Understanding and engaging Gen Z employees

Do you have a young workforce?

How much attention – if any – do you give to communicating with different generations inside your organisation?

If you want to understand how to communicate with people who were born between 1996 and 2010 (Gen Z), you’re in the right place.

Today we welcome Rebecca Roberts, Founder of Thread & Fable to the All Things IC blog. Rebecca is a student of Socially Mobile, a not-for-profit PR school.

Rachel recently delivered the alumni lecture for Socially Mobile, to share her career story and mark 25 years in the industry. Socially Mobile is a not-for-profit PR school equipping the workforce of today for the challenges of tomorrow.

Rebecca is a marketing and communications consultant, specialising in youth audiences and she’s here to share her thoughts on generational communication.

We’ll hand you over…

Headshot of Rebecca Roberts to promote the blog article Understanding and engaging Gen Z employees

Young workforce? Call in the Gen Z whisperers

In a bid to better understand their younger workforce, corporations are fuelling a wave of new consultants who aim to dispel some of the stereotypes about their generation at work.

The teens and twentysomethings (born between 1996 and 2010) are helping boomer bosses feel in the know about Gen Z culture and on a more practical level, informing policies and internal engagement strategies.

Gen Z at work

If Millennials were labelled snowflakes then the Gen Z generation are labelled “snowflakes on steroids” according to the many articles, surveys and stereotypes you’ll find about them being disloyal, sensitive and/or lazy.

One survey this year suggested over 30% of hiring managers try and steer clear of Gen Z in favour of older workers and nearly all respondents (94%) reported a Gen Z candidate acting inappropriately during an interview.

Another said three in four managers find Gen Z more difficult to work with than other generations, for reasons such as lack of technological skills, effort, and motivation, with ‘being too easily offended’ as a top reason Gen Z workers lose their job.

But you’ll also find insights on a young workforce who are evolving their careers in a post-pandemic era, living with high levels of student debt and starting out in a challenging economic climate.

A report from Deloitte found Gen Zs admire people with good work-life balance over other traits and status symbols, with another report finding almost half would leave a job for one that better supported their well-being.

As well as perhaps wanting better work-life boundaries, Gen Z aren’t afraid to call out toxic workplace cultures online. #Quittok has over 50m views on TikTok and shows young people quitting en masse from their toxic workplace. An interesting piece from the Financial Times about why young workers are refusing to leave their job quietly in a bit for workplace transparency.

According to McKinsey & Company, over half of Gen Zs at work say they have two or more unmet social needs (like income, employment, education, food, housing, transportation, social support, and safety) compared to 16% of older generations.

If you’re still not posting salary details, a heads up that 65% of Gen Zs say salary transparency is their greatest motivator when applying for a position.

The Gen Z whisperers

The concept emerged in the USA a couple of years ago following projects set up by two PR firms; Berns Communications Group’s Z Suite of 35 students and influencers, and Edelman’s Gen Z Lab, featuring 250 of its employees, drawn from seven countries, mostly the US.

The idea has landed in the UK, with a host of youth agencies working ever closer with businesses wanting to better attract and engage talent as well as retain it.

Jenk Oz set up a website at the age of 12 and now, at 19 has his own company, Thred Media, who work with Google, Ford and Coca-Cola. You can find a number of research reports from them.

Apprentivia, set up by Holly Hobbs who is 21, helps companies attract apprentices through marketing on TikTok and other platforms, with video campaigns and helping applicants through the process.

The focus of content is on what Gen Z are most interested in; health, wealth and relationships. They also recognise the big impact that employee advocacy can have on younger workers’ decision-making.

Fairy Job Mother, set up by Shoshanna Davis in lockdown, started off with advice to young people but now includes advising employers including M&S, BT, Amazon and Lidl. Davis and Hobbs have also teamed up to launch a podcast, Future Talent Talks.

Then there’s the likes of TapIn Media, set up in 2019 by Milimo Banji while studying for an Aerospace Engineering degree, to tackle the gap between students he was with and the companies they wanted to work for. They’ve worked with employers to develop targeted social media strategies, diversity and inclusion research and released the This is Black Gen Z report in recent years, helping to guide their partners to make meaningful change in their organisations.

But is this scalable for all organisations?

In short – yes! There are lots of ways organisations of all sizes can look to better understand, listen and work with and for youth audiences and for internal communications, there’s lots to consider.

  1. Youth Insight: whether you have budget to commission insight or not, a good starting place is to look at a breadth of youth insight available to get a sense of some of the trends, issues and expectations of the Gen Z generation. Definitely more than one paper (see previous ‘Gen Z at work’ point about a need for balance!). And, if you’re able to, do specific insight on your current workforce, local area or target recruits to focus down on some of the insights that could inform your approach to your specific Gen Z niche.
  2. Youth workforce feedback: what opportunities are in place, or could you create for your existing young workforce? Staff surveys, youth panels, a role on the board? There can be nervousness around giving senior or decision-making opportunities to more junior members of staff… but the question is, what is the benefit of having them in the room when you’re making decisions? Also, ways to listen to younger demographics through the recruitment process (who don’t complete, who reject offers, exit interviews etc).
  3. Internal to external: increasingly we’re seeing employer brand strategies that are bringing internal corporate life to external channels. How can your younger workforce help align this, become ambassadors, and help align those expectations of transparency, as well as give a real flavour of what they feel the work life is like?
  4. Amplify their voice: You’ll have seen the explosion of the ‘if Gen Z wrote our marketing script’ trend with fun poked at the slang and format of social media culture applied to a whole range of organisations (I wrote about that here). It raises a good point around what audience you’re wanting to engage with and how you might be listening to, working with and amplifying the voice of if you’re hoping to engage them. Are there internal briefings, events and communications, which young workers could have opportunities at?
  5. Diversity, inclusion and representation: you may not be attracting or retaining young talent, or you may be lacking in attracting young talent from particular backgrounds, experiences or locations. If you already have DEI processes and/or groups in place, consider including age groups within that to embed better engaging, supporting and progressing youth talent.

So, whether your youth engagement slays or whether you’re struggling with how demure it really is, Gen Z are flooding into the workforce at pace. You may not need a team of Gen Z whisperers, but making steps to better understand, listen to and communicate with your young workforce (current or prospective) will only help you in the long run.

Thank you Rebecca.

You can connect with Rebecca on LinkedIn, X @rebecca7roberts and the Thread & Fable website.

About the author

Rebecca Roberts founded Thread & Fable in 2017, having worked in-house in professional and Olympic & Paralympic sport and higher education for over a decade. Thread & Fable has delivered campaigns across the sports, education, public and charity sectors including numerous universities and colleges, Youth Sport Trust, Plan International UK, NHS Scotland and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. She hosts the Hear It Podcast with guests talking about how to better engage young people and as well as Engaging Youth Reports, published her first piece of research for the CIPR on Gen Z news media habits.

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