Gen X and Gen Z in the workplace: How can leaders retain their younger employees?
One of my colleagues recently created a presentation about generational differences among employees. It went something like this:
Generation X people, who were born between 1965 and 1980, tend to be ‘over workers’ with an ‘I’ve got this job for life’ mentality. They typically have high levels of faith that the company they work for will stay loyal to them.
Generation Z people, who were born between 2001 and 2020, tend to have a more transient approach to work. They’re focused on finding a work/life balance and they don’t have faith in the loyalty of the company they work for.
Between Generation X and Generation Z are the Millennials – sometimes called Generation Y - who were born between 1981 and 2000, and Millennials tend to be a mix of both the X and the Z.
It goes without saying that most companies will employ a combination of all three generations, and all three generations have very different attitudes, beliefs, and work ethics. When you’re a leader or a manager, and your primary job is to get everyone in your organisation working happily together to make your vision happen, finding the balance that will keep all three generations onside can be tricky. So how do you do it?
What’s the most obvious difference between Generation X and Generation Z?
When you look at the descriptions above, it’s logical to think “their attitude to work”. But let’s dig a bit deeper into what occurred between the decades those two generations were born.
Technology happened.
Generation Xers may have created a lot of the technology we now take for granted, but it’s actually the generation between X and Z – the Millennials – that are credited with being the first truly digital generation and, because of it, they catch a lot of flak for being lazy and privileged and not being able to function without their smartphone. That’s a pretty damning brush to tar an entire generation with, especially now that they're the largest generation in the UK workforce and most of us rely on them to help keep our companies afloat.
Technology created a big divide between the Generation X and Millennial generations because Millennials were born into a world of constant technological change, and they quickly became used to having rapid, often instantaneous, on-demand access to all the information, products and services they want. That put a lot of Gen Xers' backs up because, even though most Gen Xers are comfortable with technology, they weren't brought up with everything literally at their fingertips. At the same time as Gen Xers' backs went up, Millennials lost patience with how Gen Xers couldn’t see the world and harness the new technology in the same way they did.
When Generation Z arrived, they were the first generation to grow up in a totally internet and portable digital world. They take technology for granted, but they can also see its cons as well as its pros. One of the cons is that a lot of Millennials became slaves to what technology gave them, which, in the opinion of many Gen Zers, has caused them to lose sight of what's important in the world. As a result, Gen Zers tend to live more slowly and carefully than their predecessors. They’re not as materialistic, they’re more tuned in to their environment, and their work/life balance is critical to them. They've seen how technology has changed the workplace because, when they were growing up, they could see how it affected the adults around them. Generation X adults, with their ’I’ve got this job for life’ mentality, were suddenly finding themselves on very shaky ground as technology either made their jobs obsolete or completely changed the way they did them. Millennials, meanwhile, had some unexpected views about their own generation. In a 2015 study, 59% of millennials described their generation as ‘self-absorbed’, 49% said they were ‘wasteful’, and 43% said they were ‘greedy’.
It's no wonder that Generation Z wants to do things differently, and why they look at the world in a very different way than either Generation X or the Millennials that came directly before them.
Here’s the Gen X, Y and Z problem that all leaders are facing
We need to give people from all those generations compelling reasons to stay in our workplace, so we’ve got to find the common denominators that unite them all.
Enabling a better work/life balance
Finding a better work/life balance is vital to everybody.
Many Generation Xers are somewhere between being parents, grandparents, or caring for their ageing parents, so offering flexible working or the ability to remote work from home can be a helpful way to retain them.
Many Millennials, who prefer to work smarter and not harder, also place a significant value on the work/life balance. They want to be paid well for what they do and have more autonomy in how they choose to do it.
Generation Zers, who have already seen what burnout has done to the members of other generations, don't only want a better work/life mix. They want to work for employers who value what they do and will offer them opportunities for career progression while supporting their need for a less stressful and more balanced lifestyle.
How can leaders, managers and employers meet all those requirements?
Give your team members more freedom.
It's part of a leader's job to hire the right people. Or, at least, to hire the right managers/consultants and entrust them to hire the right people! Either way, if you're confident you've got all the right people in place, you should also be confident enough to let them do their jobs the way they want to so long as their work is done efficiently and delivered on time.
That doesn't just mean allowing them to decide how they do their work. It means offering them an adjustable work schedule (if possible) so they can divide their time between work and home more effectively and productively. Some things to consider are:
Introduce flexible working, including offering your team members the opportunity to
Work remotely
Work hybrid (allowing the employee to work on-site on certain days and remotely on others)
Work flexi-time
Work part-time
Job share
If they’re shift workers, give them the autonomy to decide their shifts among themselves.
Make employee well-being part of the culture, and drive it from the top down.
Generation X people are the ‘work hard, play hard’ cohort. This op-ed from 2017 supplies a pretty thorough description of what a Generation Xer is and how “‘Generation X has the benefit of possessing the best characteristics of both the boomers and the millennials, and none of the downsides… Generation Xers are very industrious. Boomers don't understand the internet and millennials were raised on it. Generation X created it. We stripped off and dove into the glittering waters of this brand new thing, and made it what it is today.”
