Navigating the next generation: Understanding Gen Z's challenges for business leaders

In this episode, Yiuwin Tsang and Jen Swain dive deep into the importance of business leaders being aware of the challenges faced by Generation Z and explore the benefits and challenges of employing this unique generation. Join us as we unravel the untapped potential that lies within Gen Z and how it can shape the future of business.

This episode highlights that embracing the challenges and opportunities presented by Gen Z can yield immense benefits for businesses. By understanding the unique perspectives, talents, and aspirations of this generation, business leaders can create thriving organisations that are well-equipped to meet the evolving demands of the future. So tune in and discover how bridging the generational gap with Gen Z can transform your business!

About Jen Swain

Jen is currently the managing director of Beatfreeks and has previously run her own business focusing on coaching and consulting to empower female leaders.

Prior to that she has been in the software and creative agency world for more than 12 years, most recently as Operations Director for a global Tech for Good agency.

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Transcript

Disclaimer: The following transcript is the output of an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.   Every possible effort has been made to transcribe accurately. However, neither Beautiful Business nor The Wow Company shall be liable for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions.

Yiuwin Tsang  

Hello and welcome to The Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care guided by a clear strategy and soulfully grown. 

Yiuwin Tsang  

Hello, folks, welcome to this week's episode of The Beautiful Business Podcast. My name is Yiuwin Tsang, part of the Beautiful Business team and in this episode, I was joined by Jen Swain. Jen is currently the managing director of Beatfreeks and has previously run her own business focusing on coaching and consulting to empower female leaders. Prior to that she has been in the software and creative agency world for more than 12 years, most recently as Operations Director for global tech for good agency. Jen's work at Beatfreeks taps into her passion to platform the next generation so they can help clients shape a better future Beatfreaks as a youthful and creative insight led engagement agency specialising in scaling brand relevance for clients through young and diverse audiences between 16 and 35. Their services span research and insight consultancy and activations their work. They build agile communities of 16 to 35 year olds to understand them as citizens, consumers and workers for the likes of Coca Cola, Google tick tock, and DCMS amongst others, they have packaged up their knowledge of these audiences into an insights platform called National Youth trends, which has recently been launched and tells you the mood of now so you can predict the trends of tomorrow. 

Yiuwin Tsang  

I really enjoyed this interview, some super interesting things in there about engaging Gen Zed hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Let's talk about why leaders need to understand the challenges faced by Gen Zed. Now it's fair to say that Gen Zed can often be divided as being oversensitive, privileged and demanding. I'm really interested to know Jen, how did these tropes come about? And why are they so dangerous when it comes to businesses falling into using them?

Jen Swain  

Such a great question to start off with. And thank you for asking. The truth is I don't know where the tropes kind of originate from, I think, but what I am super clear on is that this kind of generational misunderstanding is really dangerous. I don't know if you came across that quite famous now, Steven Bartlett, sort of soundbite that came out over the last couple of months in terms of him talking about Gen Z and his reluctance to hire them because of you know, him not seeing the resilience in them as employees that he's wanting. I think, you know, I talked about that generational misunderstanding being dangerous. And I think purely and simply, we can't generalise by whole generations of people. First of all, we know that in the work that we do, we work across 16 to 35, which obviously covers Gen Z and millennials, it's super clear to us in terms of the conversations that we have with people that we're seeing more individualism, and you know, we can't sort of tarnish an entire generations worth of people with behaviours that represent that whole Gen. So, to me, that's why it's really dangerous for sort of businesses to start talking around these sort of generational sweeping statements, because they simply, in my opinion, not reflective of real life,

Yiuwin Tsang  

I think it's really interesting, because this way that you just framed it just then and how we can't use these sweeping generalisations of a generation, if we were to use sweeping generalisations of somebody's ethnic background, or somebody's you know, social kind of upbringing, or whatever it might be, it is just not acceptable to do that, you know, you can't do that yet, we find ourselves falling into the trap of doing it when it comes to talking about generations and generations. And in particular, I do find it really interesting when you kind of reflect back on, you know, where did these kinds of trips come from and how dangerous that is? And just how different circumstances have been over the last few years, and particularly to generation Zed. So just for the benefit of listeners, when we talk about generation Zed, what's the broad definition of because it's normally done via birth year or when they were born? Is that right?

Jen Swain  

That is absolutely right. Yes. So Gen Z were born between 97 and 2012. So their current age is kind of between sort of 10 to 25.

