An Inteligent.com survey of close to 1000 businesses found that many are hesitant to hire Gen Z, citing their lack of professionalism, preparation, motivation and more. Fair enough. Let’s add some context and go through the issues. In my former role as a CHRO of a large company, my team and I navigated the emergence of both the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts and I believe there are lessons to share.
Older generations have always complained abut younger generations, although in our social media era, perhaps the new criticisms are a bit more pointed. As a child in the 1970’s I remember adults complaining about the long haired hippies, who in fact turned out to be today’s ‘boomers’, often derided as old codgers by the younger generations today. Let’s be honest. All young people come to the workforce with needs: training, coaching and learning what work really is. Ironically, those peace loving hippies also turned out to be the status and money obsessed ‘yuppies’ of the 80’s. Things change. Here’s a send up of them courtesy of SNL:
The aforementioned survey goes on to cite the reasons for firing the incoming generation and how many companies have had to terminate these misguided Gen Z’s. Well, in my experience, that’s a phenomena we in HR used to call ’normal turn over’. In fact, there were times in my term as CHRO that I argued against hiring ‘fresh out of college’ trainees because turnover rates were always exceedingly high – minimum 50% and even higher in certain years. Why? Think about it. 23 year olds are still trying to figure out what they want to be, where they want to be and why. Your chances of landing one that will commit to your organization and grow up there are low. It ain’t 1953, folks. Willingness to stay, to relocate with your firm, to be loyal, to rely on your leadership for development ain’t what it used to be. That’s been true since the 1990’s. Back then the Gen X’ers had watched their parents get unceremoniously booted from careers at blue chip companies for a generation.
Back to my old job: despite the turnover challenges, in certain departments we stuck with bringing in new trainees and interns most years. We experimented and found some ways to reduce turnover and find the exceptions to the generational stereotypes. I will share a few.
First and most important: we learned to emphasize grit and potential over pedigree and university ‘brand’. We decided to completely open up our college recruiting process, digitally, to all colleges, not just a favored few. What happened? True diversity emerged. Race and gender? Of course. What else? All walks of life, those working to put themselves through school, those who were excelling in what some would call ’second tier’ schools, who we hired and became our next generation of leadership. True story: one top tier school tried to tell us what to pay our marketing interns one year. We ignored them. They told us they’’d never recommend us to their students again. We said ‘ok, fine’ and never went back to their campus again. We hired from everywhere else and the business never suffered. We in fact, set records and that trend continues today. Think about the mentality of a university telling employers what to pay and how that might manifest in the behavior of their graduates.
Ignore the stereotypes. High quality new graduates, who are loyal, have strong work ethic and will reflect your values are out there. Be sure your messaging reflects what you are looking for, so they can find you. Recruiting is a dance. Both parties need to be honest. The term ‘employee value proposition’ sounds like corporate blah blah blah, but you better have one that is well thought out and is an honest reflection of who you are, reflected in all of your recruiting communications.
Try different things while recruiting the incoming workforce. One thing we did was lighten the credentials needed to apply for our management development program. We made it so that those pursuing a degree could apply as well as those who had achieved one already. That allowed some of our brightest hourly professionals to apply to our factory leadership program. Beyond that we opened up the same program to those 3-5 years out of college so that we could catch those on the rebound from other companies, who didn’t like their first job or weren’t a good fit at their first gig. We had success with both of these approaches.
Remember that you were young once and needed to learn and get experience, exposure and mentoring. Clueless college grads with unrealistic expectations and bad manners are a timeless reality; they are not unique to this generation. The capability to give them feedback, friction and coaching is essential and should be sorted out before they are hired. Who on your team is best at this sort of thing? Find your best combo of Mr Rogers and Mr T and make them your college hire Drill Sergeant.
In essence, don’t blame the young people. Try harder to find the ones that fit your business. Make the funnel very wide at the top and you’ll find great talent. Final thought: be sure to include the disabled in your search. You may find that those with disabilities have traits counter to those in the study mentioned above. Their lives are gritty, they have great survival skills and they persevere. I have learned that through my long affiliation with Starkloff Disability Institute.
Now – go find the good ones! Happy Hunting!
One Response
Well said Steve. I often sight that Yesterday’s Hippies are today’s Baby Boomers, there is a generational thing and a life stage thing, and they are often confused with each other. Ultimately we are not defined monolithically about any single element of our birth! And the interest is always in the mosaic of diversity. Love the space to let people be themselves and grow with the investment bias in helping them be their best!