What Generation Z Want from Work
Generation Z is the age group born between the late 1990s and the mid-2010s and is the predominant group that will be entering the workplace for the first time throughout the next decade. As this is the case, potential employers need to understand what their hopes and aspirations concerning the world of work look like.
It is essential that employers realise that the young people coming through the education system and into work have some very firm opinions about many aspects of modern life and culture, and these extend into the workplace. Many companies may need to undergo quite a radical cultural change if they wish to tap into this stream of new talent that will form the backbone of the workforce in years to come.
Hybrid, Flexible or Remote Working
There have been studies conducted into what Generation Z values most in the workplace, and one of the most significant desires is to have access to hybrid, flexible or remote working. These options all have their own attractions and downsides, and we look at a few of these below.
Hybrid Working
Hybrid working is increasingly seen as the “safe” middle ground for employers who don’t feel that their employees would accept a full return to the office at the moment. The pandemic has given so many workers a taste of freedom from the office cube farms that they reject full-scale returns to the office when given the option of which they prefer. In surveys, an option of “hybrid working” usually comes in a poor second place at around a third of the vote to “working fully remotely” on roughly 60%, with “return to the office” rarely managing to hit double figures.
Many managers hope that by embracing hybrid, they can slowly erode the number of days that hybrid is used per week until they have everyone back in the office full-time. This is the “slow boil” or “stealth” approach to removing flexible work from employees, and many are suspicious that this is what is happening in their own workplace.
Having said that, when there are genuine attempts to embrace hybrid working, it is seen to be doing well. Employee productivity is up, and sickness absence levels are much reduced. This is thought to be mainly because staff are happier and are therefore not struggling as severely with mental health conditions, and also that they are no longer calling in “sick” so that they have the time to run real-life errands that they just don’t have the time for because of their standard office working patterns.
Flexible Working
Hybrid working is one way of doing flexible work, but there are also others, such as asynchronous working. This is where the employee works remotely and is on an entirely different set of working hours from other employees. This can be because they are based in a different time zone, which is only possible with a fully remote option, or because those are the hours they prefer to work.
Many people struggle with a “normal” 9 am - 5 pm set of hours and may prefer to work 11 am - 7 pm instead as this simply suits their body chemistry and sleep patterns better. Flexible working can be about optimising how employees work to get the best results for both them and the company in question.
Many people who are Generation Z are a lot more open than previous generations about things like neurodiversity and autism than those before them, and they are keen to have flexible solutions that take into account their needs.
Flexibility doesn’t just extend to remote working, and it can mean that when they work from the office, they may need to use headphones or listen to music in order to get their work done as they can’t adequately focus otherwise.
This is something that is very common with ADHD, and many who have it say that it is like the music distracts one part of their brain so the rest can concentrate on the work they need to do, thereby increasing their capacity to focus and their output.
Remote Working
This is the number one thing that Generation Z wants from work. They want the freedom to work completely remotely and be judged on the results they produce, not where they are working from. If they can produce better results from a villa in Thailand than they can in the company’s office, why should they be tethered to the office for the foreseeable future?
Particularly following the pandemic, there has been an upsurge in the number of young people who want to be able to travel to different places and work remotely from them without feeling like they are sacrificing their prospects of promotion and career advancement.
When around two-thirds of the new workers for the next decade set their hearts on something, it will take a lot to prevent it from happening, so following the “great resignation” of 2021/2022, which saw 5% of the UK population move on from the jobs that they had previously been in, will we be looking at the “great exodus” of 2023/2024?
Will Generation Z manage to convince their employers that they should be allowed the kind of leeway that would allow them to participate in something like the “remote year” programme, where groups of remote workers spend a month in a different city all around the globe for each of the twelve months that make up an entire year? It sounds like it would be a fantastic experience, and as long as the work is getting done, should employers really care? Should they be looking at how to facilitate this for their Generation Z cohort coming through? It is always a good idea to do what you can to make your company attractive to the younger generation of talent. Since Generation Z largely makes up that talent pool for around another decade, it would make sense to ensure that they are happy.
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