Workers in their twenties “don’t read emails” according to the boss of IT giant Wipro. Thierry Delaporte, speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Delaporte, addressing the subject of post-pandemic workplace culture, told the Telegraph that 20,000 young staff at his company “don’t check even one email per month.” “They’re 25, they don’t care”, he said. “They don’t go on their emails, they go on Snapchat, they go on all these things.”
Mr Delaporte, who joined Wipro in July 2020, as the pandemic was ravaging countries around the world, claimed he often steers clear of sending his employees emails and instead contacts them on social media.
The 55-year-old said: “To speak to my employees I go on Instagram or Linkedin. It works better.” He warned of a “wake-up call” for employers, suggesting that bosses need to pay attention to the preferences of younger employees.
The Frenchman was not the only corporate leader to question whether Gen-Z workers were turning their backs on the traditional email.
Chief executive of the video site Vimeo, Anjali Sud, compared emails to “instruction manuals”. Speaking on a panel at the Swiss alpine resort, Ms Sud, described communicating via email as “outdated.”
The remarks from Mr Delaporte and Ms Sud were not the only controversial statements made on the opening three days of the Davos summit. Former PM Tony Blair railed against politicians that turned wearing masks into a political issue during the Covid pandemic.
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“What is unforgivable is turning something like whether you wear a face mask into a political issue. That is unforgivable and stupid.”
Blair’s remarks constitute a dig at politicians who have been vocal on the subject of mask-wearing, such as Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis, who this week banned mask mandates in his home state of Florida.
The WEF summit in Davos is due to finish on Friday 20 January.
