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Generation Z, also known as Gen Z, are entering the workforce. Are you prepared?
With the eldest Gen Z-ers being born around 1996 or 1997 (depending on the definition), and therefore starting to graduate or complete apprenticeships, chances are you may have already hired or be looking to hire this generation into your teams. Certainly, they’ll be entering the workforce imminently, so how can you ensure you’re attracting and retaining the right Gen Z talent? Take a look at our tips!
1. Create meaningful perks
Free fruit and beer on tap might be a generous perk for employers to provide, but it isn’t a top priority for this new generation. In fact, areas like professional development are much more important, upward mobility and a strong sense of community are much more meaningful. In fact, according to Ripplematch 69% cited professional development as priority #1.1 Therefore it’s important that employers are able to help their new hires truly develop in their roles and even optimise a career path to assist their employee experience. By enhancing a strong culture in the workplace too, Gen Z with feel much more valued and therefore likely to stay in their role.
Work/life balance is also a key benefit that Gen Z, and Millenials, are keen on. Remote working, or hybrid working, is a popular long-term perk that many companies are now considering. Gallup report (via Forbes), employees across various industries who spent 60-80% of their time working remotely had the highest rates of engagement and productivity.
2. Mentor, don’t micromanage
79% of the current workforce believe they have been micromanaged at some point in their careers2 so it’s important to identify if your managers are likely to behave in this way with your new starter. Generation Z are known to enjoy independence and have an exceptional entrepreneurial spirit, meaning they also have a yearning for knowledge3 which is actually an excellent opportunity for you. By creating goals and key results for your staff to work towards you can nurture their independence whilst ensuring their work is helping you achieve your company goals “Help them work toward long-term goals through well-defined markers, but don’t take away the opportunity for creativity,” Steve Roberson from Glassdoor states. “Done well, setting goals in advance can turn goal progression into a game, allowing this generation to “level up” and achieve amazing things.”4
3. Update Your Hiring Process
Using social media platforms to advertise your brand has been a marketing staple for the last few years. This ability to enhance your branding and broadcast to a wide-reaching audience has brought with it an opportunity to reach a larger talent pool also. Promoting any new openings on social media can be an ideal “in” to Generation Z, despite their different usage of the medium and preference for newer platforms such as Snapchat and Tick Tock, they are still widely present on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.5 They are also joining LinkedIn at an increasing rate6 and with an integration now being available for applicant tracking systems (ATS) from LinkedIn to your HR software, this process is now easier than ever.
4. Optimise Your Onboarding
First impressions count! Once you’ve hired your ideal candidate from this new pool, making sure you retain them for the long-term is critical. Did you know that pre-boarding (starting the onboarding process before day 1) is now being used by over half of the world’s best-in-class companies? Using an online onboarding portal, linked to your HRMS, can certainly enable this process to be made easier for you, providing consistency for your employees and managers, and easy access to information for your new starter.
We’ve outlined some top onboarding tips in a previous blog and also summarised them in this infographic.
5. Innovate Your HR
Forward-thinking and innovative companies are most definitely appealing to Gen Z. They are the first true digital natives, with expectations from automation of processes and cloud software to extend into their professional lives too7
Ensuring you have an HRMS to enhance their employee journey from hiring and pre-boarding, to performance and development, as well as supporting hybrid working with staff location recording, can help attract and retain Gen Z. Find out how Appogee HR Success can help enhance your HR offering with our 14 day free trial.
Sources:
2 https://www.honestly.com/blog/how-to-deal-micromanager-part1
3 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/337789
5 https://fullscreen.com/2017/05/23/fullscreen-original-research-results/
6 https://www.inc.com/john-white/how-generation-z-is-finally-making-linkedin-younger.html
