By: Alexandra Martinez, Follow South Jersey Intern
SOUTH JERSEY – As college graduates prepare to enter into their careers, the workforce simultaneously prepares itself for changes that these aspiring professionals may bring with them.
In 2024, an estimated 4 million college graduates in the United States alone will be transitioning into post-grad life, many looking for part-time or full-time work. For most of these graduates, what awaits them are the initial stages of their job-seeking journey, allowing those first few steps into “real life” and setting the tone for their upcoming career.
With Gen Z being the newest and youngest entrants into the workplace, any considerable and consistent changes in workplace dynamics across the nation are likely to be traced back to these groups of employees just by nature. However, some studies are finding that these conclusions are reasonable on both the negative, and positive, ends of the spectrum.
What Exactly Gen Z is Changing in the Workplace?
For generations, the older and younger populations have gone back and forth blaming one another for the current state of the world. Whether it’s economically, politically, environmentally, or having to do with health concerns or the housing market, the list can go on extensively. Within the past handful of years and seemingly ever since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the professional workplace has found itself higher up on that list.
It is common knowledge that professional settings continue to develop and require adaptations by all who embody them, so why is Gen Z specifically taking the hit?
According to the 2022 data from Monitoring the Future surveys of 18-year-olds in the United States, these individuals are less focused on work, less intrinsically motivated to work with 29% saying they wouldn’t work if they were financially able to do so, 44% believing not wanting to work hard will not be a barrier to their desired job, and only 59% of them believing their overall work lives would be fulfilling.
Though sole causation of these results cannot be directly drawn to just the existence and entrance of Gen Z in the job market, the data above reveals that there is a prevalent shift happening that is taking companies for a minor loop. Businesses are now reflecting on how much traditional workplace culture to balance with compensation for younger employees who they claim seem to lack strong work ethics, the necessary communication skills, a functional level of tech savviness, and do not want to be in the office five days a week.
The difference in communication styles preferred by traditional business places, and preferred by Gen Z are close to complete opposite sides of the spectrum. Informal communication methods as opposed to formal, have taken on a stronger preference in the workplace than ever before and employers are well aware who is driving this change. In a study done by Harvard Business Review, it was concluded that two of the most career-hindering factors were weak executive presence and poor communication styles. Though this heightened effect of wanting to be casual and form connections with clients at work seems like a good thing at face value, the repercussions are certainly there.
BBC claims, “Although it’s true, an informal approach in the workplace can help build connections, if employees are perceived as too casual, it can have the opposite effect.” In many cases with Gen Z, this is actually happening. Post-graduates positioned in their first jobs are losing them due to lack of professionalism (in more than just the workplace) and mistakenly misrepresenting the company for which they work. For Gen Z who values self expression and maintaining a real persona at all times, many are confusing professionalism with authenticity, believing that the two cannot coexist. When in reality, it is absolutely necessary to develop the skill of finding that balance, especially while previous generations are still in charge.
Despite these observations made from business leaders and management across the board, younger employees have a tendency to still insist on starting at higher salaries than their predecessors did. It widely seems as though Gen Z is less willing to start at the bottom and work their way to the top like most of their leadership has done. For some, the reasons for this obscure occurrence is chalked down to the fact that it is much more financially arduous to survive at the base rates that some companies begin at.
In today’s economy, many positions that offer higher base salaries than decades previous mean nothing with the climbing costs of basic necessities like housing, groceries, and utilities. In some cases, inflation has even caused salaries to decrease rather than increase, creating a greater issue for survival and a need for strong financial discipline from post-graduates that does not exist for many. In addition, numbers from the Education Data Initiative reveal that 64% of college graduates have some type of student loan debt to repay, indicating Gen Zers eagerness to immediately begin earning higher wages to dig themselves out of an already financial burden.
What Gen Z is Offering?
So, is Gen Z really at fault for all this change? While studies have helped find correlations between Gen-Z and the current disruption of young entrants into the workforce, not all feedback has been complaints and not every avenue of results are directly linked to a Gen Z problem.
Forbes claims Gen Z is expected to be the ones to inspire increasingly healthy workplaces that offer mental health days as part of employee benefits, have a strong sense of employee purpose in society, have a network for “outsized influence,” offer retreats and programs for developing professional performance, and can overall be conducive to a more flexible work environment.
If companies and businesses cannot keep up with this list of non-negotiables, Gen Z has proven they are not afraid to leave a job that leaves them unsatisfied or unhappy, with 59% saying they would do so. The numbers for leaving a position due to professional development issues and providing value complications are close, being at 57% and 53%, respectively.
According to Paychex, Gen Z lacks the financial stability to only have one job, and 93% are working for multiple employers. This may or may not explain the higher willingness to leave a job by Gen Zers when it feels like the wrong fit.
Some business leaders are choosing to have a completely different perspective on the potential of Gen Zers, like Mark Beal of Rutgers University School of Communication and Information in New Jersey, and author of “ZEO: Introducing Gen Z, the New Generation of Leaders.”
Due to its upbringing in an innovative and technologically advanced generation, Gen Z has had the ability to produce entrepreneurs like no other previous generation has. Beal believes that what others think might be a lack of formality and professionalism, is instead an entrepreneurial mindset catered to today’s market that drives engagement and produces brand advocates beyond the company-client relationship. He shares the example of two Gen Zers from New Jersey, Jesse Kay and Alex Sheinman, who recognized the need to support individuals losing their jobs during coronavirus in 2020. What they did was create a digital campaign that raised over $125,000 for nonprofit organizations.
These are the same individuals who are entering the workforce trying to navigate how to blend both the traditional concept of workplace conduct, and modern-day media and relations.
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