It’s time for Gen Z to stop “bed rotting” and leave the house.
Working from home could stunt career growth and romantic relationships, Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, said at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit last week.
“You should never be at home. That’s what I tell young people. Home is for seven hours of sleep and that’s it,” Galloway dished in a clip posted by The Journal on TikTok.
“The amount of time you spend at home is inversely correlated to your success professionally and romantically. You need to be out of the house,” he urged.
Evidence has suggested that folks who work outside of the house have higher rates of success.
One hinderance, according to a paper last month by economists from Harvard, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the University of Iowa, is that remote employees get less feedback on their work compared with their peers working in the office.
The economists analyzed virtual communications of software engineers from a Fortune 500 tech company and found that when employees were reporting to physical offices, engineers who went in received 23% more feedback on their code — both in person and online — than engineers working on teams remotely.
(During the early days of the pandemic when the office was shut down, that gap shrank substantially, particularly for men.)
When it comes to deciding a work-life balance, many Americans have control over whether they want to come into the office or not.
According to research from McKinsey last June, 58% of Americans reported having the opportunity to work from home at least one day a week, while 35% have the option to work from home five days a week.
Galloway says young people can have it all — but they must be okay with not having it all at once if they want to achieve a major milestone success, whether it’s getting rich, or achieving a set goal.
“You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once. And while we all know that guy or gal who has a great relationship with their parents, is in amazing shape, has a food blog, donates time at the ASPCA, and is a DJ on the weekends, assume you are not that person.
“If you expect to be in the top 10% economically, much less the top 1% buck up. Two decades plus of nothing but work. That’s my experience,” he said.
In-person relationships are currency when it comes to making career strides, Galloway previously told CNN when discussing the hindrances of social distancing.
“If you’re young and you’re ambitious, get into the office. Your career trajectory is a function of relationships. There are two or three people qualified for every job and the decider of who gets the promotion will pick the person they have the best relationship with,” he told CNN.
“Before you collect dogs and spouses, get into the office. Establish mentors, establish friends and also, establish partnerships — a third of relationships begin at work. We have taken away a great platform for establishing relationships. Don’t give up on it.”