What the Scaffolding Generation Actually Experienced Part 2
There's a concept in developmental psychology called a critical period, a time window during which certain skills and capacities are most efficiently acquired.
For the cohort that was aged 17–25 during 2020–2022, that window was open during a pandemic.
Here's what that actually meant:
High school students lost the low-stakes social experiences (e.g. team sports, first jobs, peer conflict, extracurriculars) that build cooperation, self-regulation, and accountability. These are more than sentimental losses; these are functional ones.
College students lost their formative years. The internships, the in-person collaboration, the relationships with professors and supervisors that help build their professional identity. Employers now rate college student work-readiness at 67%. College students rate themselves at 83% (NACE, 2024). The gap is real and it shows up in every team meeting.
And when they entered the workforce? They arrived in an environment that assumed they had those experiences. That expected them to network confidently, take feedback gracefully, and navigate ambiguity with ease.
They weren’t deficient. They just hadn’t received the same opportunities to develop that previous generations had.
This is the window we’re talking about when we say scaffolding generation. The window closed. The scaffolding was never put up. And now they need to build it in real time, inside your organization, whether your organization is ready for that or not.
The full picture is in our white paper, including what the research says organizations can do now.
Final post next week: the best practices that actually move the needle.