Yiuwin Tsang  

Okay, it is really interest because I just think back to you know, what's happened in my lifetime. And the changes that have happened are things like free education, or paid education, affordable housing, stable employment, and two world changing events around the financial crisis, and then the pandemic as well. So it just doesn't seem to make sense that we can compare the lives that we have lived and the privileges we've enjoyed versus you know, what other people do and again, when we think about you know, would you give somebody hard time if they came from a war torn country somewhere or whatever it might be, you just wouldn't make that sort of comparison yet. We seem to fall into you know, someone shot Stephen Bartlett, you know, the fellas achieved a huge amount and a lot to be admired for but that I hadn't heard that statement. But in my mind, it's a bit of a booboo to make, particularly when it comes to inclusivity, which is a big topic within beautiful business, and also just being considered, I suppose, and more broad in terms of your thinking.

Jen Swain  

Absolutely. Yeah. I think there's a couple of things you mentioned in there. And I think that difference that we experience depending on when we're born, I personally believe that we have different values depending on when we're born and live life experiences that we go through. I think that is one of the areas that we can draw some broader comparisons between generations around because, as you rightly pointed out, we've gone through some pretty big events over the last few years currently Gen Z are starting out in the world of work and they're going through Cost of Living crisis, as you mentioned, the housing market is really tough to get on to these days. So you know, they're coming not just as consumers or citizens, but also as workers with different expectations and values of what they want to see in the world. And I think that's why I think we need that empathy to understand that people's lived experiences are different, no matter where they've come from, and what they've been through, I think

Yiuwin Tsang  

you hit the magic word right there empathy, I think it comes back to that. And we talked about how important it is as leaders of businesses, to show empathy. And this is just an extension of that. And it's a realisation of being empathetic as an employer. And so to come brings me on to the next question, I suppose in terms of how can we understand the challenges faced by Gen Zed from an employer's perspective? Because we can start oftentimes the upside, if we get this right, then what are the benefits to employers if we can get the way that we engage with and the way that we help and the way that we support Gen Zed? If we get that right, what is the upside for employers? Would you say, Jen,

Jen Swain  

I think first and foremost loyalty, people want to be accepted for who they are these days. I think just referring back to my previous point about generational values, I think knowing that Gen Z in particular are facing a relative amount of adversity really, in terms of the economic situation that we're in, and instability that we've got around us, I think what I'm certainly seeing and, you know, we obviously have a young team at Beat Freaks I'm actively recruiting at the moment. And what is stood out to me is this potential theme of younger people getting onto the ladder of work, but actually, in a world where they're able to control very little about what's going on around them, their sense of self, and their prioritisation of actually who they are, is really coming through. So you know, I mentioned that kind of individualism really seeing that they're taking control of the things that they can, which means the way that they communicate is going to be authentic to them, they're not going to want to necessarily fall in line with, you know, how employers are setting those boundaries. They want to be themselves and the way they dress and the way they show up to work. And you know, what they want to do when they're there. So I think, really, if we can get our heads as employers around this kind of us not laying down the law and saying, This is how you work with us. But actually being a bit more of a two way conversation that essentially fits the individual, I think that's really one of the keys that we've got to unlock. And I think that will generate, you know, real loyalty in terms of people sticking around

Yiuwin Tsang  

the wow company who launched beautiful business, they do a survey across a different business group. But one of the consistent challenges that the businesses have is around talent, it's around acquiring, attracting and retaining talent. And there is something there. And this might be a bit of a rose tinted view of stuff, I often think about, you know, when you see the youngsters coming through, there's a degree of naivety, and you can see that as a negative kind of tray. But they can also be such a positive thing as well, when they look at problems with a fresh set of eyes with a different perspective as what you say with their kind of individuality. And they can look at solutions that perhaps we are conditioned away from or whatever might be, and, and is interesting, again, to your point about improving loyalty. And linked to that is the attraction of working for an employer who can be seen as progressive, you can see as connecting with Gen Z, even if it's not as explicitly as saying, you know, we're a Gen that friendly employee or whatever, but it's just in terms of the values, your behaviours and the way that you treat your staff. And then that can be absolutely priceless in terms of attracting the talent, reducing the recruitment costs, reducing the turnover of you know, bad hires, or whatever might be coming into your business. Yeah,

