The Workplace Readiness Gap: Three Ways Great Leaders Invest in Their Early Career Team Members

This article first appeared in The Aligned Leader by Archbright. Subscribe to receive fresh leadership insights, HR strategies, and workplace trends every other week, before they're published on our blog. Follow the newsletter on LinkedIn →  

Across industries, employers are talking about workplace readiness gaps. In this three-part series, I’ll explore what we’re seeing and what leaders can do to strengthen their talent pipelines, improve engagement, and develop future leaders who will shape the next chapter of their organizations.

First, let’s talk about early career employees. You’ve likely seen headlines questioning whether Gen Z is as prepared for work as previous generations. But before we assume the issue lies solely with employees, it’s worth asking a different question: How much of today’s readiness gap reflects changes in how organizations hire, onboard train, and develop talent?

Defining our Expectations for Entry Level

Before we talk about preparedness, it’s worth examining what we mean by “entry level” for employees. Many organizations say they are hiring for entry-level roles while expecting candidates to arrive with years of experience, polished communication skills, industry-specific knowledge, and familiarity with workplace norms.

If entry level requires a college degree, multiple internships, and previous work experience, is that truly entry level? Are we asking for experience that can only be gained through employment? These questions reveal whether your organization is hiring for potential or simply searching for candidates who have already had opportunities to gain experience elsewhere.

Organizations willing to invest in coaching and development can often place greater emphasis on learning agility, curiosity, and initiative than on checking every experience box. Leadership is ultimately about developing talent, not just identifying it.

Putting Assumptions to Rest

Every generation faces its fair share of challenges. As a result, each generation enters the workforce with a different set of experiences, strengths, and perspectives. As the newest generation establishing itself in the workplace, Gen Z has become the subject of significant commentary, much of it focused on what they supposedly lack.

A search for “Gen Z at work” reveals a slew of negative headlines ranging from “Gen Z refuses to do 9 things at work older generations still call paying your dues” to “Gen Z workplace slang, translated for managers: What your youngest employees are really saying”. While these headlines may generate clicks, they often oversimplify a much more complex reality. The oldest members of Gen Z are approaching 30, building careers, managing teams, and establishing themselves as professionals.

Every generation has entered the workforce under a cloud of assumptions. Millennials were labeled entitled. Gen X was called disloyal. Baby Boomers were viewed as rebellious. Most of those assumptions look outdated in hindsight.

Rather than focusing on stereotypes, great leaders focus on understanding the experiences that shape a generation, recognizing the strengths they bring, and creating opportunities for employees to learn, grow, and contribute.

Reframing Assumptions About Gen Z Employees

Many members of Gen Z entered the workforce during or shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic, a period that disrupted internships, networking opportunities, classroom learning, and traditional career development experiences. It's worth considering how those circumstances shaped their early professional experiences.

The headlines would have you believe quite a few assumptions about Gen Z as they build their careers, but let’s look beyond the stereotypes to see the full picture.

Stereotype: Gen Z doesn’t want to work.

Reframed: Gen Z has faced historically difficult times to establish a career with the pandemic landing squarely in their internship/early career years.

Stereotype: Gen Z is disloyal to their employers.

Reframed: High levels of layoffs have created an uncertain job market; early career employees aren’t necessarily job-hoppers by choice.

Stereotype: Younger employees shouldn’t need tech training.

Reframed: All employees need training on specific programs your company might use. While Gen Z is more digitally inclined, that doesn’t mean they’re familiar with tools like Slack, Outlook, or industry-specific software if this is their first industry role.

Another way to look at it, these prevalent stereotypes haunted Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers as they entered the workforce—how did that turn out?

Stereotype: Millennials were called entitled and said to expect “special treatment” at work.

Outcome: Millennials have become managers, mentors, and team leaders who drive technology adoption. The same group that was once criticized for “ruining work” is now shaping what modern leadership and employee well-being looks like.

Stereotype: Gen X was dubbed the “slacker” generation deemed disloyal to employers and skeptical of institutions.

Outcome: Now known as the “bridge” generation who connects technology savvy millennials and more analog baby boomers in the workplace. Gen X employees are now seen as independent, adaptable, and results-oriented.

