CURATED READS FOR GEN Z—AND THEIR Z-CURIOUS COLLEAGUES

first up

Welcome back! This week, we’re talking about fun at work, young workers in emerging economies, and how identifying one’s purpose can lead to extraordinary results.  

For Gen Z, the workplace is a critical environment for social interaction. This group may be used to living and working in the same space and having video meetings instead of coffee chats; that’s all many of them know. But Gen Zers have also reported lower levels of emotional and social well-being compared with other age groups, according to research from McKinsey partners Erica Coe and Jenny Cordina and coauthors. And, as loyal Mind the Gap readers will know, lower well-being is correlated with worse performance at work.

Can having more fun with your teammates help make things just a bit better? We have questions.

What does it even mean to have fun?

“‘True fun’ is the confluence of three psychological states: playfulness, connection, and flow,” the author and science journalist Catherine Price told McKinsey. Price, who wrote the book on fun, defines playfulness as doing something for the sake of it, connection as being connected to another person or to yourself, and flow as getting so absorbed by your present experience that you lose track of time. Price also defines “junk flow” as the passive state of consuming stuff (binge-watching TV or scrolling endlessly on your phone, for example), noting that spending time this way is not as enriching as true fun.

Having fun with your coworkers can improve workplace productivity and aid in employee retention, which means that, all jokes aside, fun at work can be serious business.

Now I’m supposed to have fun at work? Team-building activities give me the ick.

Just like when wellness becomes a work stream, nothing is less fun than forced fun. There are two approaches that can help make having fun at work pleasant, according to Price. The first is about creating “playgrounds” (activities where fun can happen) or offering props (such as a bowl of conversation starters) for coworkers to have fun with one another. The second approach is to adopt a “fun mindset,” as Price calls it. This entails bringing an element of fun or delight to parts of the workday in unstructured ways.

For example, when employees experience something that brings them joy individually (maybe it’s a movie they watched over the weekend), they can share it with their team, perhaps on their workplace’s instant messenger. (Designated chat rooms can be a lifeline for isolated workers: one company’s most popular community chat group, which is offered by its contracted mental health provider, is called “Loneliness.”)

Employers can also benefit from thinking outside the chat box, literally: getting outside together is another way teams can have fun. Doing so can also help boost team creativity and performance while reducing the risk of burnout.

Who’s responsible for making the workplace a fun place?

If you don’t automatically equate your boss with fun, you’re probably not alone. Nevertheless, fun at work can be a top-down initiative for a few different reasons. First, bosses and supervisors play a big role in employee job satisfaction, which is an important determinant of workers’ overall well-being. Second, employees look to bosses for their cues on what kind of behavior is acceptable and encouraged, so if the workplace culture isn’t one in which fun already exists, it won’t become more fun unless leadership endorses the shift.

Managers might also tap their team’s “thriving stars”—defined by McKinsey senior partner Aaron De Smet and coauthors as those employees who are top performers, who have found meaning and purpose at work, and who have created psychological safety and trust in a team setting.

Bottom line, Gen Zers: if yapping makes you feel like the office is fun, yap away.

VISUALIZE IT

Emerging economies, which have a growing population of young workers, are experiencing rapid urbanization. The shift could lead to a boost in savings and consumption.

WAIT, DON’T SCROLL

Physical 🤝 digital. How much do you know about the Internet of Things? Much more, after reading this.

Closing the health gap. This interactive from the McKinsey Health Institute illustrates what the $1 trillion women’s health gap looks like across countries, how select interventions can help close the gap, and the effect that those changes can have on GDP.

The good fight. Why is it that a good person in a good organization who does good things might produce only “mediocre results”?

NOT US; STILL GREAT

Rite of passage. Gen Z is reversing a decades-long decline in teen employment. [Axios]

Classrooms, careerism, and control. Students at elite colleges are once again stepping onto the “prestige escalator.” [NYT]

CROSSWORD

—Edited by Alexandra Mondalek, editor, New York