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Writer's pictureRoger Courville, CSP

What's different about Gen Z? And now what? | Alayna Thomas, MS, PHR

Are you hiring people using an out of date set of hiring guidelines?


And when it comes to Gen Z – those about 27 and under – they’re shaking things up and demanding organizational change, so now what?


In this episode of #ThoughtLeaderConversations, V2's Roger Courville, CSP sits down with Alayna Thomas, MS, PHR, Retention Strategist at Magnet Culture. Alayna's an instructor at University of Texas, Dallas and boasts a beyond-her-years as a GenZer herself (including experience as an HR Director). Despite her youth, Alayna's at the forefront of industry trends and has a keen sense of being able to help corporate executives to lead well in a workplace full of Gen Z energy.


As you listen in to this conversation, you will:


  • Understand why generational labels are a starting point for conversation, not a box to put people in

  • Hear how to avoid stereotypes by focusing on the unique preferences and needs of individual team members

  • Discover how to create an engaging and authentic workplace where Gen Z feels heard and valued

  • Learn the importance of transparency and clarity when addressing assumptions about younger employees

  • Explore why Gen Z craves flexible work environments and how this affects retention strategies

  • Gain insights into bridging generational gaps by fostering curiosity and open communication

  • Find out how to leverage Gen Z’s resourcefulness and adaptability in technology-driven roles

  • Discover methods to set clear expectations while empowering younger employees with meaningful responsibilities

  • Hear how providing mentorship and access to leadership can boost trust and engagement among Gen Z hires

  • See why asking for direct feedback from Gen Z employees is crucial for a thriving and inclusive workplace





Sponsor: V2, LLC, expert virtual and hybrid event production, www.VirtualVenues.com  

Host: Roger Courville, CSP, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerc/   

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UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT

 

[00:00:00] Roger Courville, CSP: Are you hiring people? Maybe marketers using an out of date set of hiring guidelines? And when it comes to Gen Z, those 27 and under or so right about now, they're shaking things up and demanding organizational change. So now what? Welcome to what's different about Gen Z and now what? My name is Roger Courville and welcome to another episode of Thought Leader Conversations sponsored by the crew here at Virtual Venues, where you can instantly scale your virtual and event planning.

A hybrid event production team with a crew that will help you focus on something other than tech and logistics, but we're not here to talk about us. And I'm seriously excited to welcome Elena Thomas has a master's in management, has credentials in human resources, the PHR, professional and human resources, and serves by day as a retention strategist at an organization called.

magnet culture that helps organizations reduce unnecessary employee turnover. By night is an instructor at university of Texas, Dallas, and is highly credentialed and wise behind her years. Gen Z or herself already has experience as an HR director and loves being at the forefront of industry trends and providing the most effective turnover solutions to equip managers and leaders.

Maybe like you to become retention champions. Welcome, Alaina. Glad you're here. Tell us a little more about who you are and what you do. 

[00:01:27] Alayna Thomas, PHR: Yeah. Thanks for the intro. The only thing I would add with that is that I'm on a team that does retention work, but I bring this Gen Z flare to everything because it's not so well kept secret that I am Gen Z.

I mean, it was in my intro, but I like to bring this idea and this. Persona that there can be a professional Gen Z that you talk to. It's not just the young person that you know You can talk to these individuals and actually be surprised and I think it's all about getting past That initial age barrier as we talk to individuals But I'll also add that you did mention I teach at the University of Texas at Dallas And I love that.

I am a Gen Z in the front of the room of all other Gen Z's in the classroom. I think I had three students who are not Gen Z over my last three semesters. So it's really cool to get to bring their insights into the conversation today too. 

[00:02:28] Roger Courville, CSP: I love it. I imagine many leaders, if not marketing leaders, which is our audience here, uh, imagine a lot of leaders both kind of get it and they don't get it when it comes to generations in the workplace.

Let's start there. How are generational buckets or designations helpful? And maybe where is it? 

