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Each generation of employees is shaped by its times. In todays era of perma-change, Generation Z is exhibiting distinct professional traits. Having come of age during a period of economic instability and a global crisis, theyre less likely to hang their hats on a single career identity. Theyre less focused on salary and more drawn to balance, but theyre also highly pragmatic. The latest Gen Z workplace trend, adopting a standard work uniform, is just one example of that pragmatism. It also shows that while they value work-life balance, theyre also open to clever ways for achieving it. Leaders stand to gainor losea lot by making the effort to understand Gen Z. Because if theyre not satisfied, theyll move on. According to the a 2024 workplace survey by EY, 38% of respondents said they were likely to quit their jobs in the next yeara rise largely driven by Gen Z. Understanding their work habits and expectations is essential to retaining top talent. As the CEO of a company with over 750 employees and a growing percentage of Gen Zers, Ive had the opportunity to observe generational differences firsthand. Here are the strategies I use to address the habits and expectations of our youngest cohort. Promote an automation-first mindset Ive written before about the virtues of lazy employees. While that adjective is usually pejorative, I use it to describe something powerful: a professional who looks for the easiest, most efficient way to get something done. In my experience, Gen Z tends to share this superpower. These days, that often entails using the latest tools and apps on the market. Indeed, Gen Z expects tech tools at work to match the ease of use of social media apps they use in their personal lives. If theres a new project management platform that matches the intuitiveness of TikTok, chances are theyll be proficient in hours. Promoting an automation-first approach in your organization empowers Gen Z employees to tap into their digital fluency and find the most efficient ways to complete tasks. At my company, for example, we encourage employees to set aside time to stay informed about the latest tech releases relevant to their job functions (with the help of sites like G2) and share their favorites with the team. Crucially, leaders should emphasize that tools like AI are meant to enhance, not replace, human work. This approach naturally fosters multigenerational collaboration. While older generations might impart important lessons in leadership and management, younger employees can bring their innate tech literacy to the table. This not only breaks down unnecessarily rigid hierarchies, but it also helps to engage Gen Zers and boosts their feelings of investment in the company. Offer personalized training and development In the past, employee training was fairly linear. For professionals in a given role, the progression from entry-level skills to management typically followed a similar path. Todays requisite skill sets look different on a conceptual level. Deloitte has called it the return of the Renaissance figuresomeone with multidimensional talents, interests, and knowledge. That means building skills in tools and technology, data and analytics, as well as in management, creativity, and people leadership. The onus is on leaders to ensure employees receive the training they need. Dont assume they already have the necessary skills, especially since younger employees may sometimes overestimate their abilities. In addition to traditional (and irreplaceable) person-to-person training and mentoring, Im a big proponent of AI platforms to offer employees personalized, scalable training, including both hard and soft skills. Companies like BetterUp, for example, offer employees actionable professional development skills, like how to handle a sensitive work conversation. Whats more, as your company grows, AI tools are a cost-efficient solution for continuing to offer employees at all levels the training they need. To bring it all together, create a training pipeline that gives younger employees hands-on opportunities to apply the skills theyre learning and build the ones they aspire to develop. Present flexibility on your terms Its no secret that Gen Z is more accustomed to flexibility than any other generation. Many of them entered the workforce when working from home was the norm. For younger professionals, a flexible workplace is a priority. According to ZipRecruiters 2025 Annual Grad Report, 82% of college students hope to work remotely at least one day a week. However, just 33% (of the class of 2023) want fully remote workplaces. Some companies are already on board with offering hybrid work arrangements. I happen to believe that working in the office is important for collaboration, training, and doing our best work. Striking a balance can be tricky. To address the needs of Gen Z without overthrowing your organizations goals and values, leaders can offer flexibility in intentional ways. For example, a structured hybrid schedulelike a few days of their choice each month to work remotelycan give young professionals the breathing room they need. You could also offer work-from-anywhere weeks once a quarter, allowing employees to work where they feel best able to focus in that moment. Even if the norm is to work within the office, leaders should make it explicit that employees can request time away if a personal need ariseswhether its a mental health day, a family obligation, or just space to recharge. You can also reinforce the idea that your organization values its employees rich, full lives outside of work. Gen Z employees who feel free to share their full selves, including their unique interests and hobbies, are more likely to feel engaged and committed to their organization.
