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Below, Tim Elmore shares five key insights from his new book, The Future Begins with Z: Nine Strategies to Lead Generation Z as They Disrupt the Workplace. Elmore is the founder and CEO of Growing Leaders, a nonprofit dedicated to developing emerging leaders. As a speaker and coach, he has helped organizations from universities to Fortune 500 companies connect more effectively across generations. Whats the big idea? Many leaders are scratching their heads over Gen Z. The old playbook doesnt work anymorebut figuring out how to engage and collaborate with this generation is what turns good leaders into great ones. Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Elmore himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Turn frustration with Gen Z into hope According to a survey by Resume Builder, three in four managers agree that todays young employees, from Generation Z, are the toughest generation to lead. I believe Gen Z is frustrating to us because they seem so very different, and often unexplainable. I think its because of a phenomenon I call the Peter Pan Paradox. Peter Pan could mysteriously fly into London and sprinkle Pixie dust everywhere to make magical things happen. On the other side of the coin, Peter Pan wanted to live in Neverland, where boys never have to grow up. Over the last decade, Ive noticed something magical and tragic happening in culture. The Age of Authority is decreasing. Gen Zers often come in with an authority that doesnt require a title. They are intuitive about using AI. They see where culture is going. They know how to monetize social media, and they have visibility on future customers. At the same time, the Age of Maturity is increasing. They often come in behaving unprofessionally. The pandemic delayed their growth. Their social and emotional skills are delayed in development. Employers are saying 26 is the new 18. Almost one in three employers fire them in the first month. So, how should leaders respond? We must listen more than we used to listen to young staff. We must coach more than we used to coach young staff. Maya was hired right out of collegeand immediately her team could tell shed never had a full-time job before. She wore flip flops to work and often arrived at the office 10 minutes late. Maya spent most team meetings quietly, glancing at her phone from time to time. Her manager spent extra time coaching her on the fundamentals, hoping shed catch up. Then, one day, the payoff happened. Maya burst into her managers office with a big smile on her face. She told him shed been thinking about a problem their team had been discussing for months. Maya had an idea on how they could use AI to solve that problem. It ended up being an incredible solution. No one had known what was going on inside her head. You might say, Maya became her own version of Peter Pan. 2. Gen Z ROI is well worth it In 2018, Colin Webb graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at MIT, he served four terms as class council president and now serves his alma mater as a member of the MIT corporation, the schools board of trustees. Upon graduation, he was offered a job by General Motors. Colin was asked to serve as a design, release, and development engineer for their Cruise autonomous vehicle program. He helped make smart cars. He quickly realized he was part of an old industry with a traditional style of getting things done. Obviously, he and his young teammates brought some new ideas, but when he bounced them off his supervisor, he was told to keep his head down and his nose to the grindstone. Soon after, however, Collin did something audacious. He emailed Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, and shared his ideas for improving the company. Mary replied and agreed that his ideas were good and that shed take them to her executive team. They, too, agreed his ideas were good. But when those ideas made their way down the organizational chart, they died on the vine. Again, Collin was told to keep his head down and nose to the grindstone. In fact, he was told it would take about eight years before hed get the chance to lead anything. They might as well have told Collin to leave. Within a year, Collin had left the company, even though he is not a quitter. Since then, he has started three companies and sold one of them. Hes doing very well, working hard and living his dreamworking with AI. Sadly, similar stories happen all the time. Too often, supervisors miss what Gen Zers bring to the team for three reasons: When were comfortable, we default to: Thats not the way we do it here. When were scared, we become more concerned with procedures than with progress. When were experienced, we assume theyre young and dont know much. In 2017, a woman walked into a New Hampshire thrift store looking for a picture frame she could restore. She found one for four dollars and thought, Even if I cant use it, the price is inexpensive. She bought it. When she got home, her family examined it and said, The frame is nice enough, but the painting inside looks like its from a famous artist. You should have it evaluated. When the woman did, she discovered it was an N.C. Wyeth painting that later sold for $191,000. Not a bad trade-off. In many ways, this is an analogy for Gen Z. We usually dont spend a lot on them right away since all we can see is their frame. Later, we realize its whats inside of them thats so valuable. Lets stop treating them like expendable commodities and begin treating them like currency worthy of investment. Lets find a way to connect with and get curious about them. This may be key to thriving in the future. 