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As a group characterized by its digital awareness and keen sense of social consciousness, Gen Z is leaving its mark on the working world and catalyzing change at every corner. Accounting for the largest portion of the workforce, their expectations are always growing, yet often misunderstood. While this might challenge any leaders, it also presents a key opportunity for business leaders to manage with more intention, especially amid a rapidly shifting landscape.
With a unique chance for future-forward managers to shine, it’s time to throw traditional assumptions and recycled strategies out the window and unleash the true potential of their Gen Z workers. This requires a deeper understanding of the key drivers guiding their behaviors in the workplace. By doing so, both employers and employees can better align expectations and approach organizational strategies with transparency, adaptability, and mutual growth in mind.
To help you take a deeper look into their intrinsic perspectives of the modern workplace, this article explores actionable strategies for supporting, developing, and engaging today’s Gen Z talent in a way that strengthens and supports your teams, even across differing generations.
Reality Check: What’s Actually Driving Behavior
From the accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence to more interconnected, virtual workspaces, the rules of work have transformed significantly over recent years. Along with it comes the increasing influence of Generation Z—accounting for 27% of the current global workforce. As Gen Z employees continue to infuse innovation through sets of new skills and perspectives across the working world, countless companies are reshaping how they attract and retain talent—and now you can too.
Navigating the Hybrid Work Model
With their roots dug deep into the era of omnipresent digital connectivity, many Gen Z employees place an emphasis on the flexibility and autonomy inherent to leveraging technology. For example, this generation tends to prioritize remote work options that cater to their needs by providing a healthy work-life balance. As a manager, enabling a greater sense of control of their time reflects Gen Z’s desire for a more individualized lifestyle.
However, it’s important to note that while being considered to be digital natives, Gen Z employees are still greatly underprepared in terms of digital literacy in a professional capacity. With 68% of this generation feeling inadequately equipped with digital capabilities necessary for the modern workplace, Salesforce asserts that such statistics are only climbing higher for more advanced skills like coding, data encrypting, and cybersecurity.
As a leader, this challenge can be resolved by refocusing efforts on upskilling Gen Z team members. With 70% of Gen Z workers wanting more investment from employers into elevating digital skills, upskilling programs designed for expertise in areas like programming and data analysis ensures that employees can confidently exceed expectations, while levelling up their skill sets in a way that is aligned with their business’s specific needs.
Maintaining Mental Wellbeing
To maintain a strong sense of satisfaction and productivity in the hybrid workforce, Gen Z pushes for the prioritization of mental health. With employees stating that managers impact their mental health 48% more than their doctors do, it’s no surprise that workers have a higher expectation for their employers to play an active role in maintaining it.
Gen Z employees are vocal and value-driven, with 61% of workers from this generation willing to leave a job for one that offers significantly better mental health benefits. To keep pace with such demands, managers can act as resource connectors to direct employees to the right tools, while actively promoting resources regularly and visibly.
This can be done by embedding mental health access into organizational platforms via app-based tools, employee portals, or QR codes to supercharge support. Managers can also offer options that evolve as employee needs do, such as burnout prevention training and peer support programs, to ensure more dynamic experiences.
Speaking Up to Spark Satisfaction
With their roots in the age of information, Gen Z employees seek a company culture that provides clarity through consistent and constructive feedback. While more traditional managers may rely on formal and less frequent techniques, the younger generation doesn’t respond well to this approach. Rather, they require real-time communication, clear conversations, and exploratory dialogue.
The younger workforce wants to know where they stand professionally, while also being kept aware of how they can further develop. As a result, Gen Z employees show a preference for a two-way feedback mechanism that mirrors their value for transparency and honesty.
With a higher expectation to be included in conversations related to their performance, injecting inclusivity into the process is key to achieving management success for this generation. As 65% of Gen Z workers are eager and willing to learn and actively ask for feedback weekly, managers can capitalize on this initiative by strengthening their own approaches. For example, workplace managers can set up weekly meetings to help their workers create realistic career growth goals. By doing so, employees can play a more proactive and involved role in identifying potential opportunities as they emerge—or redefine the journey along the way.
Making Multigenerational Teams Work
The multifaceted nature of today’s workforce is significantly reflected by the diverse expectations, values, and priorities inherent to an environment encompassed by the presence of multiple generations. From a unique mix of communication styles to differing work ethics shaped by each generation’s social, economic, and technological experiences, diversity is bound to erupt throughout operations. However, for managers, this can result in generational differences that have a knock-on effect for productivity and performance.
To bridge these gaps, leaders need to foster a greater sense of mutual respect by developing a deeper understanding of different generational perspectives. People tend to gravitate toward like-minded individuals. In the workplace, this can be translated to those from the same departments or age groups—creating a high likelihood that the generations in a work environment will stick together. However, this opens the door for stereotyped grouping, assumptions, and even discrimination to occur.
To squash these chances, managers need to be more proactive in how they address such misunderstandings. This will ensure that every team member, regardless of their generation, continues to feel recognized, supported, valued, and motivated. The key is to zone in on what each employee brings to the table as an individual. By doing so, leaders can confidently shine light on the personal prowess of their team members and gain deeper insight into how it fits in with the company’s goals.
Cultivating a workplace that empowers employees of all ages to freely express their ideas and flexibly communicate lays a solid foundation for cross-generational support to thrive. To do so, managers need to transform generational diversity into a workplace strength by reassessing their strategies. For example, leaders can implement mentorship programs between generations that foster mutual knowledge sharing, designed to unlock inclusive learning opportunities for a wide age range.
Conclusion
Curating a culture of cross-generational collaboration isn’t as cut and dry as simply bridging gaps. It emphasizes the importance of empowering a workforce that reflects the reality with which employees are familiar. The truth is that Gen Z doesn’t want to reinvent the wheel; they’re expectations mirror the way work has already and will continue to evolve—culturally, digitally, and structurally.
With greater priorities for mental health support, continuous feedback, and more inclusive leadership, their growing needs echo the awareness essential to thriving in today’s hybrid and accelerated business landscape. While this calls for leaders to put down their traditional playbooks, it also opens the door for a world of unique opportunities to pour in.
The next generation of work is already here; it’s time to lead it.
