reshuffle erodes power base of top deputy to Jamie Dimon: A gripping tale of office politics among some of the world’s best-paid workers from the FT’s investment banking reporting team. Great reader comments, too. Ill-ish and the new rules of working while sick: Since the pandemic, there has been a huge shift in how we view being off work sick. Gone are the days of simply resting in bed. Daniel Thomas analyses the latest trends and finds a lot of ambiguity around this important topic. Did summer holidays make this week’s market turmoil worse? The wild ride on the markets earlier this month happened just as senior staff were mostly away. George Steer talks to veterans of this kind of event. How the world’s oldest bank brought a city to its knees: A long investigative article from Owen Walker about the financial woes and scandals surrounding Monte dei Paschi, the 15th-century foundation that dominates Siena. One more thing . . . I love a “what I wish I’d known when I was 21” story, and we are planning a Working It podcast on this theme. I just came across Jim VandeHei’s fascinating Atlantic article, which begins: “In 1990, I was among the most unremarkable, underachieving, unimpressive 19-year-olds you could have stumbled across.” VandeHei went on to found media start-ups Politico and Axios, so we know it eventually all came good. This article (and his new book) outline what he’s learnt about how to tackle the challenges of life. This week’s giveaway Working It giveaways are back 🎁, and this week we have 20 tickets to the big Wellbeing at Work UK Summit, with events in London and Manchester on September 24-26. Go to the website here, choose your preferred location and use the discount code WORKINGIT at the checkout to secure a free ticket. It’s first come, first served, so get clicking . . . 🏃🏼♂️. And finally . . . Please keep sending your photos of the best summer “workcations” to me at [email protected]. The winner so far is this excellent “work from boat” TV interview set-up, posted on LinkedIn (and reproduced with permission) from Moritz Kraemer, FT contributor and chief economist at German bank LBBW. With thanks to my colleague Tony Tassell for the tip-off.
