An Employer's Guide to Gen Z (Generation Z) Recruitment

Written by The Payroll Company | May 17, 2022 6:50:00 PM

Generation Z employees are entering the workforce at increased rates. Consequently, it’s important to understand this generation, their values, and their skills in order to effectively recruit them for eligible positions with your business. Generation Z is following in the footsteps of millennials, and overall, businesses have done well retaining and attracting millennial employees, but what about Gen Z?

Why is Understanding Gen Z Important?

Gen Z represents some 67 million people, born between 1997 and 2012. They represent the newest employees entering the workforce. Therefore, understanding what makes this group tick is imperative as they are the future and the present of today’s workforce.

What Does Gen Z Value as Employees?

While the Millennial generation boasts of being the first globally-minded generation, Gen Z is even more so part of the global community. Consequently, they expect diversity and value interacting with others of different races, sexual orientations, and genders. If a business doesn’t embrace enough inclusive values, Gen Z employees are likely to consider them outdated or narrow-minded.

Gen Z is also image-oriented, and they love social media. While Facebook holds the title of being the most popular such site worldwide, Gen Z actually prefers Instagram and TikTok, to name a few. They love learning new skills and principles from platforms like YouTube. They also enjoy Snapchat, meaning they tend to like snappy, pictorial content over more traditional offerings.

“Zoomers'' are also digital natives, never living in a world without the internet or smartphones, for the most part. In fact, more than 90% of this generation boasts some form of digital footprint. However, despite their obvious comfort with digital interaction and interfaces, Gen Z likes face-to-face interaction. They actually are more old-fashioned than even millennials in this way. They prefer face-to-face conversation, interaction, and evaluations in the workplace, at least to some extent.

What Can Your Business Do to Attract Gen Z Employees?

The following are some actionable ways you can make your place of employment more attractive to Gen Z employees:

Allow Flexibility: This trend is not going away post-Covid. Flexible work hours are just not preferred; they are expected by Gen Z. This generation wants to be able to work anywhere and everywhere from Starbucks to their home.
Promote Peer Coaching: Instead of a more traditional supervisor or manager-to-worker relationships for professional growth, Gen Z prefers peer-to-peer encouragement and mentoring.
Create a Team Environment: Teamwork is very important to Gen Z. They want to feel they are part of something, and not isolated on their own.
Ensure Diversity: As mentioned above, diversity and inclusion are especially important to this generation. Not only do they want to see others accepted within their working environment, but they won’t want to be forced to be robotic copies either. They want to feel comfortable in their workplace and be able to be an individual, not a number.
Promote a Healthy Work/Life Balance: Today’s companies are wise to understand and promote a healthy work-life balance. Work should never be more important than a person’s family or health. This healthy balance can be a deal-breaker for the Gen Z employee.

Attract a Diverse Range of Applicants by Outsourcing Your HR Management

There are plenty of steps employers can take to educate themselves and adjust their business or organization, making it more attractive to younger applicants. However, this can be difficult to navigate alone, not to mention the actual recruitment process can be time-consuming on an administrative level. That is why it is key to consider outsourcing your HR to ensure you remain competitive with today’s young employees. Reach out to our team today to start a conversation, or visit our TPC Vision guide below to learn more about what we have to offer in the area of recruitment services.

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