3. Relationship and trust mean everything to Gen Z Many Gen Z team members enter their careers directly after college, without having had a full-time job before. Parents encouraged them to focus on academics, but we all know that the classroom rarely resembles the office. Four in five Gen Z job candidates go so far as to bring their parents with them to the interview. At the same time, they also bring with them a new perspective on authority. Much like Generation X some 35 years ago, they are suspicious of corporate leaders, political leaders, educational leaders, and even religious leaders due to stories of corruption. This has fostered a significantly different view of authority than that held by seasoned business veterans. OLDER GENERATIONS Position gives you right to influence. Older folks have wisdom. Systems offer order to chaos. We must listen to the man at the top. The top dog wins the debate. The leader is a gatekeeper. YOUNGER GENERATIONS Connection gives you right to influence. Older folks may be irrelevant. Systems must be disrupted or grow. Top people should be listening to us. The best idea wins the debate. The leader is a guide. Relationships and trust mean everything to most members of Generation Z. While research confirms they dont trust most traditional institutions, they do trust peopleeven people from older generationswhom they get to know. So, here are the shifts we should make: Dont think control, think connect. Dont think inform, think interpret. Dont think what, think why. Dont think inputs, think outcomes. Dont think tell, think ask. Dont think manage, think mentor. We dont know much about the future, but we do know that Generation Z will be there. Lets build bridges of relationship that can bear the weight of honest disclosure. Everyone will win. 4. How to hire Gen Z Thousands of companies are struggling with the diminishing number of job candidates. I describe what lies ahead in a metaphor I call A New Kind of Storm: We are facing a blizzard. Young people often wont take traditional entry-level jobs as they did in the past. This blizzard is part of a new winter season. A smaller population, plus issues with addiction and incarceration, reduces the employment pool. This may be part of a larger new ice age. Within a decade, there will be more 65-year-olds than 16-year-olds in the U.S. So, what can we do? Make your organizations offering more attractive. Make their job the best first job to launch their career. Approach your role as a mentor, not a manager. Gen Z seems to know its a buyers market when it comes to getting a job. Sally hosted an interview with a Gen Zer (well call him Owen). In the interview, she asked Owen to describe a time when he faced a challenge and was proud of how he made it through. She was pleased with his response and, three days later, asked HR to extend an offer to Owen. His response? He said, Are you kidding me? Theres no way I will work for that woman. She triggered my PTSD when she asked me to talk about a challenge of mine. It didnt feel psychologically safe. We need a new approach to job interviews, especially with Gen Z candidates. For many, its a new experience, and employers can use this acronym to get acquainted: PPreferences: What do you wish to be true about the job?EExpectations: What are your assumptions about the work?RRequirements: Any demands or deal breakers?KKeys to their heart: Get to know them beyond their role as a worker.SSalary: Clarify, and possibly negotiate. This is your chance to build a bridge. Dont miss the opportunity to do so. 5. Not all Gen Z myths are true Many bosses (or people over 45) see Gen Z behave in certain ways, dont understand it, and then stereotype them. During my research for this book, I shared some of these stereotypes with Gen Z focus groups. I will never forget meeting with one group and communicating that many leaders believe that Gen Zers dont really want to work. After all, they leave right at 5 p.m., and dont stay a minute longer. They often leave a task halfway done and head out. It feels like they dont like to be there. One 21-year-old, full-time team member replied, Dr. Tim, do you know why I leave right at 5? I rush out because I need to get to another job. I dont make enough to pay the bills at this first job. Then, I go take care of my mom, who has stage 4 cancer. Suddenly, I realized this Gen Zers work ethic is just fine. There is, however, one stereotype thats not a myth. Millions of Gen Zers can be fragile, especially when receiving feedback. It seems that hard is the new harsh. Some have never had to hear firm feedback face-to-face with a boss. One of the most challenging situations leaders must face is hosting difficult conversations. Many supervisors avoid them. I created another acronym for sitting down with and correcting a teammate: AAsk: Asking questions makes them feel valued.LListen: Listening makes them feel heard. Gen Zers want to have a voice.EEmpathize: Empathizing makes them feel understood.GGuide: This is when you can provide the necessary feedback. The correction was communicated using a bridge, not a badge. Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea App. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Category:
