Generation Z in the Workplace

Generation Z in the workplace: a definition

Generation Z (الجيل Z), shortened to Gen Z, is a description of the age group born, approximately, between the middle of the 1990s and the early 2010s. In the workplace, the term refers to the people of that age group who are now entering the labour market as new employees.

Two features of that definition shape everything that follows. The first is that its boundaries are approximate. The years at which Generation Z begins and ends are not fixed, and they differ from one source to another, so two writers using the same label may not be describing exactly the same people. The second is that the definition rests on a date of birth and on nothing else. It says when a person was born. It does not say how that person works, what drives them, or how they deal with the people around them.

Why labels such as Generation Z are used at all

Dividing people into generations is a planning tool, not a way of classifying individuals. Its use lies in anticipating what changes in what the labour market brings to an organisation: the tools that new entrants have grown used to, and what they expect from a place of work because of what they have lived through.

Those two things are the substance of the label. The first concerns the tools that people joining the organisation have been accustomed to before they arrive. The second concerns the expectations they bring with them, formed by the period in which they grew up. An organisation that anticipates both can prepare for them in advance rather than meet them for the first time when a new employee raises them.

The label is, however, a description of a general trend, not a judgement on an individual. A trend describes a group taken as a whole. Nothing in it says whether a particular member of that group matches it. And because the age boundaries are approximate and vary from source to source, even the membership of Generation Z is not settled precisely, which is one more reason for not drawing a conclusion about one person from it.

The use that undermines the Generation Z label

The label is undermined when it becomes a template used to explain the behaviour of one particular employee: “this is Generation Z, so…”. At that point a description of a group has been turned into an explanation of a person, and the explanation comes from the year of birth rather than from anything the person has done.

An age group does not tell you what matters at work. Ability, motivation and the way a person deals with others are learned through observation, not from a date of birth. Each of the three can differ between two employees born in the same year, and each shows only in how an employee actually works: in the work they produce, in what keeps them going, and in how they deal with colleagues.

A manager who judges an employee by their date of birth has replaced observation with an assumption, and that can produce worse decisions, not better ones. The assumption is in place before the employee has done anything, so a decision built on it rests on what is assumed about people of an age rather than on what the person in question can do.

Observation rests on evidence about the employee concerned. Replacing it with a label gives up that evidence, and the decision that follows is then made without evidence about the person it affects.

What Generation Z in the workplace shows is worth changing

The sounder course is to address the practices whose weaknesses the new generation exposes, not to tailor a policy to an age group. A policy tailored to an age group would rest on the label itself, applied to everyone born within boundaries that are only approximate. A change to a practice, on the other hand, reaches every employee who meets that practice, whatever their age. The practices concerned are four:

• Clarity of path. The question “where can I get to from here?” is asked early, and a vague answer is taken as the absence of a path. A clear answer is possible only where a path exists and can be described, so what the question puts to the test is the organisation’s description of its paths.
• Close feedback. Waiting for the appraisal at the end of the year seems slow, and it is genuinely slow for employees of every age. Continuous feedback is what addresses that slowness.
• Meaning in the work. It consists of linking each task to its effect, which can benefit any employee, not one group in particular.
• Tools. A slow paper procedure can be noticed quickly by someone accustomed to something else.

In each of the four, the weakness exists before the new generation arrives. A path that cannot be described, feedback that comes once a year, a task cut off from its effect and a slow paper procedure are features of the practice, and they are present whoever happens to meet them. What the new generation changes is how early the weakness is noticed: the question about the path is asked early, and the slow procedure is noticed quickly.

The response in each case is therefore a change to the practice, not a separate arrangement for one group. A clearer path, closer feedback, work linked to its effect and tools that work are improvements that apply to everyone who meets the practice, whether or not they belong to Generation Z.

The same reasoning separates the practice from the employee who points to it. When a new employee asks where their path leads, the question concerns the organisation’s description of its paths, not the age of the person asking. When the same employee finds a paper procedure slow, the finding concerns the procedure. In both cases the information that matters is about the practice, and an explanation drawn from the employee’s generation would set that information aside.

The rule that sums up Generation Z in the workplace

Everything that the new generation is said to ask for (clarity, prompt feedback, meaning, and tools that work) can be wanted by employees of other ages as well, who may not say so.

So the new generation exposes the weakness; it does not create it. That makes addressing the weakness an investment in the whole workplace, not in one part of it.

The difference that the label points to lies in what is said, and not necessarily in what is wanted. An employee who asks early where their path leads, or who notices quickly that a procedure is slow, voices something that colleagues of other ages may leave unspoken. The request is new in being spoken aloud, while the weakness behind it was already there.

The two possible responses therefore reach different people. An organisation that adjusts a policy for one age group answers what was said, and leaves the weakness in place for every other employee who meets it. An organisation that addresses the practice removes the weakness for all of them, including those who never raised it.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.

Related terms

• Ageism
• Career Plateau
• Recency Effect in Appraisal
• Employee Onboarding
• Job Crafting