According to a study by Snap Inc, by the year 2030, the number of Gen Z employees who were born roughly between 1995 and 2015 will soon make up 30 percent of the global workforce. This will play a vital role in shaping the workplace for decades to come.
Since there will be more Gen Z entering the workforce in the near future, retaining and attracting these young talents are crucial because they are the future of your company.
Gen Z have particular characteristics and expectations that make them unique.
Gen Z are more motivated and innovative than other cohorts. Since they have experienced living through a pandemic, they have never drawn a distinction between the physical and the digital world. For them, they prefer to be able to experience online and offline working experience seamlessly. They’re leading this shift in consumer behavior with their digital fluency and articulating nothing less than a new paradigm for digital experiences.
Source: Business Wire
This leaves employers with a new challenge: how to attract and retain this younger generation of workers in an increasingly competitive labour market?
Let’s begin by analysing their preferences.
What Do Gen Z Want in Their Workplace?
How to Keep Gen Z Engaged in Your Workplace
1. Promote Work-life Balance
For many employees, particularly the younger ones, the pandemic blurred the line between work and life. Seeing their older counterparts like the millennial generation being burned out at work, this generation is wired to go against the mold of corporate burnout. Valuing their work-life balance, reports have shown that Gen Z would quit their jobs if they don’t get it. Work-life balance refers to the arrangement of an individual’s on-the-job and private time to facilitate health and personal satisfaction without negatively impacting professional success.
Here are some tips to implement work-life balance in your workplace:
Provide Mental Health Days Off
According to Forbes, 82% of working Gen Z preferred companies who allowed them to take a mental health break. This could potentially reduce the Gen Z’s work burnout, therefore boosting work performance. These valuable talents would be more likely to stay in the job if fatigue was reduced.
Minimise Overtime
Overworking can be a key factor that leads to a burnout—a state that badly affects work productivity. Therefore, as an employer, you need to cultivate a culture that values employees’ well-being, for instance, by preventing overtime if possible.
Employers are encouraged to implement the “core hours” system, which is a pre-set window of time that employees are expected to be online and available for work. Outside of these core hours (which is typical 5 hours of the day), employees should feel free to make up the rest of their work at a time that complements their other obligations such as family time, workout, hobby-related activities, doctor’s appointments, etc.
Provide Flexibility by Enabling Hybrid Work
According to the report from Deloitte, Gen Z employees prefer individual tasks over team-based activities, but they value physical connection and prefer independence but not isolation.
Believing that it is possible to maintain professional relationships through online methods, Gen Z are firm believers of remote working. They love to have the flexibility of being able to complete office tasks from the comfort of their own homes, where they can save time on traveling, engaging in hobbies and spending more time with their family members.
Working from home also improves productivity and timeliness as employees are no longer subjected to the uncertainty of traffic or public transportation.
2. Create a Nurturing Work Culture
The Gen Z cohort seeks to find meaning and purpose in their jobs. Workplaces are seen as incubators for these young talents to make a difference and create a meaningful impact for the greater good. However, they may show less engagement in their work if their colleagues are unappreciative towards their work efforts.
Constructive feedback, on the other hand, creates a nurturing work culture which attracts Gen Z talents who value feedback on their progress. The desire to be seen at work is related to their inclinations to seek a sense of purpose while at work.
Here are some ways to create a nurturing work culture:
Show Appreciation for Employees
Seeing how the workplace is often a fertile ground for miscommunication and office politics, words of appreciation are often left unsaid. Gen Z value communication and they feel connected to companies who genuinely listen to them and value their opinions at work. Showing appreciation can improve a sense of belonging for your Gen Z counterparts and your work culture, which is an important element in employee retention.
Highlight Employee Strengths and Achievements
The Gen Z are easily prone to feeling unmotivated at work. It is easy to only focus on the negatives when giving feedback, however, it is also important to encourage the Gen Z employees by highlighting their strengths and achievements. Inculcating a culture of encouragement can boost the overall morale of your company and lead to higher productivity.
3. Allow Gen Z to Explore Learning Opportunities
Give a Monthly or Quarterly Feedback
Feedback is an integral part of the employee experience. The employers’ feedback can guide their career trajectories and ensure they are on the right path.
For instance, you can initiate a monthly or quarterly 1-on-1 session with each of your employees and address questions related to: what they are feeling about their job, setbacks that they are experiencing, and how to improve the workflow in the company.
Provide Mentorship/Training Programmes
Mentorship programs can help to engage Gen Z employees while helping to pass down some of the knowledge senior employees have gained. It can be hard for senior employees to connect with newer employees, hence having these programmes could tighten the bonds within your company, and further enhance your company culture.
Retaining Gen Z employees requires careful measures. As an employer, you need to understand what they want, their characteristics, and how you can help them excel in the workplace.
Looking for help to create an effective employer branding strategy to engage and retain the Gen Z employees? Email us at hello@epic-dialogue.com or visit our social media (Instagram and LinkedIn).
Reach out to us, we’ll be more than happy to help you!
