Zoomers At Work

Gen Z has Arrived in the Workplace Bringing New Ideas and Attitudes

I talk to a lot of managers these days who are confused by the attitudes of their younger team members. They tell me that they don’t show any real commitment to the job, don’t integrate with the older people on the team, and often leave after only several months on the job.

Their frustration is palpable and it’s not hard to see why. When you invest time and effort into someone and begin developing them you hope to see that new employee engage. You want to see them make a contribution to the success of the team and to the whole organization.

But there’s a change happening right before our eyes and it’s got a lot of people confused about what’s going on.

Let’s Get Real

Let me come clean right now and admit this article is about Gen Z. A group that has been guilty of so-called quiet quitting and has begun developing a reputation among managers as a group not easy to motivate.

Gen Z, colloquially known as Zoomers, were born between 1997 and 2012. This means the leading edge of Gen Z is starting to enter the workforce right now.

Even more importantly Zoomers and their cohorts along with Gen Y or the group referred to as Millenials make up a staggering 32% and 27% respectively of the world's population. They are going to be making a big impact in the future and already are.

These two groups are shaping our world from politics to the media to technology and increasingly, the workplace.

Zoomers At Work

A Senior HR Manager at a large tech firm in Redmond, Washington I spoke to recently was concerned about the amount of turnover she was seeing among new young employees. She asked me if I knew anything about it and I didn’t have many answers why it would be happening.

I suggested that she meet with a couple of employees who were representative of Gen Z to ask them about their experiences working for the company. The hope was to get some leads we could investigate further.

Were there things that could be done to improve longevity, job satisfaction, and engagement for example?

She invited two Zoomer employees each with less than a year on the job to meet with her and share their experiences working at the firm. The Manager took them offsite to a local coffee shop to try to make it more casual and comfortable so the employees felt safe to open up.

Keeping it casual she began by telling them the goal of the meeting was to find ways to improve the experience of new employees so they stayed longer. Then asked a few softer questions to try to set the two employees' minds at ease and open up.

The Reasons For Leaving Are Surprising

After not getting much information from her tiny focus group she asked some questions that were more direct. After prodding for some time, eventually, the two young staff members disclosed what they knew of their peer's reasons for leaving the organization:

• They don’t trust the leadership at the company.
• They suspect that managers there are hiding things.
• They suspect that both people and revenue are being mismanaged.

What was even more alarming than the answers was that there appears to be no factual basis for these perceptions.

The employees who had left did not have any specific experiences that would cause them to believe that there were things going on behind the scenes.

And when the HR Manager did post-interview research and crunched some numbers none were terminated resulting in them leaving. Therefore we can assume none felt betrayed or mistreated.

From the information this manager gathered the employees who left all shared these same perceptions, all unsupported by facts, and all cited these beliefs as their reasons for leaving.

I want to pause here and say that the company in question has a strong reputation in terms of satisfaction and employee retention. It is a company that, I believe, genuinely cares about the people that work there.

We all know corruption can occur anywhere no matter how honest the company may appear. But here the facts were clear. The employees who had left so quickly after getting what most would consider an excellent job at a well-known tech company following graduation had no facts to back up their perceptions. They were simply…perceptions.

What’s Going On?

The company that is my client once had excellent employee longevity. People would stay ten, fifteen, or twenty years. That is until Millennials started entering the workforce.

That’s when things took a downturn. A downturn that has sharply increased as Gen Z has started graduating from college and filling open positions there.

So what is going on? Why do these young employees suspect the company they are working for of unethical and/or negligent behavior?

This is remarkable and sparked a lot of curiosity on my part. I have managed quite a few Millenials and a few individuals from Gen Z. I would agree that there are some perceptions they hold of the workplace that are unique to each. But one can say that about any generation.

My client and I both did research on the phenomenon and were surprised to learn that it is widespread and pervasive. Just try googling it and you will see dozens of stories of Zoomers walking away from good, if not great, jobs in just a few short months.

A Potential Strategy?

As part of my research, I contacted a university professor I know whose area of specialty is Leadership to see what he could tell me. After all, if Gen Z had such a bias about the workplace it would reveal itself to their college professors while still in school.

When I shared this situation with him he too confirmed this was a widespread perception held by Gen Z students he interacts with and a dynamic affecting many companies he talks to.

Though my research was not scientific it did confirm what the tech company in Redmond was experiencing and what a number of other big employers are also.

What I learned about this phenomenon painted a clearer picture of what may be going on.

This led me to formulate some strategies to address it for my client in Redmond and I share it here with you if you are a manager of employees who are part of Gen Z.

The Zoomer Narrative

There is in fact a meta-narrative that’s prevalent among Gen-Z and also many Millenials that affects trust. A narrative that has profoundly shaped their view of leaders and of big business.

The narrative, while not rooted in truth, still appears to be ubiquitous to the average 25-year-old Zoomer. And while the facts regarding such claims at specific companies and managers may be false much of the narrative is true. And those of us over 40 have perhaps failed to see it.