Jen Swain  

I would completely agree with you. I think one of the things that you said in there was around kind of his creativity and innovation. And that is one of the biggest reasons why we want to work with that age range that we specialise in, because we know that they've got this unleash creativity and innovation and ideas in them that perhaps business or perhaps institutions or councils or government, actually, they're so slow in the way that they operate, or perhaps they aren't getting that injection of new fresh ideas, that is exactly the space that we'd love to play in. Because we know how to elicit that amazing creativity from young people. And you're absolutely right. You know, I think employers in general, do have a bit of a shift coming when it comes to recruitment, talent retention, I just think that whole piece and it's not going to be an easy thing to do, by the way, but I think, you know, there's going to be far more personalization around how that happens in the future. Because I just think we have no option. I don't think people are responding in the same way. You know, we're hearing a lot about businesses saying that there's a talent shortage, you know, where are all these great people hiding? Well, actually, my belief is that they're not hiding, they're, you know, they're just not attracted to the the proposition that you're putting out there. So, you know, it might be time for a bit of a radical rethink

Yiuwin Tsang  

that again, that old adage of people are more comfortable with old problems than they are with new solutions. They feel comfortable to be you know, this very regimented blue collar white collar sorry kind of organisation very prim proper, maybe it isn't right for the time so it is a really interesting phase that we're going through and I think that there's always going to be the supporters people like yourselves a Beat Freaks and another more kind of progressive employees that are out there they're kind of embracing this change and looking for ways that they can as you say, tap into this kind of talent pool that's coming through and you're gonna have the neutrals who kind of do that and then you're gonna have the detractors who don't want to see the change you want to see nine to five regular you know, turn up in a you know, in shiny shoes and your tires and things like this. And obviously, there's me kind of saying that we can't generalise blatantly, generalising. However, there are those types of organisations out there all those types of leadership's who will resistance to change, even if change is coming up. And just like time keeps on ticking, just like generations are coming through. This is something that as employers, we have to get better at as something that we have to embrace.

Jen Swain  

Absolutely. And I think key to everything that you've just said is staying relevant, because that's one of the key things that we look out for our clients is scaling their relevance, because ultimately, we know how fast things are changing, you can see it all around you, unless businesses get on board and actually understand what they need to do to adapt and maintain that relevance not just with their future audiences of employers or customers, or, but also with the people that are maybe currently employed, and maybe also would welcome some progressive changes and things like that, you know, yeah, relevance is really key, I think and tapping into how we maintain that relevance through what I feel is obviously a very unstable economic and political time. At the moment. I think Gen Z are the ones who can kind of tell us where it's going in a way.

Yiuwin Tsang  

I just want to take a quick minute to say thanks to our trusted partners, Krystal hosting. Krystal is a B Corp powered by 100% renewable energy, and has a goal of planting 1 billion trees by 2030. Krystal services are super fast and super reliable, and they're genuinely really nice people. We're super picky over who we work with as partners at Beautiful Business, and we're delighted to count Krystal as one of them. 

Yiuwin Tsang  

Back to the podcast, to me why your businesses aren't thinking about how, as you say they maintain relevance? What are the reasons why businesses need to consider Gen Zed? And also, I guess, consider the challenges that they face? Looking at it from a customer perspective?

Jen Swain  

It's an amazing question. And I think, first of all, I think we know in terms of the scale of the opportunity, 30% of the world's population is Gen Z. So in terms of knowing the size of the opportunity, and the market share there, it's ridiculous to ignore it. First of all, I think also, they're not just the consumers of the future, they're also kind of setting their own ways of doing things and trends. So I think being open minded to understanding not just that there's an opportunity to sell more stuff to this generation, but also understanding what's making them tick. You know, that's where this insight piece comes into play. And I'm sure we'll talk about that in a little bit. But the size and scale of the opportunity, to me is the biggest piece there a couple more stats for you if of interest. So 50% of the world's population is under the age of 30, which is huge, as massive. And we know that actually young millennials, so you know, sort of towards the higher end of the age bracket that we specialise in, they've got the most spending power of any generation so far. So you know, if you look at that, even in the context of the lens of what we're going through, at the moment, in terms of there being a bit of a crunch, fully expecting the generation coming through to be big spenders, and so focusing in on how to stay relevant with their changing needs, they're quickly changing needs and desires and wants really feels like a sensible place to start thinking when you're looking at strategies for growth and relevance.

