Gen Z is Overwhelmed by ‘Tech Shame’ at Work—and it’s Keeping Them Quiet in Meetings
fliptop writes:
Are Gen Z employees more anxious about tech issues than any other generation?
When the Zoom lags, some participants might be panicking more than others: Gen Z.
They're most likely to feel plagued by technological issues at work, according to HP's global survey of 10,000 office workers around the world. That might be surprising considering the youngest generation is digitally native, often assigned the job of explaining newfangled gizmos or devices to their older peers at work. But that can put Gen Z under pressure.
While 1 in 5 young office workers report feeling judged for having tech issues, only 1 in 25 of their older coworkers feel the same way, according to HP. They're also 10 times more likely to feel shame when having these tech snafus than their peers over age 40.
This "tech shame," as Debbie Irish, head of HP's U.K. and Ireland human resources, posits to WorkLife, is due to a number of reasons. For one, she says, it might be related to not being able to afford better technological equipment or Wi-Fi the way senior coworkers can, since Gen Z is largely still on entry-level salaries. They may also feel less confident in their place at work in general.
[...] Gen Z workers spend about eight hours a week on average simply helping their older colleagues locate their computer files, according to a survey of 1,000 workers by software company OSlash. That amounts to $11,000 annually in wasted employee time. And more than a quarter of Gen Zers reported that they weren't able to do their regular work because they were juggling tech support duties.
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