E-Commerce
Many of us have heard of boomerang employeessomeone who leaves a company and later returnsbut theres a newer version showing up in the workplace: the layoff boomerang. Maybe youve seen it yourself. A coworker disappears after a round of cuts, only to show up again a few months later. Same desk. Same job. Sometimes even a bigger paycheck. According to research done by Dr. Andrea Derler at workforce analytics firm Visier, 5.3% of laid-off employees now get rehired by the same organization after a layoff. But the most surprising part isnt the numberits that its been happening for years. We just didn’t know. What surprised me the most was that this has been happening for the last several years. The 5.3% isnt just a recent figure; consistently, organizations seem to be rehiring after layoffs, she says. While it might feel more prevalent now, with AI adding confusion and uncertainty for business leaders, it was happening during the pandemic as welland maybe even before then. Change has always happened, Derler said. “We’ve always had those crisis moments, but things just come out into the open more nowadays. We have the data. So why is this happening? Are companies realizing they let valuable talent go too quickly? And is the rise of AI making this more common? To find out, Fast Company spoke with Derler about her research, as well as several employees who shared their boomerang experiences anonymously to avoid potential retaliation. Why layoff boomerangs happen Many employees who return after a layoff come back within six to 10 months. Derler says that window isnt randomit lines up with how long it often takes organizations to realize they still need the skills of the people they let go. Part of the issue is that most companies only plan six to 12 months ahead, which leaves little room for long-term strategy. Which is not long enough, Derler says. With such a limited horizon, companies may not fully understand which skills theyre losing during layoffs. There’s a lot that gets lost in that time because they don’t have a really good sense of what skills these employees have, that theyre about to let go, Derler said. You may be losing employees only because you don’t know what else they could be doing for the company in the meantime. By the time companies realize they still need certain skills, six to 12 months may have passedwhich coincides with the window in which layoff boomerangs typically occur. That time window makes sense, because strategic changes and restructuring of a department or a whole business unit takes that long, Derler says. In other words, by the time the dust settles, companies often realize they never shouldve let those employees go in the first place. Then, they want them back. The disruption for the employee Beyond the emotional toll, layoffs disrupt not only the person being let go but entire teams. And according to Derler, layoff boomerangs are often high performers. That means you’ve done your best, you’ve performed highly on the scale of performance ratings, and you still got let go. So that’s tremendously traumatic, Derler says. But the ripple effect doesnt stop there. Imagine the people on the other end suddenly get this call back and are asked or offered a job back at the company. It’s tremendously disrupting for the teams who are losing colleagues . . . [and] for the person who is actually losing the job, Derler says. Even for those who do return, the move isnt always a long-term solutionits often just the next step in navigating an unpredictable job market: If the person hasn’t found a new job in the meantime, they may come back, but they may not stay long, because they’re really still traumatized for what you did to them a year ago, Derler says. One worker described her experience as a layoff boomerang: “When I was first laid off from this company in March 2018, I was completely blindsidedit was my first time ever facing a layoff. The website I was writing for shuttered entirely, so we were all out of a job, the worker says. After the site was purchased and relaunched by another company, several of the original employees were rehired. The former employee reached out to a rehire to see if there were opportunities available. They werebut on a contractor basis. I was underemployed, freelance is not for the weak, and needed the money. So I agreed