Gen Z has entered the workforce and with 4 different generations now in one office - it’s presenting a problem.
Especially because there’s so many unspoken rules we take for granted.
Like when to speak in a meeting. What “professional” actually means. How much of yourself you’re allowed to bring to work. When leaving at 5:00 suddenly becomes a question of commitment.
Most of us learned by getting something wrong and having someone tell us before we made the same mistake twice.
In this episode of The Black Sheep Network, I sit down with Laura Massetti, founder of Real Work Ready™ and creator of the Workplace Performance Model™, to talk about what happens when a new generation stops accepting that arrangement.
After two C-level roles and years of leading and evaluating teams, Laura has seen just how much career success depends on skills that rarely make it into a job description, onboarding or training.
And with AI changing how early-career employees learn on the job, those missing lessons are causing a much bigger impact on companies than ever anticipated.
Gen Z is providing a unique opportunity to understand if the traditional unspoken rules are even a standard we should accept and for companies to succeed they have to adjust.
Listen to this episode to discover:
- Why Gen Z doesn’t understand the office etiquette we all accepted
- Examples of constructive conversations that make all the difference in performance
- What companies removed from early career development without realizing what would be lost - and how to add it back in for successful employees
If you’re finding yourself challenged with how to engage and retain the newest members of our work force, you’re not alone, and this episode is for you.
Are your early-career employees ready for the realities of work? Connect with Laura Massetti to close the gap between potential and performance:
Laura is the founder of Real Work Ready™, a company helping early-career professionals navigate a workplace where the traditional entry-level learning experience has increasingly been automated away. The hands-on tasks and opportunities to learn alongside senior colleagues that once helped young professionals understand how the workplace operates are disappearing, but the expectations placed on them remain the same.
As a two-time C-level executive who has written performance reviews and evaluated employees firsthand, Laura developed The Workplace Performance Model™ based on what she observed behind the scenes. Originally from New York, she now runs her company from Italy.
Website:realworkready.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramassetti/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Realworkreadyhq
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realworkreadyhq/
Key Timestamps
[00:01:00] Intro to Laura Massetti, founder of Real Work Ready
[00:02:00] Four generations, one office, and why "managers just need to adjust" misses the real problem
[00:04:00] What growing up fully digital actually cost Gen Z
[00:06:00] The 6 percent stat that reframes what Gen Z wants from a career entirely
[00:07:00] The Dutch office story that says everything about American work culture
[00:10:00] Laura's first internship and the meeting where she learned to stay quiet
[00:13:00] The thirteen-month exit and what it's actually costing companies
[00:15:00] The mentoring mistake Laura made trying to give back what she'd been given
[00:19:00] Why doing a good job was never actually the whole job
[00:20:00] AI as the great equalizer, and what that means for what gets you promoted now
[00:21:00] The illegal thing that got Laura fired, and nobody called it what it was
[00:22:00] The nail polish story, and the real problem hiding underneath it
[00:25:00] Why real-time feedback matters more to this generation than any annual review ever did
#GenZAtWork #FutureOfWork #WorkplaceCulture #LeadershipDevelopment #BlackSheepNetwork #CareerGrowth #AIandCareers #SoftSkillsMatter #WorkplacePerformance #GenerationalGap #UnwrittenRules #RealWorkReady
