New Ground
Conceptual Event Strategy and Design
Self-initiated project
The Insight
Post-pandemic everyone has been mandated back into offices. But older workers, who had expected a return to pre-pandemic office life and culture, meet new Generation Z workers who completed and graduated University virtually without ever experiencing the office as it was.
There is a generational disconnect.
74% of managers say that Generation Z is the most challenging generation to work with. 1 in 8 of these managers have fired a Generation Z worker within a week of their start date.
But where exactly do Generation Z and their bosses lack alignment? A recent study found that all this really came down to was contrasting views on a number of big issues – empathy, mental health, personal identity.
How to resolve this disconnect? Connect. Over anything.
At Pret, as the café for the office worker, we see something that unites us all – the desperate need for a caffeine-fuelled morning commute. We believe coffee’s conversation-carrying power can unearth commonalities between even the most unlikely pairings. By harnessing office workers’ common ground, we aim to break New Ground within office culture.
The Outcome
In a week long event throughout offices in Bank, co-workers are challenged to find their commonalities in daily conversations over coffee. A series of seemingly inane conversation prompts, such as ‘what’s the best pasta shape’, aim to create an opinion that the disconnected generations can connect over. With this new sense of camaraderie, the co-workers unite as a team at the end of the week to solve a final puzzle. Racing against other offices, the fastest team wins a latte art social, hosted at Pret, to build on these new office relationships.
