Exec gave his Gen Z kids a list of ‘daddy tips’ when they became old enough to work—it included showing up on time and ‘bringing value to a meeting’

Richard Roper didn’t wait for his daughters to stumble into the workplace blind. The president of Marsh People and Investment in Hong Kong & Macau sat down and wrote them a full sheet of “daddy tips” before they started working, pulling together three decades of his own career lessons into something much simpler: show up well, speak well, and make yourself useful.

At the Fortune Leaders Forum in Macau on Sept. 8, Roper said the list covered the kind of basics that sound dated until you watch a young hire walk into an office. Be enthusiastic. Be polite. Be respectful to your boss. Bring value to a meeting. Make a good first impression. He said those skills are becoming more valuable, not less, in an era where AI is eating into entry-level tasks.

That point runs through the rest of the hiring conversation too. Gen Z may be strong on gadgets and AI tools, but employers keep saying they’re missing the human side of work: speaking up, dealing with different opinions, handling basic office etiquette, and knowing how to talk about what they bring to a job. One in five young candidates even bring their parents to interviews, according to the source, which is its own kind of workplace confession.

Gen Z seems to know there’s a problem. A 2024 Harris Poll found that 65% of Gen Z workers said they don’t know what to talk about with coworkers. The problem is worse for people who entered the workforce after the pandemic, who are more than twice as likely to struggle to start a conversation as those who worked before it. Some employers are answering with etiquette classes and soft skills training. Others are less patient.

Roper is not the only executive trying to teach this stuff at home. Grindr CEO George Arison plans to bring his two children into the office when they turn 10 so they can watch him work 12-hour days and learn grit. Different methods, same message: the printer is not the hard part. The hard part is being someone people want in the room.