Just scroll through the memes on Instagram, for instance, and you begin to see three looming narratives that leaders need to wrestle with as they begin to work with younger colleagues who arrive on day one with a lack of trust in the companies they work for and the people who run them.

Narrative #1. Abuse of Power

Not unlike the 1960s, this generation of youth sees an abuse of power in the corporate U.S. and beyond. When they look at institutional leadership, they see an unjust pay gap between executives and employees, sexual misconduct among religious leaders, police brutality in the streets, and white-collar crimes going unpunished. Meanwhile, misdemeanors are sentenced harshly.

You and I both know this isn’t true of every leader nor is it true of most leaders. Yet it’s a narrative that is common among Gen Z. One that gets talked about a lot when they are among same-aged friends.

As leaders, we need to address this with our young team members. We need to take steps to dispel this myth by building trust with young employees from the moment they are hired.

When leaders empower others, meaning when they share their power, those team members will begin trusting the people in charge. Being transparent is a start but when young staff members have gotten some experience it is important to find ways for them to own a part of the work taking place.

Let them take responsibility so they can see firsthand the various dimensions of what it means to manage. In this way, they can gain a sense of the complexity of the role that leaders play.

Access to company executives is another way organizations can change perceptions among this group.

When top executives are not visible and are only ever seen going from meeting to meeting ideas can get built up in people's minds. Give young employees a chance to meet senior leaders face-to-face. By personalizing company leadership misperceptions can give way to the humanistic reality that senior leadership are people just like others throughout the organization.

Narrative #2. Inequity

Consider what Zoomers have witnessed over the past several years and you can better understand social movements like #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, and #NeverAgain.

While we might be quick to defend the establishment and even ourselves, younger employees may look at those perceptions as out of touch. And if we doggedly hold on to them we reinforce the perceptions young people hold which is we simply want to maintain the status quo.

This can cause young people to feel hopeless and give up.

I have tried with younger family members to explain why parts of certain social movements aren’t entirely made up of saints. To not believe everything that one side or the other is saying.

It can be hard to understand why a young person would believe that the institutions and organizations that older generations still hold in high regard should be seen as suspect.

But holding fast to your own point of view without considering new ones will get you nowhere.

What I am suggesting is to acknowledge why a young professional may be skeptical of leadership and to listen to their concerns before sharing your point of view. Then try to find common ground.

Young adults look at the inequity surrounding minorities, for example, and wonder how Baby Boomers and Gen X have allowed that sort of injustice to go on for so long. And in all fairness, we have left a lot undone.

Companies and leaders who demonstrate they value equity and inclusion must find ways to show it through their decisions and actions. If they do this they will win the younger generations over and that, in the end, will improve retention.

Narrative #3. The Desire for Control

When young generations look at political leaders in Washington, D.C., or business leaders on Wall Street, they see old people who are out of touch and refusing to give up their hold on power.

Too many politicians running our country are over 75 years of age and keep campaigning for re-election. Many Boomers can’t or won’t mentor younger generations to develop them to take their spots. Instead, they doggedly hold on to power.

Truth be told, as affluence increases, so does the appetite for control. Those who seek more control tend not to admit that is what is going on. So I can see what younger people are talking about in that sense.

The remedy? The sooner we begin entrusting younger generations to take the reins of authority, the sooner we all grow healthier.

Even if those younger generations want to do things differently we need to do our best to allow them to make their own mark on society. It will be their world soon enough and they ought to have a hand in shaping what things look like.

Future Leaders?

We need to remember what it was like when we were young. We may not have distrusted institutions to the extent Gen Z does but we still had different perceptions and beliefs than the generations that came before us.

Let your young employees and our future leaders know that you see issues of equity too. Show them that you will do what you can to bring change to your workplace. Be open to their suggestions and above all listen.

What’s the Point

The steps to connect with our young teammates are the same as employees of any age. As leaders, we connect through trust, care, and compassion. This is still a universally positive approach to leadership.

Remember, just because someone thinks differently doesn’t make them bad. As leaders, we need to figure out how to get the most from every employee regardless of age or any other dimension.

Smart leaders know a diverse workforce is the best way to have a high-performing, innovative, and resilient organization. It needs to be every leader's goal to have as much diversity in their organization as possible. It’s just smart business to do so.

Soichiro Honda, the man who founded Honda, said it best:

“If you hire only those people you understand, the company will never get people better than you are. Always remember that you often find outstanding people among those you don’t particularly like.”

As leaders, we must never be afraid to embrace new ideas, and new ways of looking at things and to acknowledge the world will forever be changing. What didn’t work in the past may work today so to shut out new ideas and perspectives is to ignore opportunity.

Zoomers are not going away. So start by truly connecting with Gen Z more, listen to them, and show them some trust. I will bet that you find that retention improves and many other positive aspects surely follow.