Sophie Wade v2: Digitalized, Multi-Gen, What Is | Work 20XX Ep44

Sophie Wade v2: Digitalized Multi-Gen, What Is | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep44 from Running Remote
English Transcript
© Copyright 2025 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved

Cold Open:
Okay.
So we're ready to go.
So I’ll count us down
in 3, 2, 1.

Jeff Frick:
Hey welcome back everybody Jeff Frick here. Coming to you from Austin, Texas for a special edition of Work 20XX we’re down here at Running Remote with hundreds of the leading minds that are involved with, remote work and the future of work and hybrid work and distributed work. But what's really important is most of the concepts are pretty general and can apply no matter what your work situation is. So we're really excited to have one of the OGs in the field. She's been publishing podcasts at an incredible rate. She's has LinkedIn Learning classes she's got a great newsletter. So welcoming in I guess not from DC today or New York but here in Austin. Amazing. Sophie Wade, the Founder of Flexcel Network, the author of ‘Empathy Works’ and a podcast, ‘Transforming Work’ and a newsletter the ‘Work in Progress Report’ How do you find time to come to Austin Sophie, you’re a busy lady.

Sophie Wade:
Well, because this is actually super effective and efficient because everybody's here, so many of the people here that I want to talk to. I want to interact with, including you, Jeff are here so this is how to make it work.

Jeff Frick:
Yeah. Because as Brian [Elliott] says right. Distributed doesn't mean never together. And it actually adds so much more When you do finally get together.

Sophie Wade:
Absolutely. Exactly, well this is the distributed bringing people together because people have been working before and after the conference and in the middle and taking time off. And you're working right now. So this is exactly what it looks like.

Jeff Frick:
Right So you got some exciting news. You've got a LinkedIn Learning class that you've had for a while, maybe a couple but you've got some new learning assets coming out. So tell us a little bit about the new Sophie Wade classes

Sophie Wade:
Right. So these video courses. Yeah, so I've got five courses on LinkedIn already

Jeff Frick:
Five!

Sophie Wade:
625,000 people have taken them.

Jeff Frick:
Wow I’m so jealous

Sophie Wade:
Yeah I feel actually validated that so many people actually really enjoy my courses. And that's good.

Jeff Frick:
Yeah, that’s great.

Sophie Wade:
And that has given me the confidence to say, okay, fine. So I've shot a bunch more courses and those are going to be coming out. There are going to be some shorter ones with some sort of like nano type courses and then longer ones which are more, you know and all of them you can take in bite sized chunks, which are going to be about leading a multi-generational workforce. And, building trust and productivity. Well we're developing different ones in sort of combinations there is going to be one which is going to be selling with empathy. So we do the empathy one which has been my biggest LinkedIn course, hugely successful and is really has been not just salespeople business development people. Anybody who has an external facing, an external facing job. So that I've really sort of leaned into and developed it now for where we are now in a very different environment post-Covid, all that. So that's been that's exciting and it's been a lot of work getting it there. And with the news of relaunching my, Work in Progress newsletter in order to be able to really focus in on where we are now and helping companies scale in a very digitalized world, not digitized but digitalized, where operations and processes have changed. So many things have changed at the same time, which you know so much about in terms of AI and how this tech driven world and operations is changing how we work, not the other way around.

Jeff Frick:
Right. So the multi-gen thing you've been leaning into a lot, and I don’t know if I saw a headline recently that I think maybe Gen Z is you probably know the facts the biggest population now in the workforce as the baby boomers are all aging out? So I wonder if you can share How did you get involved in this multi generation focus? And what are some of the things that you find as you dig in under the covers?

Sophie Wade:
So I got into it originally with millennials when it was millennials were the ones who were being sort of maligned and lamented about. and like oh my God, those dumb millennials and they want promotions after six months and all the rest of it. Well, it is the same as for Gen Z and so far as they are reacting to what is. They're coming into. They were coming into the workforce saying, but we've got these smartphones, we've got laptops. Why aren't we working differently because we can? Which is very logical way to responding to it. Now, Gen Zs, it takes it to another level because they are really, truly digital natives. They've been growing up with smartphones with access to extraordinary information, which has taught them like there are different ways to do this or different strategies, or different ways of approaching math which they are taught in school. Or flipped classrooms. So how does that change how they then respond to when they go into the work workplace? And most Gen Z's, only the oldest ones ever had about two years of work experience in the office before the pandemic arrived. So returning to the office is not RTO they have not been in the office, so they are learning about this relatively hostile environment for the first time. And even if they were, they were living in, you know, with four other people in their in a bedsit type thing, it is still not, you know, more comfortable and friendly than a cubicle, a gray cubicle with which is, you know, not a comfortable environment. It is not a place where is as their social welcoming place, which is why there's so much stress about hey can we change how the office is? How can we, how can we network, how can we collaborate better? Because the cubicle environment with a few conference rooms is not it.

Jeff Frick:
Right, right Ironically when it's done well it's the younger folks that love the office that crave the social interaction that want to go because they're at that stage in their career where they need it. But it's not to But they’re not going there to do Zoom calls and email. You know, it’s a different objective for the time.

