Gen Z are arriving in the workplace, will they be
reformers or refusers?
by Jordan Young
The 2020’s will be a decade defined by Gen Z’s arrival in the workplace. That is, if they arrive at all. According to job market experts, lower than usual levels of economic activity in the UK post-pandemic are being driven by young people.
Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the Office for National Statistics (ONS), said that while the overall number of people in work is going up, this is not the case for people aged 16-24 years old.
She told BBC Radio 4: “Over the last year we’ve seen that increases in inactivity have been concentrated in the younger age groups, particularly in that 16 to 24-year-old age group. We’ve seen that increase by 248,000 over a year.”
Around a third of the 9.3 million economically inactive people in the country are now under 25 years old, an increase of just under 400,000 since the start of the pandemic.
For that majority who are working, many for the first time in a professional setting, the rigid culture of the workplace can be confronting. As the first generation of digital natives, ‘Zoomers’ do not remember a world before the internet, mobile phones and, in many cases, social media.
‘Technology can be a hindrance’
Dismissing these young people as work-shy and internet-addled does not explain their stunted transition to employment.
Teachers have perhaps the clearest understanding of this generation and the unique pressures they face.
Taylor Gilmour, an English teacher at a secondary school in Nottinghamshire, believes that the compound effects of the pandemic and a turbulent economy have dealt departing students a difficult hand.
He admits that while his students do sometimes lack focus and struggle to be separated from their phones, a strict policy at his school.
He said: “Technology can be a hindrance, it has impacted their ability to focus and their attention spans.
“Schools that allow ‘flexible phone policies’ where children can bring phones into class for ‘research purposes’ are enabling something that does have a negative impact on them.
“In schools I’ve worked in that do have those policies, they are abused and there is a reliance on mobile phones.”
Mr Gilmour says that despite the strict policy banning phones, kids ask throughout the day to use their phones, adding: “It is clearly an addiction.”
Despite this, he says employers ultimately demand and depend on their intuitive digital skills and yet do not always respect and value these skills fairly.
He said: “Alot of older generations don’t understand the reality of entering the market today, especially for entry level jobs.
“The expectations have changed. If the understanding is that work is easier because of technology, then the expectations have also increased. You are expected to answer more emails and get more done because you have the aid of technology.”
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There are just under 1 million vacancies in the UK, but Gen Z applicants, especially the highly educated, understand that the best positions are more intensely competitive than ever before.
Going into the office ‘should feel special’
Nik Fisher, a 25-year-old copywriter and marketer, is looking for a new job and says they find it off-putting when a role is not accommodating towards their style of work.
They said: “I have gotten so used to being able to choose my own hours and not having to be around people all the time.
“But then I do love the days when I do go into the office because it is a choice and because everyone feels similarly - there is an element that you all want to go above and beyond.”
They reason that going into the office should feel special, especially because you should work harder and be more collaborative, especially knowing you can go out and bond afterwards.
Older colleagues might bristle at these expectations - it is true that they had to find their way up without flexible working, mental health days or inclusive policies - but they also sympathise with the toll recent events have taken on young people.
Nicola Neesham, who has worked as a respiratory nurse in an NHS hospital for over 25 years, said she has seen the knock-on effects of the pandemic on young people.
“I have noticed poor face-to-face communication from young nurses, but I put this down to nursing now being a degree course and students having much less time with real patients.”
She added that it is not obvious if Gen Z hospital staff are less resilient, but admitted that it “would not surprise her given the pandemic”, a sentiment she extends to NHS workers of all ages and levels of experience.