[00:02:50] Alayna Thomas, PHR: I think where it can be not so helpful, uh, kind of like with driving, if you think that you're a really good driver and then you just live life thinking that you're a really good driver, you never have to adjust there.

So I think if you think that you understand the generations fully and you leave it there, that's not a great starting point. I like to talk about the general, generational buckets are a little bit more of a starting point to the conversation. It's a trend. And y'all marketing people out there love a good trend.

I love a good trend. And one of those that you are seeing everywhere is that we have four generations in the workplace together right now. And Roger, it's not necessarily unique, but we have a little bit more of the ability to broadcast this message than maybe it was when there were four generations previously, and the world has shifted a bit.

So, one other area that generations can be really helpful. Is knowing what they are. And there are so many different groups that talk about generations and I like to look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There are so many. That's another area. This can get confusing, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics, if you hear me talk numbers today or generations, I'm going off of their cutoff birth years.

[00:04:10] Roger Courville, CSP: Yeah. When, uh, well, you and I were talking offline here just before we pushed the record button and when the last time I did a, uh. a research project on generations, which was, I don't know, 13 years ago. Even the academic literature didn't agree on exactly where the cutoffs were. So maybe we start there with regard to how you're thinking about it.

Define those four generations and give kind of the ranges that you, that you use. 

[00:04:35] Alayna Thomas, PHR: Yeah, absolutely. And I don't want to get my numbers wrong. So let me just look over here at my notes really quick. Cause I don't want someone saying, okay, you said Bureau of Labor Statistics, but those aren't the right years.

Totally hear you. So, our oldest generation in the workplace is Baby Boomers. They were born 1946 to 1964, and if you do the math, that means 60 to 78 years old right now in 2024. Next is Gen X, born 1965 to 1980. Those are ages 44 to 59. We have Millennials. Is that you? 

[00:05:10] Roger Courville, CSP: I didn't want to 

[00:05:11] Alayna Thomas, PHR: ask in case you didn't want to share.

Um, then we've got millennials 1981 to 1996. Millennials are not the young chicks they once were, the young spring chicks as I heard my boss say. She's a millennial so I took that from her. They're age 28 to 43. That's a huge range and quick side note there is that I know a lot of times people don't want To be grouped with don't, you know, if you're 43, do not lump me in with the 28 year olds, but y'all don't have it as bad as I do because I'm Gen Z.

Age range, uh, 12 to 27, born 1997 to 2012. And I don't want to be lumped in with the 12 year olds. So this is just another, uh, opportunity to say this is where the generational buckets can hurt. If we use it as, great, you're in that bucket, here are your characteristics. I think it's helpful to say, What is changing?

Why do we have these cut off years? Usually there's a big societal shift that's happening. Um, Bureau of Labor Statistics is going to be U. S. based. Um, but you can see different generations in different countries, how they might have governing bodies share that as well. 

[00:06:29] Roger Courville, CSP: So let's talk about one of the risks when we think generations.

Which would be stereotyping. How do you address that when you're consulting and speaking with clients? 

[00:06:42] Alayna Thomas, PHR: I always like to ask the follow up question. So, if you've got an assumption, you probably have it for a reason. Someone has proved you right in that. So I usually like to ask, Great, where is that coming from?

And we talked about this just before, one of the biggest stereotypes is you take an older generation, I'm putting that in quotes because old and young is subjective terminology, but older generations of the baby boomers in Gen X, must not be so great with technology, but our younger generations, Millennial and Gen Z, must be.

And Roger, you're proving me wrong right now. If I go off of that, you are leading here a virtual conversation. This is your whole business. This is what you are great at. And so what I like to say is, okay, is it possible that that might not be true? Whatever that stereotype is. But then, We might have really good evidence to say, well, this is a stereotype because these five people in my life, these 15 employees I've had, these 20 whatever, right, they've proven this.

Okay, so how did we get here? So if that is the case, what is the root behind that behavior? And that's really what I like to have the conversation around. 

[00:07:55] Roger Courville, CSP: I like that. I think this is one of the comments that I would sometimes make when I was, when I, this would work into conversations of some of my own research and consulting was being careful to delineate between the general and the particular.

