{"id":15279,"date":"2023-09-26T03:59:33","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T03:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/leadership\/how-to-engage-todays-challenging-young-people-for-business-success\/"},"modified":"2023-09-26T03:59:34","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T03:59:34","slug":"how-to-engage-todays-challenging-young-people-for-business-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysourcefunding.com\/?p=15279","title":{"rendered":"How To Engage Today’s Challenging Young People For Business Success"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We often hear bad news about the youngest generation in the workplace. For example, one survey claims Gen Z is more difficult to work with than previous generations, and another survey has found that as many as 40% of business leaders see Gen Z college graduates as \u201cunprepared for the workplace\u201d\u2014and therefore 94% of that group avoids hiring them. But luckily, there\u2019s an alternate view. According to Dr. Sarah Adler, CEO and founder of Wave and a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford, Gen Z members are \u201cuniquely resilient\u201d and, if you know how to work with them, they can bring many strengths to the workplace.<\/p>\n

Gen Z is \u201cthe misery generation,\u201d Adler notes in a recent conversation, because they\u2019ve seen \u201ca ton of trouble.\u201d Given the pandemic and economic and social conditions, from social media to the epidemic of loneliness, Gen Z has earned its misery. But, as Adler explains, they are \u201calso the first generation who has a taxonomy and a language for emotional health. They\u2019re not fighting against the same kind of stigma in terms of talking about mental health and accessing mental health. They are able to ask for help and resources.\u201d Gen Z\u2019s resilience, self-awareness and willingness to seek what they need actually let organizations benefit from some of the same characteristics leaders often chafe at when managing Gen Z employees.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Hire Them If You Don\u2019t Want To Handle Them<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s always harder to deal with less acculturated employees, but this is particularly true for people \u201cwho care exponentially more about who you are and what you stand for than the millennials, the Boomers and the Gen Xers\u201d do, says Adler. Gen Z candidates yearn for \u201cvery clear expectations and transparency around who we are as an organization,\u201d she notes. \u201cYou need to be assessing for goodness of fit within the organization, and what resources we have as an organization to either shape or present the reality of the situation so they can potentially opt out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ensure congruency between your organization\u2019s culture and the information you present during the interview process. And if your managers don\u2019t have the time, commitment or managerial skills to instill your corporate culture and working habits in new Gen Z hires, it may not make sense to hire them at all.<\/p>\n

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Create New Management Norms<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cMost middle managers are not actually trained to be managers,\u201d says Adler. \u201cThey\u2019re trained to be right\u201d and their \u201cinability to manage or corral Gen Z is actually our deficit in training our managers in proper expectation setting and proper, consistent, repeatable, measurable processes.\u201d Gen Z is much more vocal about what\u2019s not working for them than previous generations have been, so if you haven\u2019t assessed your own managerial strengths and weaknesses, you\u2019re less likely to interact successfully with Gen Z employees and you may get a lot of turnover and pushback.<\/p>\n

You can resolve this problem by training middle managers and instituting effective processes that structure employee experiences. For example, Adler says, does \u201cevery employee who comes in have a 30-\/60-\/90- [day plan]\u201d to get new employees off on the right foot. Similarly, setting norms for \u201ccontainment and structure and process\u201d avoids the risk of managers trapping themselves into trying to personally support dysregulated Gen Zers.<\/p>\n

A clear, consistent structure prevents managers from playing therapist, and keeps their emphasis on employees\u2019 ability to accomplish work effectively rather than on trying to control employees\u2019 feelings. Emotional overinvolvement often creates imbalance because it depends on how much a manager cares about any individual employee. When the focus is getting work done and what the employee needs in order to accomplish their goals, the whole normative structure can be applied more consistently and equally, whatever the needs of the employee.<\/p>\n