to sign on. My pay as a contractor was close to what I was paid when I first worked at the site, but I didnt have any benefits, she explains. After several months working there as a writer and editor, she was brought on officially as a staff member. But a few months later, another round of layoffs hit, and she was let go for the second time. I wasnt intending to stay there longer than I had toI was applying for other jobs almost the entire time. When I was laid off the second time, I had actually been in the process of interviewing for another job. Thankfully, I got that one, so after a month break in between jobs, I started the new one, she says. One Reddit user details their experience as a layoff boomerang. They were let go from a company where they had worked for over six years. I was very loyal, but also know when you work for a company with 350k+ employees that layoffs happen. I left in very good standing and had a stellar reputation there. But head counts get reduced, they explain. Months later, they received an offer to return. Fast forward to [receiving] an offer from the very company that laid me off in October. Different boss, different department, more pay, they say. Another worker has boomeranged back to her old companykind of, and hopefully. I was laid off quite unexpectedly in February. I had been there for 3.5 years and survived at least two other layoffs. As a technical writer, layoffs seldom surprise me. We’re always some of the first cut, she explains. The employee did not expect to ever hear from the company again, but a new opportunity emerged unexpectedly, much like the layoff itself. She agreed to join for a three-month contract while the company worked on approval for a permanent headcount in the 2026 budget. To be perfectly honest, I’d been out of work for almost 10 months. I was out of unemployment, my savings were gone, and I was borrowing money to pay my rent. That was the real driver for taking the role, she explains. Still, she loved the job and the team, and embraced the chance to contribute. I poured my soul into building that help center, enabling a chatbot for the help center. It was a real passion project for me. I actually accepted a cut in pay to get my foot in the door with the contract, she says. Her teams positive reaction to her return convinced her that she had made the right choice, and bolstered her confidence that a full-time, permanent position was in her future. Before considering being a boomerang yourself, Derler advises asking for a reentry interview, or at least considering one. This is where youcan have a proper interview with the hiring manager to find out the details of the role. Here, you can ask yourself: How solidly sure is my employer that they need this role filled, that I’m the right person for the role? And that another layoff isn’t on the horizon? The disruption for the employer By laying off employees without expecting to bring them back, there are unintended consequences that organizations may or may not be aware of, Derler says. If companies understood this, she argues, they could use data to reduce the unnecessary disruption. If we already know we’re going to rehire some of them, why cause all that disruptionthat additional uncertainty? The first disruption after the layoff itself is the turnover contagion. This happens when one employee is laid off and others leave because they perceive the environment as unstable. Employees often notice that if one team member is let go, it could signal uncertainty for themselves. This is becoming an uncertain role for me; Id better look elsewhere, she explains. This ripple effect can disrupt teams, hurt productivity, and further increase the financial and operational costs of layoffs. The second disruption comes in hiring them back. It’s actually a lot more expensive to rehire people. They earn 3% more than those who have stayed at the company, and they earn 5% more than when they’ve been let go. So the financial implications of the rehiring of previously laid off employees is also not nothing, Derler says. When an employer realizes they need to bring someone back, they may have to pay a premium. It’s possible that these employees have found another role. We don’t know what happens in those six to 10 months before the rehiring, she explains. Layoffs are not collateral damageand they shouldnt be viewed that way, Derler says. We’re talking about humans and people and career-minded individuals. It’s a clear failure of workforce planning. It is a failure of leadership strategy setting. It’s a failure to be more long term-minded. It’s a failure to understand the employee skills, she said. At the end of the day, layoff boomerangs show just how tricky workforce decisions can be. For employees, coming back can feel like a second chancebut it also brings questions about trust, commitment, and whether the role is really solid. For employers, theres the costboth money and disruptionto think about. Paying attention to skills, data, and planning ahead can help make sure everyone comes out ahead when the workforce shifts.
