A generational divide over workplace burnout has less to do with work intensity and more to do with diminished expectations for career rewards, according to business author and New York University professor Suzy Welch. The 66-year-old from Portland earned her MBA as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School and spent seven years as a management consultant at Bain & Co. before joining Harvard Business Review in 2001, serving as editor-in-chief. Speaking on the July 24 episode of the Masters of Scale podcast, Welch argued younger workers face the same demanding schedules as previous generations, but lack the fundamental belief that hard work will lead to meaningful advancement.
Welch said this insight emerged from a conversation she had with a 25-year-old freelance worker who asked Welch to create more content about worker fatigue among young people because her friends were “just so burnt out.” When Welch told this worker she used to work “seven days a week” at that age and loved the work—and would’ve done more of it if she could—the young woman offered a striking rebuttal: “But you had hope.”