Stereotype: In the 60s and 70s when Baby Boomers entered the workforce, they were dubbed self-centered, rebellious, and anti-establishment.

Outcome: Now, Baby Boomers are known for being career-focused, competitive, and loyal employees.

History has a funny way of changing our perspective. The generations once criticized for being entitled, disloyal, or rebellious are now leading organizations, mentoring employees, and shaping the future of work. Today's emerging workforce deserves the same benefit of the doubt. More importantly, they deserve leaders willing to invest in their success.

Three Ways Great Leaders Invest in Their Early Career Employees

Provide Feedback and Coaching

Many early-career employees are eager to contribute, build relationships, and prove themselves. While schools and universities provide foundational knowledge, many of the skills that drive success in a professional environment are learned on the job.

Great leaders recognize that capability is built, not discovered. They focus on development, skill-building, and creating a leadership pipeline. Coaching helps employees gain confidence, navigate workplace expectations, and see opportunities for growth that they may not yet recognize for themselves.

In Deloitte’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennial survey, 50% of Gen Z employees said they were not pursuing leadership roles because they viewed leadership as involving too much responsibility or were concerned about stress and burnout. Great leaders help employees envision a future for themselves within the organization by demonstrating that leadership can be both impactful and sustainable. When early career employees see leadership as rewarding rather than exhausting, they're more likely to pursue growth opportunities themselves.

How to Make it Happen:

• Conduct regular check-ins focused on development, not just performance
• Provide coaching alongside feedback, challenge the assumption that they should already know how to do something
• Coach not just on work output, but on workplace norms, communication, and professional judgment

Show Them the “Why”

Employees who understand how their work contributes to a larger mission are more engaged, more accountable, and more likely to see a future within the organization. Great leaders spend less time debating generational stereotypes and more time helping employees see why their work matters. Show them how their contributions connect to organizational goals, where opportunities for growth exist, and how the company’s values align with their own.

In Deloitte's 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, nearly all respondents (96% of Gen Zs and 97% of Millennials) said that having a sense of purpose at work is important to their overall job satisfaction and well-being.

How to Make it Happen:

• Connect individual responsibilities to broader organizational goals and values.
• Show employees multiple paths for growth, whether through traditional career progression or new experiences and responsibilities
• Regularly discuss career aspirations and what success could look like within your organization

Invite Them Into the Conversation

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is assuming that new employees have little to contribute until they’ve “learned the ropes”. While experience matters, fresh perspective matters too. Employees who are early in their careers often question processes, customer experiences, and assumptions that long-time employees may no longer notice.

Organizations that create space for these perspectives often uncover opportunities to improve processes, better understand customers, challenge long-held assumptions, and identify ideas that might otherwise go unnoticed.

In fact, this principle extends beyond entry-level roles. Every new employee brings fresh eyes and experiences that can help organizations grow, improve, and innovate.

How to Make it Happen:

• Ask for input before decisions are finalized, not after.
• Include newer employees in brainstorming and problem-solving discussions.
• Create opportunities for employees to share observations about customer and employee experiences.
• Reward thoughtful ideas regardless of where they come from in the organization.

How Does Your Organization Support Early Career Employees?

Many organizations are concerned about leadership succession, talent shortages, and workforce readiness. Those challenges won’t be solved solely by recruiting experienced talent away from competitors. Building a strong talent pipeline requires more than recruiting experienced professionals.

It requires organizations to intentionally develop the next generation of talent, create opportunities for growth, and cultivate future leaders from within. A few questions for leaders to consider:

• Do we have true entry-level opportunities in our organization?
• Are we hiring for potential or only experience?
• What workplace skills are we intentionally teaching?
• How often are senior leaders interacting with early-career employees?
• Would a new employee know how to build a successful career here?

The organizations that thrive in the next decade won’t be the ones waiting for fully developed talent to arrive, resume in hand. They’ll be the ones investing early, creating clear pathways to growth, and helping the next generation of employees become the leaders, innovators, and problem-solvers their organizations will depend on tomorrow.

Thank you for subscribing to The Aligned Leader. My hope is that each issue offers practical insights you can apply with your team right away. Next edition, tune in for the second part in our three-part Workplace Readiness series.