Is Gen Z more traditional than we think?

The staggering cost of employee turnover has been well established. This isn’t news—traditional compensation and benefits practices (particularly pension schemes) made it clear that organizations made an investment in and loyalty to their employees a priority. For much of the 20th century, decades-long careers with the same firm were common.

Today, things are different. As workers began to change jobs and organizations more frequently, industries benefited from a more flexible and dynamic workforce. However, together with the lasting effects of the pandemic labor market—which saw both labor shortages and workers struggling to find jobs—the growing representation of Gen Z in the workforce has accelerated frequent job and career change.

While decades-long careers and pensions are largely a thing of the past in the private sector, the core of corporate culture—the way we do meetings, reviews, structure organizations, tolerate unfulfilling work to climb the ladder, and balance work and personal time—is still deeply rooted in tradition. To the digital natives now navigating the world of work, many of these traditions seem positively ancient, and they aren’t afraid to vote with their feet when corporate practices conflict with their values.

As flexibility and dynamism give way to costly “job hopping,” HR leaders are rethinking and reemphasizing engagement, loyalty, and retention. To do this successfully and reach the uncompromising values-driven perspective of today’s workforce, firms must invest authentically in their workers and communicate the value of that investment effectively.

A hidden traditionalism

While Gen Z’s reputation for fearless quitting when their needs aren’t met has been met with disapproval from many of their older managers, their attitude represents an enormous opportunity. Gen Z workers want to be invested in, and they want their work and their employer to reflect their values. If employers can meet these needs, they’ll find a workforce capable of loyalty that’s been hard to capture for decades.

The demands Gen Z workers sometimes make of their employers may seem unreasonable. Anecdotes abound of demands for 50% pay increases, clear pathways to advance to leadership positions, and unprecedented accommodation for time off. The problem is that employers cannot to trust untested workers to bring the value their demands would reflect, and workers cannot to trust employers to treat them well over the long term.

The crux of the situation is a breakdown in trust and communication, not a fundamental misalignment of expectations.

Build trust with quality training

Digital natives grew up having all the information right from the start. Without a clear path to advancement and full understanding of the organization’s values and how workers contribute to it, they’ll find it hard to trust a firm’s commitment to them. Communicating values and paths for advancement can be achieved with quality training that reaches remote and in-office employees with the same message tailored to the values and employee experience at the heart of each organization.

Related: Most Gen Z and millennial workers would ditch jobs for greater wellbeing

An effective training environment to establish trust and loyalty with a company’s digital native staff should include:

1. Structure around paths for advancement. The learning environment should clarify to learners how each module supports the organization’s investment in the employee today and in the future. Learning paths can be aligned with paths for advancement and communicate how learning and advancement can support the employee’s personal and professional goals.
2. Workshops that communicate and align values. Conducting workshops that foster communication and alignment with the company’s values is crucial. It’s vital for both employees and customers to grasp the essence of the company’s mission and values. For Gen Z employees in particular, it’s essential to see a clear connection between their personal values and the company’s mission. Engaging in this type of alignment and understanding is most effectively achieved through interactive workshops that are an integral part of the learning environment.
3. Skills training is valuable in any context. Paradoxically, training employees in general skill sets applicable throughout an industry demonstrates honest investment in that individual beyond their potential contribution to one company. Structurally, organization-specific training in processes and workflows should flow through this more generalized training.
4. An experience that fosters a learning culture. The learning environment should be a touchpoint for training for employees at all levels. While the strategy may be to reach the needs of Gen Z employees, it must be clear throughout the organization that the learning and advancement pathways communicated to them through training are the same pathways open to everyone—that everyone’s playing the same game.
5. Social and gamification features. Alongside playing the same game metaphorically, the learning environment can get everyone literally playing the same game. Social and gamified features like leaderboards and achievement badges integrated with tools like Slack help make work and learning fun—key to a cohort that values a blurry line between work and personal pursuits.
6. Mechanisms for identifying and nurturing high-potential employees to fill future leadership roles. Ongoing recognition, assessment, and feedback are a key area of concern for today’s working digital natives. Traditional annual reviews are an often-cited sticking point for Gen Z workers. Instead (or in addition), integrate mechanisms for real time quantitative and qualitative feedback and adaptable learning paths into the learning environment.
7. Employee-level customization. Not everyone’s mission and values are the same. Consider including an introductory survey module that gauges which parts of the organization’s values and mission the employee connects most strongly with as well as their individual learning preferences and use this data to create a tailored experience.
8. Robust security and privacy. Any effort to build trust requires a meaningful effort to protect employee data and privacy. Understand security certifications like SOC II Type 2 and HITRUST, and only work with service providers that hold relevant certifications and take security seriously. In regulated industries like government and healthcare, certifications including FedRAMP and HIPAA are required by law. Still, security for every organization is high consequence if the trust of your employees is at stake.

A new era of loyalty

While we’re unlikely to return to 45-year careers with the same company as standard any time soon, the attitude of the new generation of workers offers great potential for reclaiming the business value of employee loyalty. An integrated learning environment that communicates values, future pathways, and investment in the employee is a starting point for building the mutual trust required to get there.

Rob Porter is head of market and business development for CoSo’s e-learning solutions.