Yiuwin Tsang  

Yeah, 100% I just made me think then that whole kind of idea of groupthink, you know, the trap that organisations can fall into where there are loads of people my age or older thinking, this is what the kids I think of that Steve Buscemi meme where he's out of his baseball cap backwards, holding his skateboard going, you know, what's up kids or something like this and pretending to be a teenager, and I feel like, I'm gonna be that guy one day at some stage. And that's, like, inevitable that my grasp and understanding Well, it's not even the grasp of understanding my memory of being a 30, something, whatever, it's gonna be very different to the 30 something as of today. And I guess that's it. We're companies like Beat Freaks, and also different initiatives that are out there. But staying engaged with that audience group, understanding them getting into the insights, as you say, and I mean, we've framed a lot around that challenges that they face at the moment and how that kind of shapes it without opening question about this negative connotation that Gen Zed can often be taken with the likes of Steve Ballmer, whatnot, kind of painting it in the public discourse. But there is a question around particularly in organisations and talking about that kind of integration piece with those kinds of differentiators things like, you know, free education, homeownership, the size of the states, and why things are going that way. And job security, certainly as well. I mean, the pandemic was awful for so many younger folks who were in hospitality and things like this, and they bore the brunt of it. And things can be so different that differences between individuals can be so different in terms of kind of generational divide. So from an employer's perspective, what kind of advice would you offer in terms of how you reconcile those differences, that disparity between Baby Boomer generation, if you have them in your workforce, I'm sure you've got an interesting stat about how many generations are in the workforce now. But from the baby boomers right the way through to the millennials, and the Gen Xers, they're all very different types of folks who have gone through very different kinds of lives. What kind of advice would you give to employees who have to try and reconcile and bring them together?

Jen Swain  

I wish I had a magic bullet for that particular challenge. But you know, I think the quick answer is there's no simple way of doing that. I'm an elder millennial myself, and I very much relate to that sort of what was the path that was set by I guess the Gen Xers and the boomers in terms of you know, you climb the ladder, as you climb the ladder, that success kind of comes to you and along the way, maybe you'll be able to buy a house maybe you'll be able to have a family you know Those types of things, those kind of milestones for me and my generation were very clear. And the way to get there was almost kind of quite scripted for us in some respects, I think the key difference is that and this goes against a lot of the kind of negative connotation stuff you're talking about with Gen Z. But what I have seen from them as a generation of people I work with every day is that they are so self starting, that they are really able to kind of get that momentum for themselves, you know, it's not like they need a path to follow. The amazing talent that they have means that they're probably thinking about holding down one, two or three different jobs in order to achieve their life goals. And actually, I think their life goals are on the shift to you know, whether that be homeownership, or whether that be how they think about relationships, how they think about connection with other human beings, you know, I do genuinely think that their life goals are changing and shifting, I think in terms of the reconciling piece, they're crafting their own way to an extent, which is why I come back to that point of, you know, as employers, I think it's on us a little bit to kind of just support them and platform them to achieve what they want to achieve. And this kind of magic word that we're talking about a lot, in terms of the research we're doing around the future of work is all about flexibility. And I really feel like that's the key being a supportive employee that gives flexibility for your talented people to go off and do what they need to do, but still be grounded in some of the security that you can offer them to, I think that's really powerful.

Yiuwin Tsang  

Definitely. And you make it sound so lovely, as well, just, you know, that idea of it. We often talk about employee engagement and how there's a bit of discretionary productivity that you unlock, if you have that relationship, that kind of trust between employer or employee where they go the extra mile, whether dig extra deep, where they'll stick with you through the hard times as well as the good times and things like this. And that isn't all the connection to financial renumeration is incredibly weak in that context, you know, it's effectively who will pay them more. So you can't use money. And even now in with the trouble that's coming down the line with the cost of living crisis and things like this, it has to be something more than that. And coming back to flexibility, if you look at where the where the where we were just talking about video calls and things like this, and how the inclusivity people who weren't so comfortable being in the office who may be a little bit more introverted people that wanted to work flexible hours, one of our team members, their brothers moving over to Brazil, and shout out to her brothers moving out to Brazil and then flying out to Brazil or something like nine hours or something. And then it's another like four or five hours on the bus or something from the airport to this, like amazing house that they got. And to go that far, you can't just go there for a week, you know, or whatever it might be and bless her, she said, Look, would it be okay, if I did some work whilst I was out there, which meant that selfishly, not selfishly, she doesn't use a ball of a holiday in one go. But also, the big thing for her was that she didn't leave the rest of us kind of like scrambling around having to cover this stuff while she was away. And I was just like, that's lovely. And you know, and that is, as you say, it's about having that flexibility. And it's also you mentioned it before, it's how they evaluate their lives and how they see success. And I think you're right, I'm on the same boat as you, I was on the same journey as you like, you got to go out, get an education, get a well respected job and buy a house, have a family settle down and off you go kind of like you know, rubber stamp kind of like life plans, as it were. And then you speak to other people and that dues kind of sit in or as well as people who do have that, well, you know, possibly going to a bit of a digital nomad going to do this gonna do the other. And as you say, it's very hard to kind of reconcile that kind of very prescriptive life journey of which, you know, millennials, perhaps and the boomers kind of will let down and the journey first gen Zed onwards is perhaps a little bit less rigid.

