PwC teaches Gen Z hires “resilience” so they can accept criticism

Gen Z is often labeled as a “lazy” generation of workers, with no ambition to climb the corporate ladder. But according to PwC UK, the real challenge isn’t motivation — it’s resilience. These young professionals are eager to succeed in their own way, but the pandemic may have left gaps in essential skills. Therefore, the “Big Four” group consultancy is taking the initiative to offer “resilience” training to its new hires.

“It often comes to our attention that the graduates who come to us — who pass every cognitive test we give them — don’t always have resilience,” Phillippa O’Connor, people director at PwC UK, recently told The Sunday Times. “They don’t always have the human skills we want to bring to bear when working with the clients we target them.”

Also read: Fearful, negative and cynical: study reveals portrait of generation Z

“We really doubled down, especially with this year’s graduates,” O’Connor continued. “We’re doing a series of separate trainings in the first six months with us, really focusing on resilience and some of those communication skills.”

The executive described resilience as the ability to deal with the dynamics of daily work — especially pressure, criticism or delicate situations. This skill, he said, is particularly crucial in a negotiation environment, where managing challenges is a “core” part of the role.

According to O’Connor, many younger workers simply didn’t have the opportunity to develop this muscle during the pandemic, when lockdowns disrupted the education and early workplace experiences that would normally help build this skill.

But by offering this special training, PwC is ensuring that the talent who will fill its 1,300 open graduate vacancies in the UK this year – which received around 47,000 applications – are well prepared to succeed.

Fortune reached out to PwC for comment.

Companies are offering special training to generation Z

PwC’s “resilience” training is just one example of how employers are stepping up to ensure Gen Z is ready to succeed in the job market.

In 2023, another “Big Four” giant, KPMG, offered additional instructions to its Generation Z hires. The company provided training for its recently graduated talents, concerned about their difficulty in adapting to professional life — especially with regard to “soft skills”, such as giving presentations, working in a team and managing projects.

The chief people officer of the $1.5 billion data protection startup Cohesity, Rebecca Adams, has also advocated for greater cohesion between generations.

Earlier this year, the executive led an effort to train managers to manage young professionals, stating that Generation Z responds differently to feedback: “They want to know the why, the how — they want constant feedback.”

On the other hand, she described having to teach young employees “basic things” that would leave her Gen X colleagues in awe.

“How do I organize my schedule? You actually have to accept the meeting invitation,” Adams explained to Fortune in September. “You can’t just leave the meeting you’re in because there’s another one going on at the same time.”

Philanthropic organizations are also stepping up to address Gen Z’s career pitfalls.

Radical Hope is a nonprofit organization that helps equip college students with essential skills, including communication, interpersonal skills, and emotional intelligence.

It began as a pilot project at New York University in 2020 after experts observed “elevated levels of anxiety, stress and depression” among students in previous years — and has since spread to 75 college campuses.

Liz Feld, CEO of Radical Hope, hopes that trained Gen Z youth will become skilled in the skills “we all learned growing up in everyday life at home.”

Even small things like small talk can be a challenge for these hopeful young people looking to one day succeed in the workplace.

“They’re not going to ask someone, ‘Do you want to go to the college restaurant for dinner, do you want to go for a beer, do you want to go for a walk, do you want to get coffee?’” Feld told Fortune, adding that if someone says “no,” their trust crumbles. “They internalize everything. Face-to-face rejection is what they fear.”