The challenge of engaging Gen Z

A recent survey by the Manpower Group has revealed that 45% of UK managers intend to hire Gen Z employees over the summer but that 96% of them reported challenges when engaging workers with less than ten years in work.

To stay competitive, companies need the diverse, innovative talent that Gen Z brings but understanding and meeting their unique characteristics and expectations can be problematical. Younger workers place a high value on work/life balance and flexible working opportunities which may be difficult for organisations with more rigid work structure to meet. They are drawn to dynamic and inclusive workplace cultures that align with their own values and aspirations and expect employers to offer the latest technology and tools. However, there are also some factors that have specifically shaped Gen Z’s attitudes to work.

Gen Z witnessed the burnout suffered by many millennials and this has prompted many of them to prioritise work-life balance and higher salaries over long-term career promises. The disruption brought by the Covid-19 pandemic influenced this further when the opportunities of remote work and flexible schedules reinforced the importance of employee wellbeing. Additionally, Gen Z is entrepreneurial, confident, and tech-savvy, making them able to take advantage of online business ventures and far less tolerant of jobs and organisations that don’t meet their expectations.

So, although engaging Gen Z may be difficult, there are some steps you can take to make a job and organisation more appealing:

• Flexible Work Arrangements: Offer flexible work hours and remote work options that offer them a better work-life balance.

• Professional Development: Provide clear career paths and continuous learning opportunities to meet their expectations for growth and development.

• Adopt Latest Technology: Ensure the workplace is equipped with modern technology to attract tech-savvy candidates.

• Promote Job Stability: Communicate openly about job security and company stability to alleviate concerns about economic uncertainty.

• Demonstrate Corporate Values: Showcase genuine commitment to corporate social responsibility and ethical practices.

• Competitive Compensation: Offer competitive salaries and benefits, including non-traditional perks that cater to their overall well-being.

• Engage with Authenticity: Foster an authentic employer brand that resonates with their values and expectations.

• Streamlined Recruitment: Optimize the recruitment process for efficiency and transparency, leveraging digital tools to enhance the candidate experience.

The current job market is highly competitive, so employers need to understand and cater to Gen Z’s unique needs and preferences. By aligning company values, educating on benefits, and investing in employee development, organisations can attract, hire, and retain top Gen Z talent.

Adjacent skills. The answer to the skills gap?

With a widening of the skills gap and the on-going talent shortage, organisations are having to adapt their recruitment processes. The days of having people fit into strict job descriptions are long gone, now it’s about finding applicants with adjacent skills or upskilling existing employees who are capable of taking on in-demand roles.

Adjacent skills are skills that are closely related and complement each other through shared similarities. These skills are often used together in various tasks and jobs, and having proficiency in one skill can enhance the development and mastery of another. There are several reasons why an adjacent skills strategy can be effective:

• It can fill a skills gap. By recruiting and developing people with skills just outside what’s required, you can close the gap.

• It’s a cost-effective way to build skills. Training existing employees is generally more affordable than recruiting externally.

• It can help with succession planning. Identifying high-potential employees who can develop the required skills means you can start preparing them for future roles.

There will of course be times when using adjacent skills just won’t work but inflation, the great resignation, quiet quitting and a possible recession means organisations need to stay flexible to ensure that they have access to the necessary talent when its needed. To achieve this, leaders need to connect their people and their adjacent skills with the organisation’s ever-changing needs in a strategic way through well-targeted reskilling and upskilling programmes.

The five rules of failure

Andrew Thorp King is an executive fintech banker, spy novelist, speaker, punk rocker, podcaster, ex-bodybuilder, cigar lover, and serial entrepreneur. He founded two independent record labels, Thorp Records and Sailor’s Grave Records, and has invested in many spaces, including online lending, fitness, lead generation, and independent music.

He is also a serial failure. Many people see failure as a single cataclysmic event but the definition of failure is a lack of success. It doesn't meet you’re finished forever it just means that whatever you've done hasn't been successful. There is a lot of drama about failure but it's really the best chance we have in our lives to learn.

Andrew thinks that failure sucks but that after that it rules. It’s something we want to void but if its unavoidable and part of the parcel of doing something that is difficult you need to predmeditively think about how you handle, leverage and optimise failure when it occurs. In his book Andrew outlines his five failure rules.

1. When failure happens it can purify and in that empty space its burns off something that needed to die, an old way of thinking, being or doing. The phoenix can emerge. Handled correctly you can become an objective observer of the failure and then take the experiences and gain from it – you’re not just resilient but more than resilient.

2. Nothing is safe. The impediment to living a bold courageous life in line with our true calling is clinging to safety. This doesn't mean taking unnecessary risks but placing safety first means it is probably something that will inhibit you from doing what you should be doing.

3. Money is spiritual. Used properly money is a tool. If you avoid greed and envy it can be a measurement of your usefulness in the world and also how you measure your thankfulness to others.

4. Build thing 1 and thing 2 dependency. This is the scaffolding, stable structure or platform that enables you to get where you want to be. You can’t just go head on with your dreams, you need structure to get there.

5. You are not your failure. You need to remove failure from yourself as failure is often something we cannot control.

Failure and success can be defined in many ways. We are all constantly evolving and failure is part of the journey. People often don't even know what success looks like for them because it is different for everyone. There is more than one indicator of success and Andrew defines success as finding a way to join yourself with your calling, by identifying and using your talents to their highest impact not necessarily monetary.

Many people feel a unique calling means you need to be an entrepreneur but that's not necessarily the case. Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur and we need to understand our success to know our limitations. The challenge is the comparative aspect.

You can find out more about Andrew at https://www.andrewthorpking.com/

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