Jen Swain  

Yeah, I would absolutely agree. I think there's a couple of points that I'd love to kind of come back to that you've made there. I think the one thing is about this approach is, I think it's quite challenging to scale it. Because a lot of this trust, a lot of this engagement piece is developed based on relationships. And I've had the privilege of working in kind of quite a people focused role previously. And I've brought a lot of that into how I kind of lead Beat Freaks, but I think investing in one to one relationships with people who work around you, when you're in charge of teams, when you're kind of a line manager to somebody I think is so worthwhile, you know, we're out of that transactional. Have you done what I asked for, you know, we're talking about developing deeper human connections, I think that's where you kind of unlock that trust and also give and take in terms of, you know, somebody willing to go to Brazil and still be opening their laptop and getting online. And I think the other piece here, which is super interesting to me, and I think is a bit of a personal prediction for the future in terms of the world of work in general. You know, if you think back to industrial revolution times, and then you think about where we've come to from there, particularly post pandemic, particularly, you mentioned video calls, and we were just having a moment about eight hour days, video calls back to back and how the effect that has on the brain. I personally believe we need to shift back to a place where we're giving ourselves more time in the real world. Obviously, the metaverse is coming down the tracks apparently and you know whether people do fully engage with that or not yet to be seen, but I do believe that we are asking a lot of people to spend so much time staring at screens. And you know, I think part of what we're going to see and I personally do you hope for is that kind of bringing a bit of adventure and stuff back into life for people because work is a really important part of all of our lives, I'm sure but we also need to be living our lives and making the most of them while we have them. Really

Yiuwin Tsang  

Definitely, definitely moved on to kind of go all kind of like deep into this and philosophical but I always think I always think of a Guardian article of ages ago about palliative nurse, she used to obviously give end of life care, and she would speak to their patients and their family members and stuff. She always that, you know, all the people that she helped that she looked after, not one of them said, I wish I worked harder. You know, I wish I'd spent more time on this work kind of business all of them would have, you know, wish to spend more time with family with friends, having fun, smiling, laughing, and things like that. So it does make you think and reflect like, you know, these journeys we've been on, get a proper job, work nine to five, get a pension, buy a house, have a family, all this kind of stuff. And obviously I have families lovely, but killer missus is this. But it does make you think like the work and that whole kind of relationship with work and how we used to have it or how I've had it is it so good if you compare to the relationship to Gen Zed has with work. And as you say, if you get that connection, right, and I agree with you, actually, I think it will be more human, we kind of go on this first full kind of full circle thing. And it's super interesting. I don't want to get lost down the rabbit hole. But this whole idea of the Industrial Revolution and how work work houses working week and things, this was all about boosting productivity. It was all about, you know, getting us out of the wars that we face, his family and working conditions, low life expectancy and things like this. And it feels like we've gotten to that point where we don't need those kinds of conditions anymore. There's all the more reason for us to look at us as humans as people and satisfaction when you get out of our lives and how we do it. So yeah, maybe Gen Z i do have a lot to teach us is the answer to this right.

Jen Swain  

I converted you already.

Yiuwin Tsang  

Thank you so much, Jen Swain from Beatfreaks for taking the time to interview and sharing your advice, insights and experience. Thank you for joining us for this week's Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way to do business. Join us next time for more interesting discussion on how businesses can bring about change, helping communities, building a fairer society and safeguarding the planet. You can also join in the discussion at www.beautifulbusiness.uk