Unless you've been living under a rock for the past five years--and I mean, if you have, good for you; you've avoided a lot of nonsense that's been going on--you will have noticed that the world we live in has significantly, profoundly changed in a relatively short period of time.
And of course, at the same time, work has changed, partly in response to a global pandemic that sent a lot of people home, at least for a while, and partly in response to increasing advances in technology that have made remote and hybrid work ever more accessible to even more companies. And there's a real interesting divide that's shaping up between the people who think this is goodthingand the peoplewhothink think it's not. Abbie, yourmind? (singing) "Working 9 to 5 is a way to make a living."
Or is it? The conversations I've been having recently with up and coming professionals,trulyanyoneintheworkplaceright in the workplace right now, workplace. Nine tofivemight workplace ... nine to five might be a little bit of a stretch, but that show up every day in the morning and work until the end of the day, every day, the way that the workplace needs to be. Are we going back to that? Do we need to go back to that?
And as we're finding and as more and more studies are coming out, talking to this, you know, the graduating class of 20 25, these graduates think that's a
thinkabouthowthat'sgoingtoimpacttheworkthatwedoandisitsomethingthatweneedtoconcernourselveswithorarewejustgoingtosay,okay,fine,graduates,youcanthinkthatway,butthenyou'renotgoingtobegettingajobwithmycompany.Andifwetakethatstance,areweleavingoutanincredibleresourceofsmart,creative,technologydrivenprofessionalsjustbecausewewanttheminaworkplaceandtheydon'twanttobethere?Yeah. You know, it's interesting. It's almost graduation for colleges and universities across the country, the world really.
For 11 years I taught in higher education, both as a graduate student then and as a professor. And looking back, that was ... it's been a while now. But one of my favorite things ... actually, of all the things you have to do as a professor, there's like nine or 10 types of things you have to do. And I really only liked two of them. One was being in the classroom with students, who are always interesting, always curious, always challenging.
And the second was meeting with them in office hours, where they would bring their very real questions, not just about the material we were talking about in the course, but about life and careers and how to navigate. And it seems to me that the questions students are asking today are not unlike the questions they were asking back then, except for the specific content of the question has really changed. Because the world, as I said, has changed. You talk to a lot of students every single year.
What are they asking you these days? Well, yeah, you know, I just hosted a group of graduating seniors from Northern Arizona University a couple weeks ago, and amongst the more traditional types of questions, multiple times in multiple ways the questions had to do with workplace culture, having to do with the "boundaries," a word that I would have never addressed when I was interviewing for jobs. But they really wanted to understand, you know, if I come to work for a place like HMA
ublicRelations,whatdoesthetypicaldaylooklike?But like? But it wasn't about, I clientandthisfor thisclient.Itwasreally,doIneedto be thereeverydayintheoffice?Do Ineed tobethere in the morning?BecauseI'mreallymuchmore the morning? Because afternoonandearlyevening.Whatabout nightsandweekends? BecauseIhaveanotherjoborIhave thisvolunteerthingthatIliketodo?And allextremelyvaluablequestions.Imean, nothingwas outofline.But And all extremely valuable questions. mean,nothingwas out out of line.
But the fact that they are thinking about it as part of their evaluation about whether or not they're going to come to work for someone when, you know, even as recently as maybe 10 years ago, it was, what is the job title, what is my salary, what are my benefits, how much vacation time am I going to get? And nothing that would lead you down the path of I will not be in the office on Tuesdays and Fridays after 4 o'clock. It just wasn't part of the vernacular.
And I think that's in part because this current graduating class has known only a hybrid environment. You know, they inhighschool andcollege whenthe.When the pandemic was at its peak. So they readily adapted to technology and doing withtheir fellowstudentsinanonlineway.Theyunderstand thattheycanbesuccessfulthatway,at that they can be successful that way, at least in their own mind, from a college perspective. They completed their homework, they took their tests, they presented their papers.
There's no reason for them to think that they can't do it in the workplace. The real challenge, I think, is those of us that are managing workplaces and we may have again, an office like ours is multi generational. We have representation across all the different Gen X, Y, Z,whatevertheyare all calledthesedays. days.
And we bring our own bias to that aboutwhat,youknow, how we were raised notsuggestingthat I'm not suggesting that anyone has to necessarily change their mind about how they want to orchestrate their own particular workplace. But whether or not recent college graduates fit into your cycle of hiring really iacouplestudiesthathavebeenoutandone and decide.
And there are a couple studies that have been out, and one of them that we're kind of referencing here as we're chatting, basically says that orartificialintelligencet I'mreallystruck byinallof thisis themismatchbetweenmanydifferent narrativeswhichjustdon'tseemtomakeanysense takencollectively.Andthisisa verycasualand somewhat irresponsiblesociologythatI'm doinghere.But takentogether, itseemsas ifeveryone'ssearchingforanexplanation forsomethingwesimplycan'texplainyet.Wedon'treallyknowwhat's
goingon.We'vegotmembersof theadministration,theCommerceSecretary,etcetera, sayingthat the futureofAmerica ispeopleputtinglittletinyscrewsintodevicesinfactoriesagain,whichisclearlyadisconnectfromwhat'sactuallyhappeningandwhat kindofjobspeoplewant.We'vegotcollege graduates--everoptimistic,everrosyintheiroutlook--saying, "ohsure,"it's80-somethingpercentsaying, "yes,I'llhaveno problemfindingajob."Andthenashadawholebunchofhiring managerssaying,I'mnothiringthese people.