A generality is okay. Broadly speaking, Gen Xers are this sandwich generation between the boomers and the, and the, and broadly speaking, and this is the power of say generational research, that generality. is true for a certain set of reasons. I'm sure we'll get more into that, but the risk is, is taking the generality and applying it to an individual, applying it to the particular, right?

I mean, if I said, Hey, um, all male professional golfers are, that might be a true statement, but walking up to one of them and, and, and assuming to me, assuming that that's part of their identity or who, who they are. To me is like, uh, risks stereotyping, right? We do that with, with races. We do that with, um, genders.

We do that with all kinds of things. So, 

[00:09:07] Alayna Thomas, PHR: well, and then, you know, just to build off of that is don't, we want the chance to get to share who we are with people, right? You are going to be, if you want to see someone get offended quickly, you tell them who they are, right? So don't tell anyone. Now here's, I think, a little bit of the difference here.

Gen Z. And I am guilty of this. If you come up and tell me who I am, I have more language and resources around to defend back and to use my voice because I was raised and other people might not have been raised this way but me and many of my peers were raised that we have a voice. And this was very different than our parents and our grandparents who were told that don't speak unless spoken to, and when you're at work, authority is the person at the top.

Now, I can talk to anyone, right? Because I can Teams message the CEO, or I can Teams message the director of marketing, right? And so it's just a little bit different. We see, okay, this is how things have shifted a bit. But to get back to the, I think where this generalization is even. Let me say words helpful just to say that again as a manager and as a leader you are tasked with being all things to all people.

with the constraints that you cannot be all things to all people. And so, yeah, you've got a bucket in some way to say, okay, if I, if I work with this group of employees, here's a way that I could better approach and communicate and adjust everything. And this group may be different. Where I'm going to challenge, and what I like to challenge is, if you're doing that off of an assumption that you've not yet Validated with people than it could be doing more hurt than help in that situation.

[00:10:59] Roger Courville, CSP: Just outta curiosity, uh, I'll ask this question kind of based on an analogy. So as a professional speaker, um, I try to learn about my audience, but I can't necessarily ask every individual. You know, I can't, I can't give them all a psychometric test going. Oh, okay. You know, 38 percent of my audience is really more of the analytical types who want the statistics, some, you know, some other percentage or the creatives who want me to tell more stories.

So I have to, I have to make a certain set of assumptions going in. If a leader does that with regard to going, okay, I'm going to be given an all hands meeting to my division and there's, you know, 400 people in my division on this, on this internal all hands meeting, is it safe to kind of look out and make some reasonable assumptions so that you can attempt to be more relevant since you can't ask everybody individually there?

who they are? 

[00:11:55] Alayna Thomas, PHR: I think so. I think you just have to say what the assumption is. So I, I really think that is crucial for this younger workforce is saying we want authenticity and transparency. So this is hard because for a long time it was, Don't let people see behind the curtain or the veil or whatever word is being used and now we hear break the glass ceiling and, you know, break that and transparency and pay transparency.

Oh my gosh, that's a whole other conversation. And I think by leading with, here are, here's what I know of the room or here are some of my assumptions. could be really helpful as, as a leading. Let's address the elephant in the room. Otherwise, everyone's going to be thinking about it and messaging about it on the side.

The speaker doesn't know what they're talking about. They think, right, they can text each other. Um, but if that approach isn't so appealing to a leader, I might say instead at the end or at the beginning, provide opportunities for people to challenge, ask questions in a format that works for you. Cause if you've got a back to back day of meetings.

You don't have time for someone to hold you after the meeting and ask you questions. But you could say, I acknowledge that what I said today might not work with everyone in the room, or you might have some unique scenarios that you want to talk through. Here's the best way to get a hold of me in that.

And I have I actually recently heard, I'll tell you from my dad, he just had a, um, a meeting where he was available to all the newest Gen Z hires at his work. And he is pretty high up in his company. And one of the biggest pieces of feedback from the employee survey, which, you know, we love data, right? One of the pieces of feedback is I want more access to my senior leaders.

