And You Call Me High Maintenance?
Consider the following: a climate crisis, a pandemic in the middle of the “best years of your lives”, a seemingly endless and pointless war on the other side of the world and a confused labor market just as you’re entering the workforce. You get Gen Z, a new crop of workers, passionate about changing the world, but on their terms. Gen Z is, by far, the most diverse generation in US history in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. In the next 5 years, Gen Z will constitute 27% of the workforce as Boomers quickly exit, and they are not satisfied with the status quo. As a reminder, Zoomers were born between 1997 and 2012, the oldest being around 26 today.
If you recall, in 2019-2020, just as the oldest Zoomers were graduating from college, the job market was hot. Unemployment was at a historically low 3.5%, not due to any Great Resignation, but because the economy was actually great. Opportunities for the qualified and motivated were plentiful, salaries were high and many came with attractive stock options and other benefits. Zoomers were being courted as rock stars and they knew the power they held. As a result, they were categorized as entitled, needy, overly demanding and “sensitive snowflakes” with zero job loyalty. They could never be expected to work outside of normal job hours, since they’ve drawn clear boundaries between work and home lives. This is why some Millennial managers think of Gen Z as being high maintenance.
Right or wrong, Gen Z simply demands more out of their employers and more specifically, their managers to customize their work experience, tailoring it to the individual. Generic, one-size fits all managerial styles doesn’t typically work with the motivated Zoomer and he/she actually wants some input toward the direction of their career and work environment. This, of course, isn’t always possible, practical or reasonable, and the last thing you want to do is pander to the Zoomer because they will see through the façade and resent it. There has to be a delicate balance between giving them a voice, being heard within reason and the actual action that can be taken.
I know Zoomers who within months of taking a new job in a new company, start to make demands around promotions, stock options, raises or even transfers to other departments in the company. The coffee isn’t even warm yet. In my day, I was terrified to walk past my 2nd level manager in the hall, let alone have to say anything to him, but Zoomers are undaunted, fearless and aren’t afraid to ask for what they want. Maybe I would have benefited from having more courage at an earlier stage in my career, but it simply wasn’t done in the late 80’s. Whether we liked it or not, hierarchy existed and respect, earned or not, due to title, existed. When I was passed over a promotion at HP, I was told, “Just do your job and it will eventually happen”. As pissed off as I was, and as much as I didn’t understand it, I took it. Today, if a Zoomer heard that, they would simply quit.
So how do you connect with Gen Z effectively, keep their interest, engage them so they feel valued and want to stay on the team? What messaging will resonate with them? I believe Zoomers need to be encouraged to continue to speak their mind and want to contribute toward solving problems, but with the caveat that they do so in a way that their audience will be receptive. Because Zoomers come off with an air of arrogance, they tend to forget who they’re speaking to, or lose sight of who they are trying to persuade. As a manager of a Zoomer, it would be a helpful to remind them that they will likely have more success if they speak in the “leader’s language”. Advise them to listen to how senior leaders talk and present by using the words they use. And for God’s sake, don’t talk to the CEO the way you might talk to your friends on Saturday night. Understand, dude?
Millennials are typically on their devices all day and all night, having “blended” work lives into their home lives. And now, as managers and executives, 24/7/365 connectivity is even worse. Gen Z, however, doesn’t feel the same way about this constant availability and insists on separating work from home. This is a group that works to live, and does not lives to work. Work is definitely an ends to a means. Gen Z, after all, ushered in the era of quiet quitting, which for all intents and purposes, is doing what’s in your job description and nothing more. Don’t be delusional; your company is not your family, as is evident from all the recent tech layoffs this year. Heaven forbid, as a manager, you schedule a meeting outside of the workday, and they should never be expected to read email or Slack outside of business hours.
At the end of the day, as a manager, you should only be concerned with the quality of the final work product, whether it was completed on time and to your satisfaction. If the employee had a problem, did they resolve it in time, did they get help from the right people, did they ask the right questions, etc? If you had questions along the way, it’s probably ok that they responded the next morning as long as the overall deadline and metrics were met. As my dad used to say, “Trust is earned”, so along the way, you might have to give them small projects or intermediate check-ins, but Zoomers tend to be effective self-managers. As long as the priorities and expectations (and consequences) are clearly defined, it’s simply a new way of managing. And I cannot emphasize this enough; make sure you provide feedback, good and bad, along the way. Reinforce the positives, but above all else, make sure you keep a cadence.
Make no mistake about it, the pandemic did this generation a great disservice when it comes to robbing them of their higher education experience. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to go through college, quarter after quarter, sequestered in a dorm room or apartment, unable to get the full socialization experience of classes, sporting events and parties. As such, I believe Gen Z does, in fact, thirst for human contact and wants to work in person. Ideally, they would like hybrid roles, where they could enjoy the camaraderie and teamwork environment, benefitting from problem solving in a social setting, as well as being able to work from home a couple times a week. The key is providing some structure built around trust. If the expectations are clearly set, the work is being done and the deliverables are being met, perhaps there is an opportunity to build a setting that will accommodate the Gen Z work preference. I think the challenge is at what cost? If admittedly, the Zoomer’s work tenure is only 2 years, how much is anyone willing to invest on accommodating this type of schedule? However, if this is the new normal, isn’t it the employer and managers job to figure it out and make the right concessions? Afterall, Gen Z is going to make up the bulk of the work force going forward for at least the next decade. Shared office space, hot desks, alternating work schedules (MWF vs TT) are all parts of trying to accommodate the new world order of how people will work in the future, not just Gen Z.
The rap on Gen Z is that they're all a bunch of job-hoppers with no loyalty, and that’s not entirely off base. The average tenure of a Zoomer in a job in 2 years 3 months, down from just under 3 years for Millennials, and for perspective, nearly 9 years for Boomers. Zoomers are also perfectly content to leave a job without having another one lined up. However, as layoffs at the big tech firms started earlier this year, it is unclear if this trend will continue. Gen Z views staying put in a company to be archaic thinking, an outdated loyalty. Besides, people in their 20’s today are more prone to move around from job to job, state to state, even country to country, because they have fewer commitments and looser ties. Many, for instance, don’t or won’t have a mortgage or a family for a long time.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t address the sensitivity topic. Yes, Zoomers are very in tuned with not only their own feelings, but also the pulse of the overall organization. It is important to validate these feelings and use them to sensitize yourself to your own blind spots. It may be more information than you want, but better to be aware of how the team is feeling than not to know. As a manager, being around Zoomers can raise your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and sensitize you to how the team is doing, reacting to changes, etc. Organizationally, as you move higher up the food chain, it’s important to maintain the pulse of the people, and Zoomers are a great tool for that. In doing so, they will feel valued and appreciated.
