Just when companies started understanding millennials and their mindset towards work and career, the new generation – Generation Z has begun entering the workforce. Born between 1995 and 2010, they have distinct characteristics that distinguish them from their predecessors. If your company has begun hiring Gen Zers, it’s important to understand them in order to keep them satisfied and retain them.
Here’s What Drives Gen Z in the Workplace
This section of your workforce is more oriented towards business management, education and development, according to data collated by Vision Critical Communications. The data also showed that Gen Zers are technology savants, have amazing online research skills and have a deep love for innovation. They are the “always on” generation.
While Gen Y possesses in-depth knowledge of niche domains and are largely independent workers, Gen Zers love to collaborate. They are conscious of their people management skills and take initiatives to improve in this area.
While Gen Zers being a great deal of skill and commitment to the table, they expect their employers to have an open culture. They speak their minds with confidence and expect the senior management to be upfront. In fact, Gen Zers have a much more positive attitude towards authority figures and the senior management team than either Gen X or Gen Y. But this can soon be damaged if employers do not promote a culture of openness and transparency.
No Paperwork Please!
If you’re hiring Gen Zers, be prepared to support them with advanced technology. Remember that these are people who were born when the world had started adopting digital technology. When these folks were teenagers, the social media hype was already on and Facebook was fast approaching 1 billion monthly active users.
Not just that, Gen Zers witnessed the multi-year surge in smartphone sales and wondered how primitively Gen Y (the millennials) and Gen X lived without these gadgets. According to a report by Harvard Business Review, while Gen Y and X took “cigarette breaks” to relax for a few minutes during their hectic work schedules, Gen Z would take “social media breaks” and this would be on their smartphones!
Gen Zers are the true “digital native” folks… kids who have grown up using digital technology, including the Internet, laptops and smart devices. So, if you wish to keep these folks happy at the workplace, consider a technology upgrade of your processes.
Project Management
Adopting powerful technology goes a long way in retaining Gen Zers. For instance, new companies are lining up to automate the interview process to the onboarding process. A team management solution like Asana or Teamwork have picked mass attention to boost collaboration and productivity. They are very easy to use and have features like file storage, task assignment and project notifications without using emails. They offer time estimation, time tracking and report generation as well as collaboration tools like Chat.
Visitor & Meeting management
Similarly, another tool that has picked interest is in the visitor/ meeting management space. These tasks are lined by many mundane activities like mailing/ coordinating over phone, dealing with receptionists/ office admins etc. This new cohort hates every bit of this time wastage. They are used to the on-demand one tap solutions and expect just the same. The Veris visitor management software is a highly innovative solution that saves a huge amount of time for the team. It enables the employees to invite guests without the hassle of coordinating with them and then with the receptionist. Employees can simply pre-register their guests with a few taps on the Veris visitor registration app. This sends every guest an automatic SMS-based invite along with GPS coordinates to the office. When they arrive, the employee gets a notification on his/her phone.
The Veris visitor management solution can also be used for storing the digital IDs of your employees, doing away with employee cards. Let’s say there’s a large event at your company. The Veris terminals can be used as employee registration counters, where employees can enjoy paperless check-ins by simply flashing their smartphones.
Internal Communications & Team Interaction
Another app gaining traction in the same space is Pingboard. It is being used to promote the spirit of openness. It helps eam members discover more about each other. It allows one to browse by office location and department and filter by skills and interests. Also, groups can be created to boost interaction.
These were just a few established names in few of the mentioned domains. When one starts going deep, the industry is sprawling with apps and platforms that target this very psyche. While adopting such technology can help build your company’s brand image and make you a favourite in this cohort, one needs to be extremely careful on the barriers of technology adoption and customisability of the software one chooses.
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