A New Kind of Diversity: Making the Different Generations on Your Team a Competitive Advantage by Tim Elmore

Author:Tim Elmore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Maxwell Leadership
Published: 2022-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Let me say it again—in the Land of Tomorrow, Gen Z are the natives, and we are the immigrants. The emerging generation is usually seen as strange at first, and eventually everyone sees they bring those oddities into the future and often become the norm. These descriptions above are actually characteristics of the future for everyone. Our culture is migrating toward these realities, like it or not. This is all the more reason we must lead well.

THE RULES MAY BE CHANGING

While Generation Z are niched in a thousand different subgroups, Austin may be a vivid case study for us on this new generation. He was born in 2001 and identifies with Billie Eilish, the top Grammy Award–winner in 2020, whose songs are often about things that are dark and depressing. Austin is a nice guy who has different groups of friends on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. If he were honest with you—like he was with me—he would admit to having major questions about his gender identity. Like many Gen Zers, he doesn’t identify as binary. He’s pretty sure he’s not heterosexual.

As a college student, he was overwhelmed by school, life, and an uncertain future. He takes meds for an anxiety disorder and would say anxiety has been normalized among his friends. Having older siblings, Austin feels he’s growing up in the shadow of the Millennial generation who are a step ahead in age and experience. He knows he’ll be competing with them for jobs when he graduates, just as Generation X grew up in the shadow of the Boomers and felt they competed with them. He was diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school, and the meds for that have helped him become more focused. All the same, he still feels penalized by the whole pandemic.

More than anything, he is sure that no adult is going to swoop in and “save the day” for him once he begins his career. Austin said to me, “Why should I think that? Nobody knew what they were doing when the pandemic hit us all in 2020. I am going to hack my way through my career and figure it out myself.” He is part of a different generation than any in America’s past:

They’re the most diverse population at work: 48 percent are not white.

They own a smartphone (96 percent) and multitask on five screens a day.

They’re smart consumers: 35 percent plan to save for retirement in their twenties.

Salary is a top motivator (70 percent) and health insurance is a must (70 percent).

Almost 60 percent say they would work weekends for higher pay.

Unlike Millennials, only 38 percent consider work/life balance important.

Over 90 percent prefer to have human interaction at work instead of just screens.

Forty percent want daily interaction with their boss, and they feel something’s wrong without it.

Sixty percent want multiple check-ins with a team supervisor daily.40

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