Gen Z values flexibility, authenticity in workplace, keynote speaker says

A "mysterious" group called Gen Z is arriving at workplaces and many of its members aren't behaving the way new employees have in the past, Roberta Katz, a co-author of a book on Gen Z, told attendees at Pensions & Investments' Future of Work —The Next Generation conference.

These younger workers are making new kinds of demands, such as time off for self-care and, despite being new employees, are questioning how companies do things, according to Ms. Katz, a senior research scholar at Stanford University's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and a co-author of "Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age."

Ms. Katz, who holds both a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and a law degree, was a keynote speaker at the conference, held as part of the 2022 Best Places to Work in Money Management program.

"Are these new employees just rude kids whose parents failed to teach them respect for elders and that they should follow the rules? Are they spoiled? Are they lazy or are they exhibit A that our whole culture is going to the proverbial hell in a handbasket?" Ms. Katz said.

Having studied Gen Z, those born between the mid-1990s and 2010, the speaker said she can attest that its members are "generally none of the above."

They are, however, different from those who grew up prior to the 1990s, and the reason essentially comes down to the Internet, Ms. Katz said. Unlike older generations for whom engaging online represented a change, Gen Z "grew up 100% in an Internet-dominated world from birth," she said.

"In other words, it is their norm," Ms. Katz said. "Perpetual change is also the norm for these young people."

While the rapid pace of change seen over the past 25 years or so involving things like smart phones, online apps, social media, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and electric vehicles may have seemed normal to Gen Zers, it left their parents' and teachers' heads spinning, she said.

Consequently, as their elders struggled to adapt, two things happened with Gen Z, Ms. Katz said.

"First, the kids learned to turn to each other instead of their parents and teachers for advice about how the world works," she said, adding that, as a result, Gen Z became "very peer oriented." And with parents turning to their kids for help with things ranging from turning on the TV to understanding social media, the traditional parent-child relationship model "was being turned upside down," Ms. Katz said.

While such early influences help explain why Gen Zers differ from earlier generations, it's also important to understand how they are different, she said. She cited three Gen Z behaviors that seem most relevant to the workplace: a sense of self-agency and self-reliance; comfort with collaboration; and skepticism regarding hierarchy.

"So, this sense of self-agency is one of the reasons Gen Zers can seem so unwilling to take at face value what their superiors at work tell them," Ms. Katz said. "Their experience as self-directed users of online resources has given them a perceived right – even sometimes a perceived duty – to question what doesn't make sense to them."

For older workers who were taught to do as they were told, such self-confident Gen Z behavior can come off as disrespectful, she said.

"But the young people don't really see it that way," Ms. Katz said.

The research also revealed three of the values most relevant to Gen Z, she said. One involves flexibility, another authenticity and the third involved self-care.

"We heard through our research that being flexible is one of the highest values of Gen Z," Ms. Katz said.

Gen Zers have grown up with constant change and put a premium on being nimble. Whether that entails learning a new skill, moving to a new job or moving to a new place, Gen Zers "expect and want to be ready for change," she said.

"So, what that means for loyalty to the workplace is something that employers now need to think about," she said.

When it comes to authenticity, Gen Zers want to see actions that match words, Ms. Katz said. Gen Zers weren't alive when leaders and institutions seemed more trustworthy and "only know broken trust as the norm," she said, which has left them "always on the lookout for when they can trust someone."

Self-care is also a key Gen Z value, Ms. Katz said.

"As steeped as they are in technology, Gen Zers are actually quite protective of the human side of their lives," she said.

At Stanford, they now see students who, if they feel they can't get a paper done on time, will just tell the professor it's OK to give them a lower grade, Ms. Katz said.

That marks "a huge change from the past when we would see kids pull all-nighters," she said. "They were going to go for the A no matter what."

In business, however, missing a deadline can have bigger ramifications than getting a lower grade and that's something businesses need to help Gen Zers understand, Ms. Katz said. On the other hand, businesses are recognizing that Gen Zers' push for better work-life balance might not be a bad thing for the company overall.

When it comes to dealing with intergenerational differences, advice she'd offer is to look for chances to "engage in mutually respectful communication," Ms. Katz said.

Ms. Katz's address was followed by a panel titled "The Next Generation of Talent: Attracting and Retaining Employees.

Referencing Ms. Katz's remarks, Gina Velliquette, a managing director at Ares Management, said flexibility and collaboration are topics "important to the generation that we're recruiting."

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic hit right around the time when Ares was really embarking on its campus recruiting strategy, she said.

"So being physically on campus was difficult," Ms. Velliquette said, adding that Ares was looking for ways to engage students and energize them about opportunities at a firm like Ares when traditionally students interested in finance might opt for investment banks.

"So, we would host small, intimate sessions, bringing students together from various universities with individuals from our firm to really just talk about what we do," she said. "It seems really simple, but it actually worked quite well."

Another panelist, Cristina Santos, a senior vice president and head of diversity, equity, inclusion and engagement at Capital Group, said something that's worked well there are "very specific rotational programs" that align different parts of the organization to give early career talent an orientation about "what's possible and what a career in asset management is," versus what they might perceive it to be.

"We have a rotational program for sales, we have one for IT, we have one for our investment organization and it's actually a three-year rotation program, and it's intentionally drawing from undergraduate degrees that are very diverse sets, so not the traditional finance background that one would think," she said. "And it's been around actually since 1981. In fact, our current CEO was a graduate of that very program."

Diana Downey, chief marketing officer at Polen Capital, said what her firm is seeing reflects much of what Ms. Katz spoke of regarding the importance of flexibility.

"As someone who has been interviewing candidates for positions in marketing, one of the first things they ask about is … what's the work-life balance like, what's the flexibility like," Ms. Downey said.

Responding to a question about how the pandemic and related shutdowns may have changed the way firms connect with promising candidates, Pamela Sinclair, head of human resources at PGIM, said she believes the speedy and "frictionless" process of the past two years "contributed to the great resignation," an unintended consequence.

That's because one of the hurdles for someone looking to leave one employer for another can be the "hassle" involved in going out for interviews, Ms. Sinclair said. However, employees working from home can easily slot in time, which has made "particularly this generation very, very mobile," Ms. Sinclair said.

"We suddenly realized you can interview on Monday and get a job on Friday never having left your home," she said.