“Praise Three Times A Week”: What The AFP Boss Got Wrong

Last week, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) issued a denial after the top commissioner Reece Kershaw mentioned how Gen Z needs more praise in the workplace.

I think this is interesting; we learnt that Gen Z, the younger generation, need three times a week praise from their supervisors,”

Mr Kershaw said.

The next generation only needs three times a year, and my generation only needs once a year.”

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The comments made headlines, and it turned out that Mr Kershaw had misquoted some research, and those comments were vastly exaggerated from the original study in 2022.

On this episode of The Briefing, we speak to an organisational psychologist Amanda Ferguson, to find out how generational praise has changed and what the research really says.

The Briefing co-host Katrina Blowers said the research found that Gen Z and younger millennial employees (anyone born after 1989) were 73 per cent more likely to want recognition at least a few times a month.

He exaggerated it. He said three times a week when it was three times a month, and he used the word praise instead of recognition, which are two different things,”

The Briefing host Tom Tilley said.

Ms Ferguson said the attention spans were diminishing due to device use. There had been a lot more anxiety in the environment for Gen Z as well.

She said the overall research showed that feedback mechanisms were really important, especially for Gen Z, as they lived in the “VUCA times”.

When I say VUCA, I mean volatile, uncertain, challenging, ambiguous, a major phenomenon that organisational psychology is looking at, which is impacting the younger generations more so,”

Ms Ferguson said.

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