For my recent book Born Digital: The Story of a Distracted Generation, I interviewed 200 Gen Z’ers about their expectations of the workplace and working life. This taught me a lot, specifically:
- That GenZ’ers look at working life in a very different way
- That companies are going to have to think in new ways about developing skilled managers for the future
- That organisations need to think differently about attracting and retaining Gen Z
- That if they do all this, they’ll get the best value from GenZ’s contributions
As part of the discussion about the value of the skilled manager in an a volatile world, I’d like to share some of these learnings about what makes Gen Z tick; and how managers will need to respond to their development needs.
Professor Robert Wigley CMgr CCMI, author of Born Digital: The Story of a Distracted Generation
1.Provide options and strong values, not arrangements and boring meetings
Gen Z is conditioned by its use of technology. From the constant distraction of smartphones and social media comes a need for rapid, convenient, frictionless consumption but that allows for the expression of personality, individualism and flexibility. The gig economy adds to choice, convenience and efficiency one very important extra notion – that of minimal commitment both for customers and employees. Gen Z wants “options not arrangements” when it comes to how and when they consume and work. Gen Z is a much more entrepreneurial generation than mine and believes that business needs to go way beyond stakeholder capitalism to solving the societal issues my generation is leaving them. No wonder they have such regard for thriftiness, sustainability and inclusivity. This feeds through to a desire for experiences not assets and experiences not jobs.
To attract Gen Z in the first place, organisations will need to be clear about their purpose incorporating Gen Z’s values, be sophisticated in their use of technology and cater to the snacking, grazing, bite-size attention capacity of Gen Z. Gone are the days of filling in long CVs on websites – short, engaging advertorial video will be a key format to explain the organisation and available roles.
Take a look at what some world-beating companies are doing. Goldman Sachs has used Snapchat’s College Campus Scheme Stories platform; McDonald’s use what it calls “snapplications”. Peer recommendation is most likely to spark Gen Z’s interest: “recruitment happy hours” in which peers invite their friends to visit their organisation to see what’s on offer; Salesforce’s largest source of new hires is driven by referral bonuses.
Training at induction and during later employment will need to be delivered in the same way. Forget those long group training sessions; more online video-based, fun, interactive gamified training sessions will be the way forward.
Experiences not jobs is the phrase that captures my generation's expectation. I realised this when evaluating options last summer - I felt that an experience in a start-up where I would have real responsibility and make an impact was much more appealing than a job in a larger company where I felt I was unlikely to leave my mark.
an interviewee for Born Digital, by Professor Robert Wigley CMgr CCMI
2. Work on emotional intelligence
A recent survey by Linkedin looked at the skills Gen Z arrives with in the workplace. In particular, it identified a lack of empathy and sense of individualism that results from substantial consumption of social media. This means that many recruits may lack high degrees of emotional intelligence or a team-oriented approach. So it may be necessary to teach some workplace behave while simultaneously capturing the entrepreneurial but independent spirit of Gen Z.
3. Don’t expect loyalty
Similarly, don’t expect loyalty that is not earned and earned in a way that appeals to Gen Z. They will expect to job hop, or what I call “take, learn, move”, just like progressing from one stage of a video game to the next when you’ve mastered the last one. Internships, shorter-term assignments and project work, will be the role formats that attract.
4. Feed the hunger for learning
Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, has described employment with his company as a “tour of duty”: rotational, to learn, transformational to one’s long-term career and for the company; and foundational in terms of its long-term value.
To retain Gen Z it will be even more important to make a job a good experience not just a job. If organisations don’t cater for this thirst for learning, Gen Z will look elsewhere for opportunities to learn more and faster.
5. Hyper-personalise training
You’ll also need to customise your training and roles – the organisational equivalent of the hyper-personalisation experienced on the web. By the time they reach the workplace, Gen Z will have spent considerable time building their personal brands on social media. They will expect their employers to recognise and develop their unique skills and assets and to customise roles to suit them.
A digital image of the cover of Professor Robert Wigley's book, Born Digital: The Story of a Distracted Generation
6. Enable deep work
Gen Z’s new strengths in multi-tasking may weaken their capacity for deep processing – what Nicholas Carr calls ‘mindful knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical thinking, imagination and reflection.” It’s undoubtedly true that many of the worlds most amazing technological and scientific developments have resulted from what Cal Newport calls “deep work” – longer periods of focused, concentrated attention on a single issue.
But how to train recruits and engage them fully on the task in hand? The “phigital” workplaces of the future – combining periodic physical presence with technology – will need a combination of hub-and-spoke offices that accommodate periods of collaboration in group settings and pods for periods of deep concentration and work. Avoiding your employee cracking open three devices in the pod – the mobile, the laptop and the desktop with buds in their ears, will be a constant challenge.
Professor Robert Wigley CMgr CCMI is the author of Born Digital: The Story of a Distracted Generation available on Amazon, Kindle and Audible and in all good book shops.
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