Sophie Wade:
Exactly. And the thing is there were, I mean, there was another thing posted in the FT [Financial Times] which was, Gen Z’s are leading the charge back to the office. Well, that was written by a clickbait heading writer, but the

Jeff Frick:
Back to the click bait headings

Sophie Wade:
Yes, exactly. We have enough of those. The point is, yes, the Gen Zs absolutely are wanting to be more in the office. But it's like 2.5 days per week. They want to be working from home rather than three something. The differential is not that much. However, they do want to still it on their own terms. They want the flexibility, but they also realize there's no there's no rhyme or reason as to why it has to be fixed days. We as a team should organize it together so that we're making effective use of our time. And we do that, have that socialization moment. And I, as a Gen Z, want to be able to see my boss or see my boss's boss or, or meet other people across the organization who I can learn from. And that enables the talent mobility that internal talent movement which is really hard. And the only way I'm going to be able to do that, which I understand is really the key to my future. And if you want me to stay here, I'm going to need to move internally. I need to be able to meet those people. But then at the same time, those people need to be in the office, too, when I'm there.

Jeff Frick:
Right right. Yeah, it’s interesting. My both of my daughters graduated from college not that long ago. And to your point they never knew anything else. I mean they finished college in Covid They started their careers in Covid. So for them, you know, this engrained office culture and as Brian would say, the executive nostalgia of what the office used to be they don't even have any feel for what that is.

Sophie Wade:
No, nothing And so one of my big points about the younger, the youngest employees is they can teach us what is they have no but they're not trying to disrupt anything. They're just responding to what is we have so many filters about what we were used to and how we used to work and what was expected of us. And we couldn't we couldn't speak up because we literally didn't know anything. If you have an access to a smartphone and have had since you were ten, you actually knew a lot more. And so the thing about it if we can watch what they're doing and how they're responding and, and ask more questions about that experience, then we can actually learn much, much more about the future of work, how modern work is evolving. And, okay there's a lot to do with their tone that could be, you know, could like be adapted a little to be a bit more you know, helpful to, you know collaborative work all of us together. But we all need to be in this conversation.

Jeff Frick:
Right, right It's interesting. Adrienne Rowe who’s been a long time workplace professional she’s recently retired she was at Raytheon and she said we should stop worrying so much about the young about getting the young kids to adapt to the way it used to be. And we should be way more concerned about the old folks. Are they up to speed on the new digital tools? Are they the ones, to you point learning the new ways. Versus trying to bring the new kids and throw them back to the, the old ways.

Sophie Frick:
It is challenging and I do I mean, I certainly empathize with older Gen Xs and boomers because there's a lot that that can feel terrifying. I mean, oh my God, AI, is it going to take my job? Gen Zs and boomers and Xers are all worried about AI taking their jobs, but trying to adapt to so much that is changing and disrupting. I mean, you have Imagine if you have a manager as a Gen Z or somebody older saying, use AI, it's going to disrupt your job. Like that's a really I mean, psychologically that's a challenging thing. Like I'm going to use this, it’s going to help me, it's going to augment what I do. But then it means I'm going to be doing something different and more complicated, which I may be okay with, but I may not. So we've got a lot of of technology and human issues that we need to be dealing with at the same time.

Jeff Frick:
Right. And AI is going to change it more than, say, the laptop did or the mobile phone in terms of the way that individuals can impact their work and add to their work And now at least at this stage of the game the variability of utilization is so so high between people that are jumping in with both feet. I talked to another person today that said he uses ChatGPT every day since it came out versus still the amazing amount of people that still haven’t even tried it

Sophie Wade:
Yes. And that is a huge issue as well. The thing that I do find is one of the sort of practical logistical benefits of AI right now is it is breaking, causing, forcing us to break down work into tasks and we break down work into tasks we can start designing it. We can really start focusing on work design and start understanding it. And that will help everyone. So I think there are it's chaotic. It's very disruptive. And the unevenness is going to be very problematic. But you know we have been uneven in how we're using technology in all kinds of different ways and so I think they'll maybe more gravitation towards different types of jobs where you do or don't have to. And there will be, let's face it I mean, Jeff, you know more than I do that there are going to be more friendly interfaces on some things like those super prompting will be written into the interface. It already is to some degree. So the people who don't know how to prompt really well don't have to think about it.

Jeff Frick:
Well the good news is my buddy Charles Corley said, don't worry about prompts. Just start talking to the thing it’ll talk back to you Okay, I'm going to put your feet to the fire. When can we expect these exciting new classes to hit?

Sophie Wade
In May.

Jeff Frick:
In May?

Sophie Wade:
Yes.

Jeff Frick:
Wow, that’s bold

Sophie Wade:
Yes

Jeff Frick:
Now we got it on tape, in May

Sophie Wade:
I know, Ahhh! The first one at least.

Jeff Frick:
We won’t say May 1rst maybe, towards the end of May

Sophie Wade:
Yeah. Mid-May.

Jeff Frick:
Okay Well, Sophie it is so great to see you as always. And congrats on all the new, exciting developments. That's great. I can't wait for the next I can't, five LinkedIn Learning Classes. you’re that’s crazy.

Sophie Wade:
I know in multiple languages, lots of different languages. Like it’s in 26, I don't know, 8 or 10 languages.

Jeff Frick:
But now it’ll be available to everybody. Not just the LinkedIn audience

Sophie Frick:
Exactly, exactly. So good to see you, Jeff. Thank you

Jeff Frick
You too. All right. She’s Sophie, I'm Jeff, you're watching Work 20XX. We’re coming to you from live from Austin, Texas at Running Remote. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening on the podcast. We’ll catch you next time, Take care. Bye bye.

Cold Close:
Boom

Sophie Wade v2: Digitalized Multi-Gen, What Is | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep44 from Running Remote
English Transcript
© Copyright 2025 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved

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