"I'mnothiringthese people!"37%ofthehiringmanagerssaidthattheywouldn'tdo that,44% saidthey'drathergivethejobtoan olderfreelancerinsteadofanewgraduate.WhatI thinkisinterestingisthatnInotherwords,you'vegotabillionaire.Talkingabouthowgreatit'llspeakingabout.Inotherwords,you'vegota billionairetalking abouthowgreatit'llbewhensomebodySothey'reprojectingsomekindofimaginaryidealthingandatthesametimehavinganegativewhich doesn'texist
yet.So they'reprobablyalsodon'tknowalotbecausethey'vebeeninuniversity,maybeinternshipshaveexposedthem,etcetera.Butclearlythere'sastoryabouttheyouththatisbeingperpetuatedhere. Andthen,ofcourse,asmuchasIwouldliketotaketheirside,Ithinkthere'setcetera.Butclearlythere'sa
storyabout"theyouth"thatisbeingperpetuatedhere.Andthen,of course,asmuchas I wouldliketo taketheirside,I thinkthere'sadisconnectfromreality ifyou'vegotrecentgraduateswhoessentiallyhave beenfollowing theplaybook fora careertrajectorythat Andnot existanymore.Andthey're andstatementsabouteachrudeawakeningoftheir own.I justdon't knowwhatto make ofAndthat'ssomethingthatIdon'tthinkwe'vefullywrappedourtheraround. A physical place, right?
Yeah. So I think where I land on this, and this has been kind of my view for a while, when we might not have had the words to put to the content. The context of online learning ... I taught classes online, and those have evolved from me recording my lectures and students just popping in and watching them at whatever time they wanted to, all the way up through and doing teaching through technology on Zoom or whatnot.
My concern has always been about the availability of online learning opened up tremendous opportunities for students that needed different learning environments, right? That their lifestyle, where they lived, what they were doing in their own world, they had to work if they were an athlete, whatever it might have--a dancer, you know, whatever it might have been--they needed a different learning environment and online learning gave them that.
So it allowed them to continue whatever they needed to do for in their personal lives and still get the education. I'm 100% on board with that. My concern has been what happens when those individuals are in the workplace, the physical space that they would come into every day. Because my feeling was they were missing some of the things that happen in a classroom that are not the textbook learning, the stuff that says the other person on your team isn't pulling their weight.
And how do you navigate that so your grade doesn't fail? That teaches you how to be on a team. Or if the professor is, you're just not jiving with the professor. And you've got to figure out, you know, it's the only section of that class and it's the last class you need to graduate. You've got to figure it out. That's no different than working with a difficult boss or a difficult coworker.
So without some of that learning opportunities, were we creating a workplace or an individual that was coming into our workplace that didn't have those kind of skill sets? To some extent, I think that's true. I think that has happened. But we have jumped ahead of that now. And the fact that this whole group of, well, we can call them kids, a whole group of kids are graduating who know nothing else.
Do I then sound like the old relic in the room because I don't know how to do building a team online or dealing with my difficult boss on a screen right there. Am I the one that has to figure out how to do this? Because my workplace, my team, my employees all know how to do this. So to the extent that we agree or disagree about the physicalness of coming into work and, and what the structure is of our work day, then we have to put the people into those positions that make the most sense.
And that should never change. I don't want to hire someone simply because they're willing to work within my guidelines. I want them to be the best person for the job. I want them to have the talent and the skills to do it and, by the way, happen to be okay with. But I don't want to be so stubborn as to say but that other candidate who has told me at the interview all the other wonderful things, but they ... The one thing that doesn't sit with me is this boundaries question.
I'm probably the one oingtoloseout ifI immediatelystopthe.My my conversation individualbecausethey'veaskedaquestionorthey'vehadthe nervetosuggest thatthere couldbesomethingdifferentthanwhatIamproposing.Itdoesn't mean I havetodo.Itdoesn'tmeanIhaveto agreewith it. ButIcertainlywouldn'twant agree with it. But I fromhappeningjustbecauseit doesn'tfitwithwhatI'vebeen professingtodo allthis time.Andwe'regoingtowatch,you know,thereturntowork. all this time.
And we're going organizations,small organizations work discussions will continue getyour, youknow,getthe work, theemployeesbackintotheoffice,and know, it's time to get to work get the employees back into the office. And it.That'sgoingtobeadecisionthatthey'regoingtohavetomake.I'mnotinclinedto may not lose employees as a result of it. That's going to be a decision that they're going to have to make. I'm not inclined thatyou'rein.ButIwouldwantallofustobeopen
totheideathatthisdifferentwayofthinkingandthisintentthatthesegraduateshaveoncreatingalittlebitmorebalanceintheirlifeisn'tsuchabadthing.Andperhaps,youknow, we canalllearnfromthisdiscussionandexposeourselvesto somenewwaysofthinking. Thanks for listening to this episode of Copper State of Mind. If you enjoyed the conversation, please share it with a colleague who might also find this podcast valuable. It's easy to do. Just click the "Share" button
listeningtonowtopassitalong.Youcan alsofollow Copper Stateof Mind inApplePodcasts,Spotify,oranyotherpodcastapp.WepublishnewepisodeseveryotherFriday.CopperStateofMindisbroughttoyoubyHMAPublicRelations,theoldestcontinuouslyoperatingPRfirmin Arizona.Theshowis recordedandproducedbytheteamatSpeedofStory,a Arizona. The show is inPhoenix,anddistributed byPHXFM, theleadingindependentB2B podcastnetwork inArizona.Forall ofushereatSpeed of PHX.fm, the FM,I'mAdrianMcIntyre.Thanksforlistening in Arizona.
For all of us here at youchoosetodoso,we PHX.fm, I'm Adrian McIntyre. Thanks for listening and Mind.i.W