Ryan Crownholm is a serial founder, mentor, investor, veteran, president of Crown Capital Adventures Inc. and author of “The Hustle Trap.”
There’s a complaint I hear occasionally from fellow Gen-X entrepreneurs: Millennials and Gen-Z don’t want to put in the hard work. There’s a kernel of truth to this stereotype. Recent reporting indicates that nearly 70% of younger generations are planning to leave their jobs this year.
However, there’s a difference between not wanting to work and wanting work that truly fulfills you. In 2018, Gallup found that, for Millennials and Gen-Z, having an employer who “cares about employees’ well-being” is a number one workplace concern. While older generations often gave up their time in exchange for a paycheck that would help them achieve the American dream, many younger people want to work for a company that has a positive impact on the world. Purpose-driven companies today have more potential to attract younger generations.
People in their 20s and 30s have already lived through significant instability, which has fundamentally changed the way many view the long-term sustainability of work and their place in the world. These generations are playing their own way. Understanding their motivations and what drives them is crucial to forging a new path of success for all of us.
When ‘Working Hard’ Isn’t Worth It
For our parents’ generation, putting in long hours had a clear purpose. Even the working class could purchase a starter home for around $100,000 if they were willing to burn the midnight oil. Today, those same homes go for $500,000.
When nearly half of Millennials and Gen-Z are living paycheck to paycheck, it’s no surprise the old social and financial milestones have shifted, if not evaporated entirely. Higher interest rates and resumed student loan payments have put home ownership even further out of reach, all while median rents surpassed $2,000 for the first time in history.
Early career professionals can no longer always rely on their employer to provide access to financial stability. It’s no wonder many Millennials and Gen-Z see their jobs as little more than a paycheck—particularly when their employer seems to share a similar view.
Many formerly salaried jobs have been downgraded to contractor or “permalancer” positions, even at some of the largest companies. In 2018, contractors outnumbered direct employees at Google, a number I think has likely increased with the rise of remote work. In 2017, Upwork found that nearly half of adult working Gen-Zers were working freelance jobs, a trend that has also continued.
In the 1990s, budding entrepreneurs often got asked the same question: “Why would you give up the comfort and stability of a salaried job to risk it all?” Now, Millennials and Gen-Z must contend with a different question: If your full-time job doesn’t offer you stability, comfort or time off after 5 p.m., is it really so risky to set out on your own?
The Entrepreneurial Equation
When an employer doesn’t offer you the value you deserve, you have a couple options. One is to offer little value in return, a phenomenon sometimes known as “quiet quitting.” Alarmingly, Gallup found that at least 50% of the U.S. population could be defined as quiet quitters, and that workplace engagement has been trending downward since 2020.
Another option is to employ yourself. The Millennials I know hustle to do just that. They’re making it as digital marketers, thought-leaders on Twitter and LinkedIn, craftspeople selling on Etsy, dropshippers or travel influencers. They build passive income through the platforms and audiences they create while trying out various side-hustles until they find one that sticks.
All of these solopreneur careers can be less glamorous than they seem, but that’s no deterrent for the young people pursuing them. Going the entrepreneurial route isn’t a matter of maximizing payout—it’s about capturing the best opportunities to build rewarding professional lives. And when success looks like digital nomadism, flexible work-hours and all-expenses paid trips, the risk becomes more appealing.
Bridging The Digital Divide
I was 22 years old when I first got on the internet, and 23 when I set up my first email. Only older Millennials were even born before the internet became widely available; the youngest generations in our workforce have grown up in a digital-first world I first navigated as a full-grown adult.
Perhaps that’s what divides our generations most, but it doesn’t have to be a disadvantage. For Millennials and Gen-Z, hard work often takes place through leveraging off-shore talent and software solutions that allow them to accomplish hundreds of hours of work in only a few hours of their time. It’s the constant rush of adapting to fast-moving trends, implementing tools like AI and automation, and interacting with an ever-expanding audience. These generations become experts at branding because they’ve grown up in an online environment.
As an entrepreneur of a certain age, I know these skills can’t be learned overnight. It takes real talent built over a generation to succeed in today’s digital-first world. Here are some ways we can start:
• Engage the Millennials and Gen-Z workers in your industry. There’s much to be gained from talking with younger generations. From gathering feedback on technology to workplace values, sparking conversations can help you gain new perspectives.
• Don’t be afraid to try new tools. Technology is constantly evolving; chances are the tools you launched with may now be outdated. Younger generations are modeling unique ways to utilize new tech, and we can all benefit from incorporating some of these software solutions.
• Build online communities. Take a page out of the Millennial/Gen-Z playbook, and invest in virtual relationship building. In our increasingly digital age, connections made on social media platforms can generate important business opportunities and help us glean insights from people outside of our “IRL” spheres.
The same tools that Millennials and Gen-Z use to create passive income and build new side hustles are skills we can all use to thrive.
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