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E-Commerce
Sams Club shoppers will soon notice a change to the retailers private-label rotisserie chicken packaging. A new tray means the grab-and-go prepared foods favorite is now more sustainable. The clamshell packaging for Members Mark seasoned rotisserie chicken sold at Sams Club is composed of a top clear lid made from polypropylene (same as before) and a bottom piece made from a proprietary polypropylene and PCR (or postconsumer recycled content). Unlike the old tray, the new one doesn’t use a carbon mineral filler, according to Packaging Dive, which first reported the change. That carbon mineral filler is what gave the tray its black color; with it gone, the now-recyclable material takes on a neutral sand color. Sam’s Club tells Fast Company that 7 bottle caps are repurposed to make each tray, and the new packages result in a roughly 25% reduction of virgin plastic. Sabert, the company that manufactures the clamshell packaging, says the tray was developed with color specialists to mask the natural juices and stains that come from cooking chicken. The tray is also microwavable, reusable, and hand and dishwasher safe. Sabert’s chief sustainability and strategy officer, Richa Desai, tells Fast Company that Sabert is “seeing more customers embrace postconsumer recycled content for food packaging as part of their own sustainability commitments to reduce virgin plastic use.” Like CVS, Target, and other retailers, the Walmart-owned Sam’s Club is working to improve its private-abel offerings as consumers turn to generic brands to save money. For Sam’s Club, though, the competition is especially fierce considering its up against fellow membership warehouse club Costco’s private-label Kirkland brand, which is bigger than Nike. While Costco’s net sales in the most recent fiscal year were $176.63 billion, Sam’s Club reported less than half as much, at $86.2 billion. Chicken could be one small step toward closing the gap. Walmart declined to provide sales figures for its chicken, though in one Reddit thread, users claimed stores sell hundreds a day. Member’s Mark currently prices its rotisserie chicken at $4.98, though prices may vary in store and online, while Costco’s Kirkland brand rotisserie chicken sells for $5.84. Costco’s chicken also comes in a bag instead of clamshell packaging, a change last year that shoppers voiced their displeasure over. While Member’s Mark may have a way to go to reach Kirkland-level sales and cultural resonance, it seems to have at least gained a competitive edge when it comes to rotisserie chickens.
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E-Commerce
As Fast Company wrapped up its latest report on the state of the design jobs market, we wondered which companies paid the highest premium for designers. We looked at the 40,000 job listings wed gathered from Googles job search engine, over a period between December 2024 and February 2025, and zeroed in on the salaries that companies were offering to prospective employees across various different experience levels (entry level, 23 years, 45 years, 67 years, and anything above 8 years). We then averaged the salaries for all jobs that a company posted across these various experience levels and identified the seven highest spenders from each of seven categories: architects, game designers, graphic designers, urban designers, interior designers, product designers, and UX designers. The good news: Not every designer needs to be in the latter half of their career to reach the highest salaried heights. The bad news: All architects actually do need to be. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}(); Architects Architects face a thankless pay curve: earning a top rate means coming with top experience. All the highest paid positions, mostly at big firms like HNTB and Michael Baker, require senior-level experience of at least eight years. But architecture is also the only type of design we looked at where the top paying employer includes a food companythose upscaled La Colombe interiors dont come cheap. Game Designers As Fast Company has reported, the best door into the world of game design might not be at a gaming studio: Netflix is continuing its push into gaming, and it stands out among hiring organizations for offering the highest salary for game designers with fewer years of experience than bona fide game studios do. But dont count those studios out: CD Projekt Red and Riot Games still make the list of the seven highest-paying companies for game designers. Graphic Designers Graphic designers are typically among the lowest paid in the design profession, but they might top out their salaries the fastest: The most generous hiring companies, with the exception of ServiceNow and Nvidia, dont request senior-level status: Graphite and Crocs only ask for 23 years of experience. And apparently, the Prince Georges Parks Department in Maryland, has enough funding to duke it out with Nvidia for talent. Interior Designers Like architects, interior designers need to come equipped with senior-level experience to command top pay, with no employer among our top seven listed asking for fewer than eight years. And unlike other job types with at least a mild diversity of hiring organizations at their upper limit, all the top organizations seeking interior designers are design firms like HKS and Solize. Product Designers Netflix is the only company on our list to make the highest spot in two separate design categoriesgame designers and product designersand its job listings for senior product designers offer the highest salaries on that list, at an average of $427,000. But Netflixs average salary for midlevel product designers doesnt lag far behind, at an average of $317,000, just after Anthropic, which is sparing no expense to make experiencing Claudes profuse apologies as frictionless and stable as possible. Urban Designers Urban design shows the smallest variance in how much their top organizations are willing to pay, with the narrowest band of salaries at the upper levels. Pay tops out at $169,500, and as you would expect, the most generous organizations are all in the engineering consulting, design, and construction business. UX Designers Tanium is the kind of company that few people outside an IT department would ever interact with but that seemingly every IT department does. It provides an endpoint management system demanding a particularly sophisticated set of UX chops, which it pays handsomely for, and which one doesnt need to be a senior-level UX designer to earn. Taniums top designers can expect to make $377,500 with only 45 years of experience. The list of top-paying companies is rounded out with a few usual suspects, like Google and ServiceNow, as well as Blue Origin, which is probably spending its money well in hiring designers to determine how we get back from space. This article is part of Fast Company‘s continuing coverage of where the design jobs are, including this year’s comprehensive analysis of 170,000 job listings
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E-Commerce
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