So, okay, the language in the article is a bit flowery, but if you’re interested in the subject of generations it’s worth reading.
The other thing about Generation X is that they’re getting older. They’ve worked hard and played hard and most of them have probably risen through the ranks as far as they’re going to go (although not necessarily), while those who were born at the beginning of Generation X (1965) are either rapidly approaching retirement age or already retired. Now they don’t just want to be paid well for what they do, they’re also in that age bracket where their bodies are reminding them they’re mortal after all. As a leader or manager, if you can find ways to continue rewarding their commitment and loyalty and also encourage them to focus on their well-being, it’s an excellent way to retain them.
The same goes for Millennials and Generation Z. Most Millennials will still have a lot of working years ahead of them so offering them ongoing opportunities for career progression is essential, but they also want to be equipped with the resources to maintain their physical and mental health. Part of that involves giving them all the digital tools they need to eliminate the stressful tedious tasks and improve their productivity, and the other part involves putting well-being initiatives in place to help them avoid burnout.
To Generation Z, well-being is essential. It's all part of that work/life balance that most Generation Zers are seeking, and if you can demonstrate that well-being is a priority for you, too, you should even be able to overcome the lack of faith a lot of Gen Zers have in the companies they work for.
What can you do to retain these three generations?
Implement an Employee Assistance Programme to help your team members deal with personal problems that might negatively affect their performance, health, and overall wellness. EAPs typically include short-term counselling and referral services for employees and their closest family members, and often a confidential 24/7 365 helpline they can call to access instant advice.
Have a company health insurance policy.
Give them access to occupational health support.
Encouraging walking meetings, which gives team members a chance to move from their desks
Promote work/life balance, including regular social events and paid time off-days as a reward for exceptional work.
Offer fair and transparent bonus and incentive programmes.
Hold a staff wellbeing day to find out how they’d like company wellbeing to be improved.
Treat them as individuals and ensure they've got all the tools they need to do their jobs well.
Let's start by ensuring that your Gen Xers, Zers, and Millennials are working with the best tools available.
Keep technology up to date.
If a team member has a suggestion for changing a process so it can be done better, listen to them and then take steps to implement it if you agree that it works.
Provide your employees with work laptops, smartphones, and easy access to the digital platforms they need to work remotely. That could also include paying for all or part of their personal device or home telecoms if they use them for work.
Implement ongoing training and career development: it doesn’t matter whether they’re Gen Xers approaching the end of their careers, Millennials with career goals they’re still passionate about achieving, or Gen Zers who tend to be more transient, sitting down with each of them and putting a realistic career plan in place is a great way to ensure they’ll stick around. The three generations have their differences but, as people, we all share the same basic human need to feel noticed by our peers and valued for what we do.
This leads us neatly into the 'Treat them as individuals' part because that's the most effective retention strategy of all.
No one wants to feel defined by their age and the generation they were born in. Age is just a number, and generations are just X, Y, and Zs. As a leader, the surest way to lose trust with your employees is to make them feel undervalued and pigeonholed. One of the best ways to win the loyalty of your employees is to take the time to understand them individually. Things like increasing your visibility in the office, establishing an open-door policy between you, your managers, and team members, holding face-to-face meetings and team meet-and-greet sessions, and using employee surveys to keep your finger on the pulse of what they’re thinking are all useful ways to do it.
The final thing to remember is that the world has changed for every generation, so analysing the differences between generations (generalising about generations?) to decide the best way to retain them is only going to get you so far. Gen Xers, who thought they had a job for life, realise they no longer do. Millennials, who are used to simplifying their lives with the power of tech, have realised their tech knowledge is no longer a guarantee the future will go their way. Gen Zers - who are just coming into the workforce - are seeing an economic system in chaos and more opportunities to work freelance, work remotely, and not be answerable to an employer, than any generation before them. There’s a reason why being a ‘digital nomad’, when you can work anywhere you want in the world as long as you’ve got a laptop and an internet connection, is becoming increasingly popular, not just among Gen Zers and Millennials, but with Generation Xers too. After all, even if you’re a Gen Xer who’s only got a few years until retirement, who wouldn’t like to spend those years working from a sun-lounger on some exotic beach? People of all generations are realising that life’s too short and we can analyse as much as we like, it’s impossible to guarantee you’ll ever be able to retain every one of your people, even if you bend over backwards to keep them. It’s happened to me too.
The truth is, finding the abracadabra to keep all generations satisfied and productive has always been a conundrum for leadership. I'm willing to bet that, even back in the stone age, the older cavemen looked at the younger cavemen and moaned, "Since fire got invented, they just don't care about mammoth hunting anymore; it's all 'let's sit around in the warm and admire each other's cave drawings'".
Treat your people with respect; they'll respect your leadership and want to keep working for you. If they don’t, don’t take it personally.
It’s that simple.
