Over the past 10 years, executives and managers alike have been trying to figure out what exactly it is that millennials want. More free snacks? Kombucha on tap? Sure, it helps, but unfortunately, the answer isn’t that simple.
A recent study from the Center for Generation Kinetics found the five top drivers of millennial employees. At the top of the list was the need to “feel valued at their organizations and invested in their communities.”
As the largest generation in the workforce, employers have understandably focused a lot of their time and effort on pleasing millennials and influencing those drivers. However, they still face issues with loyalty, as millennials will jump from job to job to find what they want and get a quick raise.
Just as employers might feel they’re catching-up to millennials, the rise of “Gen Z” (also known as Post-Millennials and the iGeneration) could throw a wrench in any progress we’ve made.
“Millennials on steroids”
While workplaces are only just coming to terms with what millennials want, it turns out GenZ may be even more challenging to please. In a discussion with Business Insider, Marcie Merriman, executive director of growth strategy and retail innovation at Ernst & Young, said that Gen Z are “millennials on steroids.”
As Gen Z enters the workforce, we’ll have to adapt more than ever to their wants and desires. A study from Adecco revealed that opportunity for growth, fulfilling work, and stability all rank the highest with regards to what Gen Z employees want from their first job. Surprisingly, the importance of salary is relatively low (even in comparison to millennials)!
“Empowered by technology”
When it comes to their day-to-day tasks in the workplace, Gen Z employees will have even less patience for outdated, clunky technology than their millennial counterparts. While cutting-edge technology may not be explicitly at the top of their lists for what they want – feeling efficient in their jobs and empowered by the technology they use to get work done will fuel those “softer” needs like feeing valued by their organizations.
For Gen Z, their relationship with technology is even more seamless than millennials. In their personal lives, Gen Zers have embraced with fervor the newest forms of technology and social media – opting for messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram over traditional texts and for social apps like SnapChat and Instagram over the previously popular Facebook. As we saw with Pokémon Go, alternate reality and virtual reality aren’t far behind, either.
“Just figure it out”
As we bring Gen Z workers who are used to this kind of control over the technology in their lives into the workplace, introducing them to legacy enterprise applications can be a shock to their systems. Rather than being “pushed” the information they need – like they experience on social media platforms – we now expect these young workers to go out and hunt down the information they need in hard-to-use systems, a process they’ll likely find frustrating and a waste of time. And, asking them to “just figure it out”, like we have done in the past, won’t work as they have no loyalty to their company.
The funny thing is that we’ve been so willing to shape practices to young workers’ needs in other ways – unlimited vacation, flexible work schedules, the aforementioned snacks – why has technology lagged so far behind? It’s up to us to create enterprise systems that are efficient, easy-to-use, and engaging – this is how we will keep their attention and help them thrive.
One way to do this is through “micro apps” – something I’ve written about a lot before. Micro apps are single-purpose apps that follow users wherever they go – whether that’s on their mobile device or computer, email or browser, or through a messaging app like Slack, Facebook Workplace, Microsoft Teams, or IBM Watson Workspace. Micro apps, and other front-end solutions like them, allow organizations to avoid ripping-and-replacing entire systems and instead, build on top of these systems to enhance how we interact with them.
While modernizing technology to be more in line with how Gen Z operates in the workplace is a cornerstone of preparing for their arrival, our work shouldn’t stop there.
These young workers have higher expectations than ever for the way they are treated, praised, and criticized and entire segments of our business will change as a result. Installing a kombucha tap may be a great attempt to keep those young employees loyal, but, one way or another, efficient and easy-to-use enterprise technology will have to follow shortly thereafter.