2 minute read

I learned this week just how big a problem anxiety is for our younger generations – and how this could become a significant challenge for our workforce of the future and our collective ability to solve future problems.

Smiley Poswolsky, a workforce belonging expert, shared an insight on a webinar I attended that nearly half of all Gen Zer’s feel stressed or anxious all or most of the time. 

It’s a statistic backed up in a May 2023 Global Gen Z and Millennial survey by Deloitte, which gathered the views of over 22,000 people in 44 countries.

Deloitte’s research found women are most impacted with 54% and more than one in three male (37%) Gen Zer’s stressed or anxious most or all of the time.  

Millennials are faring slightly better; with four out of ten (43%) reporting they feel stressed or anxious most or all of the time.  But this is hardly optimal.

The major causes of anxiety for Gen Z and Millennials Deloitte say, are concerns about their own mental health and financial and workload pressures.

This combination creates a ‘worrying feedback loop’ of anxiety where those suffering don’t experience relief from their stress.  

In less than five years, 70% of our workforce will be made up of Gen Z and Millennials.

So this is a problem we need to tackle now because innovation needs creativity and problem-solving skills.   

According to The World Economic Forum, in its Future of Jobs Report 2023, over the next five years the most sought after workforce skills will be creative and analytical thinking.

Allowing yourself to be creative and open to solving problems requires being comfortable with the discomfort of managing through unknowns and ambiguities and having resilience to bounce forward when faced with inevitable setbacks.

Depending on the situation, high levels of stress and anxiety can either inspire or impede creativity.  

But when anxiety becomes overwhelming, creative work often stalls says Arash Javanbakht, an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Wayne State University.

With almost half our future workforce potentially having high levels of anxiety that could make innovation and problem solving harder, we need to find new solutions that work to support the mental health of our workforce and foster conditions for innovation as a package.

Here are three suggestions from me:

1. Invest in programs that build awareness and skills to manage through uncertainties and solve problems and innovate while coping with anxiety

2. Create psychologically safe cultures using strategies suggested by Harvard professor Amy Edmonson in this TEDx talk to encourage the contributions of people who are sensitive to criticism and exclusion because of their high levels of anxiety

3. Educate new and emerging leaders on how to foster creativity and innovation with a high anxiety workforce

Let me know what you think.

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