Step aside Millennials – Gen Z is taking over! Born between 1995 and 2012, this group is 20 million strong and has new perspectives, opportunities, and challenges ahead of them. By understanding Gen Z’s needs, attributes and work style, brands like you can better recruit, retain and groom them to become future leaders of your company.
Here are a few attributes of Gen Z workers you need to know about right now:
They show signs of being more entrepreneurial.
More Gen Zs (17 percent) than Gen Ys (11 percent) want to start their own business and employ others. What makes every new generation better positioned to lead companies is that they have access to more people, resources and information earlier in life by way of the Internet.
When recruiting someone in Gen Z, appeal to their entrepreneurial spirit by creating activities that enables them to focus on new projects directly tied to business success.
They prefer traditional methods of communication.
While most people would think Gen Z would primarily use technology such as Facebook or Snapchat to communicate, the opposite is actually true. The majority of Gen Z respondents say they prefer in-person communications with managers (51 percent), as opposed to emailing (16 percent) or instant messaging (11 percent).
When developing tasks, keep this mind. Integrate more activities that encourage more “face time” for this group (e.g. helping other students with homework, volunteering, passing out snacks in the library, etc).
They want you to take them seriously.
Gen Zs know they are young and just starting in their careers, but they also want companies to give them support and a microphone. Gen Z (61 percent) has a slightly stronger desire for managers to listen to their ideas and value their opinions over Gen Y (56 percent). They indicate the workplace should be less about age and more about ideas and contributions. Gen Zs want to be in executive meetings and not left out on the sidelines, having to wait years for the chance.
More tech dependent.
Millennials embraced technology but Generation Z will be the true digital natives since they ONLY know a world with touch-screens, social media, and apps. Generation Z has developed a much higher instinctual relationship with technology. When developing new tasks for your student brand ambassadors, be sure to encourage use of tech and apps in tandem with their activities.
Gen Z is a unique generation, but with a little extra effort, these entrepreneurial minds could do big things for your brand!
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