Let’s Build for the Workforce We Actually Have

For the past few years, I’ve heard variations of the same refrain from managers and leaders across industries: “Young people just don’t want to work anymore” or “Gen Z doesn’t know how to work.” I understand where some of this frustration comes from, and even the most frustrated version of myself can fall into that trap. But I don’t believe it’s true. The teacher in me knows most people want to feel a sense of purpose, even at work.

As Executive Director of Breakthrough Birmingham, I’ve had the opportunity to watch middle and high school students grow into the decision-makers who will shape their communities. I’ve also helped train college students through our summer fellowship, which is often their first “real” job. They want to do well. They want to understand how they fit into the workplace. The disconnect I see is not a lack of work ethic—it’s that the path into work looks very different from what many of us experienced.

When I step back, what I see is that many of our systems haven’t kept pace with how work has changed. Only 31% of U.S. employees are engaged at work today, and engagement has dropped most sharply among younger workers (Gallup). This isn’t a motivation problem. It’s a leadership and design problem. My mom and I entered the workforce with a shared set of rules. The same won’t be true for my future daughter and me.

I know generational conversations can feel a bit like astrology, but stick with me. People within the same generation tend to share formative experiences that shape how they understand the world around them, including work. Gen Z and younger Millennials are entering the work world with different expectations than the generations before them. They expect clarity, development, flexibility, and honest conversations about workload and sustainability. Reading between the lines may feel efficient, but it often breeds inequity. About 75% of Gen Z want hybrid work, and more than half say they will turn down roles that don’t align with their values (Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship). Many entered the workforce during or after a global pandemic that disrupted internships, training pipelines, and traditional career ladders. When we don’t design work intentionally, the result is burnout, turnover, and frustration on every side of the table.

The nonprofit sector is already feeling the consequences. Nearly all nonprofit leaders report burnout as a major concern, about one in four nonprofit employees experience frequent burnout, and turnover in the sector hovers around 20% (Nonprofit Quarterly). Turnover is expensive—financially, culturally, and programmatically. At Breakthrough Birmingham, this forced us to redesign how we approach work. After our most intensive program seasons, we build in intentional recovery time through office closures and staggered rest periods. Sustainability is a retention strategy, not a perk. Individual resilience is not a staffing model. We invest heavily in onboarding and coaching, including weekly check-ins and structured feedback cycles twice a year grounded in a shared performance framework. We’ve intentionally built a multi-generational team—roughly one-third Gen Z, one-third Millennials, and one-third Boomers—and we’ve retained nearly 90% of our staff over the past three years in a field where early-career turnover is common. We’re nowhere near perfect but we know something is working.

If we want different outcomes, we have to design work differently. At Breakthrough Birmingham, we’ve tried to focus on low-lift changes that produce high returns:

1. We write down our real expectations of work. We make them explicit, revisit them often, and stay honest about what we are willing to compromise on. Community requires compromise, and clarity helps people succeed.

2. We budget for rest the same way we budget for programming. A rested brain is more useful than one that’s been wrung dry. Our calendars include planned blackout weeks so staff know recovery is part of the work, not something they have to earn with PTO.

3. We built feedback systems early and use them consistently. People development is part of how our organization functions. Managers build space for five-minute human moments in regular check-ins. Those conversations surface pain points long before surveys or focus groups ever could. Most of the time, the answers aren’t surprising—we just hadn’t created space to hear them. While this work takes more time than our capitalistic instincts prefer, it produces stronger outcomes.

I often tell my team that nonprofit work means we can’t always compete on salary. That reality forces us to be thoughtful about process and culture. We are constantly working to co-create a workplace that makes room for whole humans who want to do meaningful, mission-driven work. While this was likely true for past generations, I’m grateful younger workers are more direct about what they need to show up fully.

We cannot afford to write off the next generation because they see work differently. Our sector depends on building the bench of future leaders who will carry this mission forward. If we don’t design workplaces where people can stay and grow, we shouldn’t be surprised when they leave—and when our missions suffer because of it.