Move over Millennials – Gen Z is Knocking on Our Workplace Doors
Many of you have been there. You mention a cultural reference from your youth and the other person has no clue what you are talking about. This happened with a friend when I mentioned Dana Garvey as, “You know one of the guys from Wayne’s World.” Her look was an immediate indication of my age, and it was my moment of, “Oh yes, this generation is not my generation.”
Even if you are a Millennial in the workplace, your day for this is coming. And it’s coming faster than you think. The next generation enters the full-time workforce in 2020, and people want to know a few things about this group. Here’s what we’ve been sharing with teams as we all wrap our heads around those following us.
When does their generation start? 2001. They are 17 years old and under.
What are they called? There are lots of names out there for this group. The name from a research perspective is Homeland Generation. Named so because their starting year was 2001, a year marked by the fall of the two towers in New York, and the start of the Homeland Security Agency. This group has never gone to the airport with more than 3 ounces of fluid in their carry-ons. They’ve never walked someone to the gate with out a ticket.
In popular marketing and conversation, this generation is known as Gen Z. Gen X, then Gen Y (aka Millennials), then Gen Z.
What do we know about them?
They are:
- About 25% of the overall US population.
- The most diverse generation in the US with under half being Caucasian.
- Raised mostly by Gen X parents, and tend to be more realistic and independent than Millennials.
- They are connected to technology (they think it’s more important to have working wifi than working bathrooms according to generation expert David Stillman), and yet, they also share less personal information about themselves on social media than Millennials.
- They prefer social media platforms that don’t have a lasting record of what they post, like Snapchat, Secret and Whisper.
- They are fiscally conservative and as much as 12% of them are already saving money in IRAs for their retirement.
- Because they are fiscally conservative, many of them see great value in education outside of formal college training to keep from long-term debt.
That’s them in a short, bulleted list. Of course, as with anything that talks about the bell curve of information, there are outliers, and our individual circumstances also contribute to who we are as individuals and employees.
Keeping in mind what makes us unique by generation is helpful as long as we temper it by remembering all generations have a lot in common, like wanting to make the world a better place and having meaningful work. That doesn’t change by generation, even if our cultural references do.
And for those of you who remember, or those of you who don’t know anything about Wayne’s World, here is a great YouTube clip capturing the best of Wayne’s World. Until next week, “Party on!”
