Millennials And Gen Z Have Careers Now!

What does that mean for the workplace?

Millennials and Gen Z are notorious for their digital fluency. They are the first generations who struggle to remember a time without instantaneous communication and access to information. With that kind of digital confidence, Millennials and Gen Z must be bringing a new wave of innovation to the workplace, right?

 

In some ways, yes. Younger generations bring unique strengths into their workplace thanks to their exposure to technology. However, as an early millennial myself, I’ve noted that younger employees’ digital upbringings have also created weaknesses, especially when it comes to working with others who aren’t as digitally savvy.
 
No matter how different their workstyles may be, the workplace at large must prepare for the influx of young people. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than one in three workforce participants is a millennial, born between the years 1981 and 1996. Early Gen Z members, born between 1996 and 2010, are just on the cusp of entering the workforce. Their presence will surely be felt, as there are 61 million of them, according to Bridgeworks Consulting.
 
If workplace leaders want their employees to work productively amongst each other regardless of generational identity, empathy is a requirement.

Younger generations’ weaknesses are more commonly cited than their strengths, but I’ve observed some productive habits that serve a common thread in the younger talent I encounter within the workforce. These are the strengths I believe could use some more attention:
 
Aversion to shadow IT – Shadow IT is the use of tools and infrastructure not approved by the IT team, and it poses a major risk within many organizations. According to Gartner, one-third of cyberattacks will occur through the compromising of shadow IT resources. I’ve observed that millennials and Gen Z are good at avoiding this phenomenon and instead working within their means. They figure out how to learn all the capabilities of the tools in front of them. If they aren’t satisfied with the results, they’re more likely to seek out an affordable solution and bring it to the attention of IT and their own teams in an effort to problem solve department struggles together.
 
Lack of context for the professional world — Young people often come in as blank slates. While many claim that young professionals — especially millennials — start their careers feeling over-entitled, I haven’t seen this to be true. It may be their first or one of their first jobs in the professional world, meaning they have fewer preconceived notions for what a workplace should be. This means they’re easy to mold into an organization’s culture. It can be awkward to have an older employee come in as a new hire and want to implement a list of new mandates based on what worked at other companies. Organizations differ vastly, and it’s important to take time to learn the new culture of each. Yes, new ideas and perspectives are important, but having context for what’s currently custom is also important before making big moves. I’ve noted that Gen Z and millennial workers are more accepting of that idea.
 
However, millennials and Gen Z do live up to some of the stereotypical tendencies in the workplace, especially when working with older teammates. For example:
 
Lack of empathy for slow tech adoption – Younger generations like millennials and Gen Z have essentially created their own language for speaking over chat tools such as Slack and Gchat. They go beyond text when communicating, often turning to media such as GIFs, emojis, video and more instead of using the written word. Gen X and Baby Boomers do not tend to follow suit. Instead, they use chat as a quick convenience tool and respond with short and emotionless messages. When these younger professionals don’t see emotion and enthusiasm reciprocated from their older colleagues, they worry they’ve done something wrong or label that person as grumpy. It’s not second nature for these groups to consider that other workers may not have the same relationship to technology as they do.
 
Impatience for results – Many younger employees will start in a new workplace and quickly become frustrated that they’re not seeing results right away. This is especially true for of younger employees working in bigger enterprise-like workplaces. Even if timelines are presented and supervisors are reassuring of their progress, millennials can be adamant on shattering timelines and surpassing expectations every time, when doing so in the working world isn’t common nor expected with every single project.

Older generations will always struggle to manage the habits of younger generations, but they also hold significant power in molding these young professionals’ weaknesses into strengths. Here are some steps workplace leaders should keep in mind to help younger employees find their way.
 
Get meta with your communication – Leaders would do best to over-communicate about their communication styles. I’ll never forget the time when a former boss of mine had just joined the team and wasted no time in explaining her workstyle. She sat us down, told us about herself and her background and then talked through her communication preferences as a manager, decoding them for the team. Having that context was huge for us in understanding her needs and explaining her ours. This kind of professional background is so often overlooked and not shared to the detriment of a whole team.
 
Forget about hierarchy at the right times – From my experience, older, more senior leaders invest the resources into planning retreats and off-site events for the company or specific teams. However, too often, they then decline to take part in the activities, resorting to hang out with their peers in leadership at the bar or in the back of the room. Older generations of leaders tend to refrain from showing their fun, laid-back side for the sake of their respected image in the office. But I believe that millennial and Gen Z professionals respect their leaders more when they can see them as actual humans rather than just a high-up boss that’s too busy for them.
 
Whether their older counterparts like it or not, millennials and Gen Z are settling into the workplace and bringing their unique generational identifiers with them. Teams will need to work together in order to make progress at work. While their styles will undoubtedly be different than what Baby Boomers and Gen X are used to, empathy, patience and acceptance will help us all embrace our generationally diverse teams.