How do you inspire job loyalty in a generation of job-hoppers ?

If you are looking to hire someone born after 1997, you may find they see things differently to older candidates. While accusations of laziness and social awkwardness may themselves be lazy stereotypes, there is something distinctly different about Gen Z: they don’t believe in job loyalty. 

Older generations (who are often the employing generations) have largely been happy to stay many years with the same company. As a result, they place a value on loyalty and want new hires to stay for as long as possible. This view is not shared by Gen Z. They want variety, they want to move around, spending on average just over two years in one role. They want a job for living, not a job for life.

The incoming generation of younger workers are as skilled and able as the last, but older recruiters will need to adapt if they are going to understand the motivations of Gen Z and how to incorporate this in talent recruitment strategies.

Show them a development path

The first point is to understand that it is not just about Gen Z wanting variety. They expect the job market of the future to move so quickly that constant job role evolution will be a fact of life. The future of work is so fluid and unpredictable that an estimated 65% of students in primary school today will end up in jobs that don’t exist yet. Gen Z know therefore that they will have to keep on re-skilling and re-inventing themselves to be competitive.

Because Gen Z expect job roles to change and evolve frequently, they will prefer employers who prepare them for it. Training and education programmes are attractive because they help them to keep their skills up to date. Writing in Forbes Magazine, Meghan Biro a talent strategist notes that more than three fourths (76 percent) of Gen Z in a LinkedIn study connect learning to success — and they know it's directly correlated to the ability to move up. They know they will need to constantly re-skill and they expect their employers to help them do it.

It makes complete sense. Gen Z wants to be free to move around, to re-skill, to re-think and re-position themselves as they go. And the job market is about to become more fluid and unpredictable than ever. Cause or correlation? Either way, a perfect fit.

Invest in a wider talent pool

But wait a second. Surely your investment in training is lost if employees move on so quickly? A different attitude may also be needed here if we are to understand the way Gen Z think about careers.

First of all, if all organisations invest in training and development, it will balance out in the long run. You may lose a promising staff member to a rival employer, but there will also be an opposite direction of travel when you recruit one of their former employees. See the bigger picture.

Second, many forward-thinking employers are investing in ‘talent communities’ – a wider circle of talent beyond the immediate workforce. They include anyone who has previously engaged with the company in any way, from former employees and retirees to recruitment fair sign-ups and ‘silver-medal’ candidates (who narrowly missed out on a job). Keeping a dialogue going with this wider pool makes it much easier to deal with the Gen Z habit for job-hopping.

A company that believes in training and developing staff will be able to maintain a large and sympathetic talent community. Thousands of pre-engaged individuals ready to step in to meet the talent need. As any sports coach knows, swapping someone out of the team – however valuable they may be – is easier when you have a large and motivated squad to draw from.

Align with Gen Z values

Gen Z are not only frequent movers: they are also more tuned in to the social and environmental causes that their employer stands for. The value exchange is different now. Whereas workers have always wanted a salary plus benefits, they now also want to know that they are doing the right thing – working for the right causes. Their employer needs to have values that are aligned with the individual.

Employers in the global mobility industry therefore need to be clear about their sustainability credentials. The business of moving people and their belongings comes with a significant carbon footprint, so we need to demonstrate our commitment to reducing it. People will always need to travel: we are committed to helping them to do it in the most sustainable way possible, and that is a cause that many Gen Z workers find motivating.  

Let’s learn as we go

Older generations have always despaired of the generations that succeed them. They say don’t work hard enough, they watch too much TV, they’re addicted to their phones. There’s no point complaining: we need to find a way to make it work.

The only people who can tell the established generations in global business how to get the most out of Gen Z are the Gen Zers themselves. We need to get them on board and use the experience to work out where and how they add most value. The companies that get the most out of Gen Z are those that don’t try to pin them down, but create talent recruitment strategies that fit this new breed of worker.