Generation Z – who are they and what do they want from work?
They are as scarce as hens’ teeth, they’re demanding and opinionated, and in the next couple of years, chances are one will be working alongside you.
Those born in the early years of Generation Z, which covers babies born between 1995 and 2009, are rapidly growing up, leaving school and entering the workforce. You might have even encountered them already, working in cafes and fast food outlets, or even working in the trades.
This generation is like generation Y on steroids; they have never lived without the Internet, mobile phones and social networking. They have only experienced economic prosperity. But, they have also lived in the age of terrorism. This means that as people from this generation enter the workforce, employers will need to develop special strategies to engage, retain and, importantly, excite them.
Treacy Sheehan, recruitment manager, Trace Personnel says this generation expects “flexibility, and lots of it, good money and immediacy of promotion.” But, says Sheehan, such expectations are “not that realistic; they need to be educated about what they can really expect from their working life.”
Sheehan uses a former employee of a client (not one she placed) as an example. “On paper, she looked smart and self-driven; she’d won awards, started a franchise and been sent to the US for training. But her behaviour didn’t match her resume. She didn’t dress corporately; she swore. She didn’t even have the basics of a corporate attitude. And she didn’t understand that work means work, not SMSing.”
The employee also had an expectation that she would not be required to make up time spent out of the office on personal matters. “She also expected to go on an expensive training course only nine weeks into the job, yet she wasn’t proving herself in the role, so why would the client recommend her for this course? She had very unrealistic expectations.”
Typical of this generation, which is comfortable using more informal communication methods and shuns the idea of a typical working week, the employee resigned via email on a Sunday.
One of the reasons that Generation Z appears to have the upper hand on the power relationship between employer and employee is that there are not many of them, thanks to the declining birth rate Australia experienced over the years during which Generation Zs have been born.
Peter Salt, founder of recruitment firm Salt & Shein says “there are very small numbers of them and they are the most well-educated of any generation. They are very in demand because they are in short supply. There might be a baby boom now, but 10 years ago, no-one was having babies, so the whole generation is very small in terms of numbers.”
What marks this generation out from any other, says Salt, is their familiarity with technology. “By the time these kids are three or four they are comfortable using a keyboard. Mobile technology is second nature to them. Some of their best friends are people they have never met. And they are also very opinionated because they are so well educated,” he says.
Salt says Australia will continue to experience a chronic skills shortage well into the next decade, which means there will be a great requirement for Generation Z’s skills. “They know they are in demand and they will make that obvious,” he says.
According to Salt, this generation is also “intuitive, don’t think in boundaries and have only ever lived in a globalised world,” which is very confronting for the people employing this generation.
Salt says employers that want to get the best out of gen Zs “will need to acknowledge this generation’s concept and context of what’s valuable. These people won’t fit the traditional workplace model. Organisations that are already talent strapped have to be innovative in the way they engage younger people or they are going to run out of resources. Generation Z has many opportunities to consider; employers are not going to have the upper hand with this generation.”
A huge different between Generation Z and the previous generations is their communication styles. “They are driven by smart technologies like text messaging and social networking and they want more of that,” Salt says
Indeed, this generation has invented its own language, facilitated by text messaging and other mobile communication techniques. This will impact Generation Z’s working styles significantly and has created a gap between previous generations and the latest generation.
People from generations X and Y, not to mention the baby boomers, will find it hard to understand and make sense of Generation Z, if Gen Z brings its staccato language to the workplace. Could ‘c u l8r’ become the standard email sign-off? Sheehan says this dynamic means it is encouraging grammar and spelling is being reintroduced into the education syllabus.
“If children have not been guided by their parents, they generally don’t have proper English skills,’ she says. This is concerning; even if Gen Z’s language one day becomes the norm, previous generations still need to be able to communicate with them.
Sheehan’s advice to employers that want to bridge the gap between previous generations and Generation Z is to “set their expectations straight right from the start. The good thing about this generation is that you can mould them, which is harder to do with older generations. It’s important to work on influencing Generation Z’s behaviour so they can better fit in to the working environment.”
Businesses that want to attract the brightest from this generation also have to offer an attractive working environment, which gives employees the ability to collaborate and be creative.
While it’s possible Generation Z is more bratty and bolshie than previous generations, it’s more likely they are simply repeating the patterns of their elders. The technology factor does, however, differentiate this generation from others.
Smart employers that want to get the most out of Generation Z won’t work against them to stifle their exuberance; they will harness it to help their businesses move forward and remain relevant.