Category:
E-Commerce
One of the most pervasive rules of business is compete-to-win or perish. But as more organizations struggle to navigate an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous landscape, some innovative leaders are choosing to collaborate over compete. This is particularly necessary within the organization, where collaboration may be considered beneficial in theory, but in practice, the rules of engagement still revolve around competition: colleagues become rivals over promotion opportunities, recognition, and advancement. The competition within the organization makes it harder to navigate the disruption and certainty on the outside. How do leaders banish in-house competition? They create and model a culture that uncompetes. To uncompete is to intentionally choose to reject competition and actively design for collaboration. Heres how. Harness two types of envy Team collaboration increases when we feel psychological safetylike our team has our back. Competition and envy among colleagues can reduce psychological safety and create a hostile environment if not managed well by leaders. Managing envy to motivate teamsnot sabotage each otheris a skill. Organizational psychologists broadly characterize envy as falling under two categories: benign and malicious envy. Benign envy motivates us to work harder toward a goal when we see someone else achieving it, malicious envy can be destructive and often results in us wanting to sabotage or undermine a colleagues success. A powerful way to cultivate benign envy is to focus on the hard work a team member did to achieve a goal, rather than just focus on the achievement itself. Leaders can harness benign envy to create a culture of motivation and collaboration by highlighting the effort it took over outcomes, particularly team-based efforts. Implement rewards for collaboration Many workplace cultures are individualistic, where only individual wins are celebrated. This makes it more attractive for employees to prioritize gaining individual success over collaborative ones. Instead, leaders must implement recognition and reward systems that emphasize collaboration and teamwork. Leaders can verbally name collaboration as an organizational value. Collaboration must also be defined explicitly as a metric for rewarding career development, advancement, and recognition. For promotion and other career development conversations, list “examples of collaboration” as one of the metrics being considered. In addition, group incentive programs are another way to operationalize collaboration, when rewards are pegged to team performance and meted out among the group rather than just individually. Incentivized teams increased their performance by 45%, compared to a 27% increase for individual incentives, according to a study by the International Society for Performance Improvement. Organizations that implement a peer-to-peer recognition program also benefit from creating a culture of shared success. Set reasonable work boundaries In the race to beat competitors, more organizations are normalizing always on work cultures. Silicon Valley, in particular, is popularizing a 996 work expectation of working 12-hour shifts six days a week in the race to innovate on AI. When leaders model that workers must be always-on, it creates and exacerbates a scarcity mindsetthat theres never enough time or resources in a day to complete tasks, so we have to keep working more. It also often fosters the belief that employees must compete against their colleagues to demonstrate dedication and competence. When leaders model reasonable work hours and expectations, the message gets communicated that employees dont have to hustle for rewards. This looks like visibly and vocally taking time off, working reasonable hours, and not penalizing employees when they dont respond immediately. Hustle culture often leads to burnout, another side effect of competitive environments. By comparison, in collaborative work cultures, employees feel supported to work reasonable hours without fear. Consider job-sharing and other collaboration models Nobel prize-winning economist Claudia Goldin discovered a surprising way to reduce the gender wage gapjob-sharing. A lack of flexibility (also a challenge in always-on cultures) impacts womens earning potential. But when theyre able to work part-time and trade off their shiftsparticulary common for pharmaciststhe wage gap almost disappears. What if more leaders could explore some roles at the organization being set up for job-sharingsuch as two colleagues who work closely together and could substitute for each other easily when the other is out? This can help foster team ownership and collaboration versus individual priorities. One company, Jotform, moved to create small, cross-functional teams when their leaders noticed the company was growing but output wasnt. These cross-functional teams of 35 people each would focus on a single product instead of bouncing between priorities. Each group was paired with its own designer and given ownership. Almost overnight, the quality of our work improved. The teams moved faster, communicated better, and felt more motivated. Since then, cross-functional teams have become a core part of our cultureand one of our biggest competitive advantages, writes CEO Aytekin Tank, reflecting on the past decade since the company moved to this model. Of course, establishing a number of collaboration norms, particularly around communication, was key to making it a success. Co-leadership models A compelling case for co-leadership, particularly organization co-CEOs, is emerging. One study of 87 public companies led by co-CEOS between 1996 and 2020 found they had better shareholder returns (9.5%) compared with similar companies who only didnt. Co-CEOs are not common nor without controversy, but done right, theres evidence that collaboration at the highest levels can truly drive innovation. Take Netflix, where Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings were able to leverage complementary skills to grow the company. Management professor Michael D. Watkins lays out seven norms of how a successful co-CEO partnership could operate, including designing clear conflict-resolution mechanisms, creating a leadership charter, and dividing responsibilities by expertise, not convenience. This is even more necessary as AI continues to disrupt many industries. A nonprofit organization I was involved with in the past, Upaya Social Ventures, also transitioned to a co-CEO model last year. Collaborating with their complementary skills has been necssary to serve the organizations mission of creating dignified jobs for people living in some of the poorest regions of India. Left to chance, many organizations default to competitive norms, where collaboration is often stalled because of internal rivalries. Thats why its necessary to uncompetefor leaders to intentionally prioritize and design norms that make collaboration supported, rewarded, and institutionalized. Only then can we reduce inter-organization competition and move towards true collaboration.
Category:
E-Commerce
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