by Kristen Perez
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eel like you just got squared away
learning how to market to and be a
better employer for Generation Y?
Sorry to break it to you, but millennials
are so yesterday. It’s time to shift focus to
Generation Z, the up-and-coming workforce born anywhere from the mid-1990s
to the mid-2000s. This newest cohort of
people—all 20 million of them—may
be close in age to millennials but vastly
differ in their characteristics. According to
Randstad, organizations that understand
and address Gen Z’s preferences will
have a greater advantage in hiring these
individuals that will soon make up the
candidate pool.
Who are they?
2015 Issue 1 |
THE
SCORE
20
Generation Z kids are currently
in grade school and high school. They
will enter the professional workforce by
the end of this decade. As published in
research conducted by Knoll Inc., they
value structure and predictability and
“get” the online world, yet they are also
easily distracted (how can you not be
when you’re dividing your attention
between an average of five screens of
content at once?) and will be challenged
navigating face-to-face relationships.
Whereas Gen Ys are optimistic, Gen
Zs lean more toward
being realistic. They
have an appreciation for
how scary the world can
be, having grown up post
9/11, in the wake of the
Great Recession and amid
countless reports of school
violence. They’ve seen the
effects the economy has taken
on their parents and are more
aware of troubling times. These events
will make them more cautious and
focused on security, but will also inspire
them to improve the world.
While both Generations Y and
Z share personal information online,
social media technologies are the very
epicenter of Gen Z’s social world,
rather than as a supplement to faceto-face relationships. And this reduced
in-person socialization of Generation
Z children due to heavy online interaction, could cause problems with social
interactions and successful conflict
resolution.
However, that
high volume of online
interaction has also
caused them to be
extremely collaborative. A study by
Sparks & Honey
reports that due to
being raised in an
education system
that focused on
mainstreaming
and classroom diversity,
Generation Z is comprised of
team players, where everyone is equal at
winning and losing.
Generation Z at work
Fueled by dreams of self-employment, this generation feels pressured to
gain professional experience at an early
age. While the millennials saw largescale entrepreneurs in their early 20s,
like Facebook® founder Mark Zuckerberg, Generation Z is already boasting
similar success stories from those as
young as middle school students. This
could lead to competition for lowerwage jobs with struggling millennials.
Members of Generation Z have