Meet More Frequently And Consistently<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Another useful leadership process is holding structured one-on-ones. True support for Gen Z employees ensures that they feel safe in their working conditions and know how to handle any problems\u2014including personal ones\u2014that arise in the course of delivering on their jobs: how to raise an issue, who to see, where to go. \u201cThey desperately want to connect,\u201d says Adler. \u201cThey want to feel hopeful, they want to feel very invested. But if you don\u2019t invest in giving them a space where you are giving them clear expectations, they may not be set up to go figure it out themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adler\u2019s one-on-ones with her staff all follow the same format, and she teaches her managers to use it with their own direct reports. \u201cIt is your job as the employee to surface what you\u2019re doing, give me updates on it and ask me for help,\u201d she explains. \u201cI will give you the deadlines that I need, the expectations that I have, and an opportunity for you to ask contextual questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teach Useful Ways To Communicate<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Millennial, Gen X and Boomer leaders and managers have different vocabulary and expectations than Gen Z leaders do, but Gen Z\u2019s informal communication and discomfort with organizational hierarchy can be shaped. \u201cThey have this complete lack of understanding of corporate communication or what the rules of engagement are,\u201d Adler says. \u201cTheir communication is not bound by typical hierarchical constraints, because digital messaging and text messaging and communication is the great informalizer. There\u2019s a lack of power dynamic in the message itself that gets reinforced by the informality.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s crucial to teach Gen Z when it\u2019s necessary to shift from digital communication to the phone or even face-to-face. For example, many misunderstandings can happen on Slack. \u201cWhat I teach my organization is the minute you sense that there\u2019s a misunderstanding, jump in a huddle, bring it online,\u201d says Adler. \u201cAnd always be willing to jump on to a real time conversation.\u201d Gen Z doesn\u2019t \u201cwant to be in meetings, because meetings are inefficient and waste time,\u201d she notes, but it\u2019s necessary to create a culture in which it\u2019s accepted that communication misunderstandings require follow-up conversations, whether face-to-face, video or phone. \u201cThat\u2019s where you can get more nuanced, more inflection, more understanding\u2014and you\u2019re not relying on the shorthand of informal digital communication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benefit From Their Questioning Stance<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Another reason managers find Gen Z difficult to work with is that they ask too many questions, but you can use their interest in data and clarity to highlight organizational weaknesses. Adler suggests reframing a Gen Zer\u2019s endless questions. \u201cShe is giving us the gift of the flaws in our communication and our thinking. She is pointing out the questions we are not answering for her and showing us the places where customers are going to be confused, VCs are going to be confused or other team members are going to be confused,\u201d she says. \u201cIf the only way to communicate with Gen Z is to have your own very clear agenda and strategic plan, it forces you to do the work and the thinking to be able to explain the context that will benefit the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adler welcomes deep questioning\u2014and its potential challenges\u2014in her own organization. \u201cIf I have not given clear context, people will not know how to connect with their jobs,\u201d she explains. \u201cThey\u2019ll just be going through the motions and that\u2019s not what I want. I want a team that is aligned and invested to force me to do the thinking and the work and not just rely on my storytelling and communication skills. It forces me to be clear. It forces me to think through and be [self-]critical about my communication and my problem-solving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Use Skillful Feedback To Flip The Engagement Switch<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Another benefit of hiring Gen Zers comes specifically from their youth. \u201cThey have intellectual curiosity and energy that I\u2019d like to infuse into some of my more jaded colleagues,\u201d Adler acknowledges. \u201cAnd we can absolutely leverage that by treating them collaboratively. If we look to them as a mirror for our communication strategy and ask, \u2018What do you think of this? What\u2019s your feedback?\u2019 If we can invest in incorporating them into the conversation and take a more collaborative approach which demonstrates respect despite their youth, it\u2019s another source of feedback! Feedback is fabulous and we get energy from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adler always asks two questions in her one-on-one meetings: \u201cWhat feedback do you have for me?\u201d and \u201cHow can I help support you in a way that you haven\u2019t been able to express today?\u201d She explains: \u201cI am constantly demonstrating that in order to have intellectual curiosity, you must be able to be wrong. I demonstrate my own errors constantly.\u201d If managers make their expectations clear and their feedback is consistently functional, evidence-based and specifically about the work rather than seeming like an attack on the person, the feedback will be received as part of a systemic process of collaboration, which makes it easier to accept and act upon. She recommends giving an employee time to consider the feedback and then discussing it at the next meeting, using prompts like: \u201cWhat can you learn from this? How can I support you to make it better? What didn\u2019t I do to scaffold you or set you up for success?\u201d<\/p>\n

Invest the time to explain and model the behaviors you want to see from Gen Z employees. If you accept the reality of their concerns and needs while continuing to share your vision and values as they evolve, you can develop a segment of the workforce that will deliver creative solutions and develop fierce commitment to your organization.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We often hear bad news about the youngest generation in the workplace. For example, one survey claims Gen Z is more difficult to work with than previous generations, and another survey has found that as many as 40% of business leaders see Gen Z college graduates as \u201cunprepared for the workplace\u201d\u2014and therefore 94% of that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-leadership"},"yoast_head":"\nHow To Engage Today's Challenging Young People For Business Success | Brandiary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We often hear bad news about the youngest generation in the workplace. 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