{"id":208424,"date":"2025-10-18T08:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T08:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/208424\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T08:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T08:29:07","slug":"mercedes-f1-team-boss-toto-wolff-says-calling-gen-z-workers-a-monolith-is-a-bit-unfair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/208424\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolff says calling Gen Z workers a monolith is ‘a bit unfair’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gen Z is now making up a quarter of the global workforce<\/a>, but the new foundational demographic of the workplace is hardly a monolith. Toto Wolff, CEO and team principal of Mercedes-AMG Petronas<\/a> Formula 1 Team, believes it\u2019s unfair to make assumptions about the entire generation\u2019s working habits.<\/p>\n

Wolff knows first hand what it looks like to work with Gen Z employees. At the beginning of the 2025 F1 season\u2014and following the departure of veteran driver Lewis Hamilton<\/a> to Ferrari\u2014Mercedes updated its driver lineup, tapping 18-year-old Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli to join the more seasoned 27-year-old Briton George Russell. Mercedes, which has won eight Constructors\u2019 Championships and nine Drivers\u2019 Championships, announced<\/a> on Wednesday the team would stick with the pairing for the 2026 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the drivers may share a youthfulness that puts them both in the Gen Z bucket, Wolff said working with the pair helped him see the generation as having a multitude of skillsets and needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have two very different drivers: a young English gentleman and an Italian rock-and-roller,\u201d Wolff told Fortune. \u201cI think it\u2019s a bit unfair to say they\u2019re all the same, that Gen Zs are all the same.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about the human, about their personalities, about their strengths and weaknesses,\u201d he added. \u201cI really enjoy working with either of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gen Z has developed a bad rap in the workplace, even deemed \u201cunemployable<\/a>\u201d by New York University Stern School of Business adjunct professor Suzy Welch. The generation, which has weathered a global pandemic and unsteady economy during their formative years, has adopted the stereotype<\/a> of being lazy and unmotivated, thanks to the rise of trends like quiet quitting<\/a> and career minimalism<\/a> that have young workers setting clearer boundaries between their personal and professional lives.<\/p>\n

But from Gen Z\u2019s perspective, despite being the second most educated<\/a> generation behind only millennials, young workers face AI\u2019s threat to the <\/a>labor market and \u201cyoungist\u201d prejudices<\/a> held among hiring managers with preconceived notions about the generation.<\/p>\n

Wolff\u2019s advice for young professionals<\/p>\n

F1 drivers\u2014numbering only 20 in the sport and currently with an average age of 27\u2014are not typical employees. But even working with young elite athletes, Wolff believes everyone should take it a little easier on the generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that we mustn\u2019t pressurize Gen Z so much by, \u2018You\u2019ve got to find your purpose, your passion, and work hard,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s important to understand that when you\u2019re young, your interest can change, and as long as you give it all you have with enthusiasm, then there\u2019s a pretty good chance in terms of success.\u201d<\/p>\n

F1 drivers typically begin their racing careers in the single-digits, driving go-karts before working their way up the single-seat racing series, winning sponsorship dollars and races. But committing to a career before one has even left grade school should not be the norm, Wolff said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody expects a 25-year-old to have found the ultimate goal or job,\u201d he concluded. \u201cIt was in my end-of-20\u2019s that I started to find out actually what I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolff himself had a winding career<\/a> before becoming top brass for Mercedes\u2019 F1 team. The 53-year-old CEO began a racing career in 1992, then won his category in the N\u00fcrburgring 24 Hours, a touring car race, in 1994. But Wolff left racing that same decade, founding investment companies Marchfifteen and Marchsixteen focused on technology ventures. He bought a stake in the Williams Formula One Team in 2009, joining its board of directors before becoming executive director of Mercedes\u2019 F1 team in 2013. He is the longest-tenured F1 team boss in the sport currently.<\/p>\n

Wolff has gained a surge of followers in the U.S. as a result of the rise of Formula 1<\/a>, due in part to the hit Netflix<\/a> docuseries Drive to Survive, as well as the Apple<\/a> film F1 released earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive years ago, nobody would have stopped Toto Wolff on the street. Now people stopped him on the street,\u201d Werner Brell, CEO of autosport multimedia company Motorsport Network, told Fortune. \u201cThat\u2019s obviously so America, so Hollywood. I think to me, that\u2019s an unexpected outcome of how the content side and the side of the storytelling has improved the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gen Z is now making up a quarter of the global workforce, but the new foundational demographic of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,4998,101,16952,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-208424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-gen-z","tag-sports","tag-the-future-of-work","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}