And he thought, okay, I've got an hour, right? But I hear that they need more access, and so he made himself available. And he thought that afterwards, it went horribly. He was like, I got grilled. I mean, I felt like I wasn't prepared. I don't think I said the things they wanted to hear. And then the feedback that he got from that was this boosted my trust in my senior leader.

I feel like I know what direction we're headed and I can get on board with it. And third, I feel that my voice was heard. And when people feel that their voice isn't heard, that's where we have conflict or turnover. I really think are those two things that we see. 

[00:14:28] Roger Courville, CSP: So let's drill a little more into Gen Z.

What adjustments or strategies can employers implement? uh, when hiring, uh, how do they make that a successful relationship for the company? Maybe beyond what you just shared? Um, start there. 

[00:14:44] Alayna Thomas, PHR: Yeah. From hiring, I think the biggest mistake that I see is I want to be the most appealing and attractive to Gen Z, but I'm going to go ahead and ask my millennial and Gen X manager what they think is the right approach.

And I think that is, that is functionally correct. Right? That's how we've always done hiring. We're going to go, who is the expert in the room? It's the person who's hired the most people. We're going to ask their feedback. Great. But, I would be very curious to hear, people who are listening to this, what your turnover and your tenure looks like for your Gen Z hires.

Is it that they're only staying two years or three years? Or are we talking months? Because I think what that indicates to me is that we tried so hard to be so attractive to them, Um, that we promised the world, and we didn't give a realistic job preview, and we didn't adjust the role. We said what we hoped the role would be, but in reality we're still doing things the way that they've always been done, because that's what we told them, that we want their opinion, and they can help us change the workplace.

And so from a hiring perspective, Strategy here is if you're trying to attract Gen Z, talk to Gen Z about what is attractive to them. And don't make your other employees feel that their voices and their expertise aren't important, because they do have more experience hiring. They don't want to jump through every hoop to make this the perfect job for one person.

It has to work for the whole business. And I think it's, it's the matter of bridging those two and being aware that you might have some differing opinions and preferences from the hirer and the hiree here and being able to have that conversation. So great, here's the data that we have from Gen Z. Great, here's the data that we have from the hiring manager.

And especially for our marketers in between or recruiters or anyone that's working on that employer brand out the door. How do we make sure that both of those messages meet and provide a realistic view? 

[00:17:03] Roger Courville, CSP: Just out of curiosity, particularly since you've accomplished a good bit here in your life already, uh, have you encountered any challenges related to age discrimination?

And if so, how did you overcome them? 

[00:17:17] Alayna Thomas, PHR: Yeah, I think right now is the first time that my job makes my age a credibility. Let me, let me reword that. This is the first time that my age has added to my credibility in a job because I get to say, without hiding it, what my age is. And both in the classroom setting, I am the youngest professor that many of my students have ever had.

And at first, they look at me, they, they're kind of staring me down. Does, does this person know what she's talking about? And by the end of this semester, they're saying that what I brought was relatable and was up to date. I'm often updating my transcript. presentations and my slides the week before with the most recent information, right?

All of that. Now, I've always done that, but the perception that I couldn't stay up to date with trends and the perception that I didn't know what I was talking about and didn't have any experience got in the way of me being able to have that conversation and share that big idea with someone. And so with Magnet Culture, I get to speak.

as Gen Z, about Gen Z, and I get to say I do not have as much experience as all of you here in the room, but what I do have is experience as Gen Z. Can we start there? And I find that it leads to the best conversations. I have people who pull me aside and say, okay, but let me tell you the way that it used to be.

And I say, great, let me learn because I wasn't around. I don't know. So it's this curiosity, but from an age discrimination perspective, I think some of the phrases that are meant to be They're not meant to be hurtful, but have been hurtful are the, the phrase and then the action that, Oh my gosh, you remind me of my daughter.

You're young enough to be my daughter. Um, okay, well, clearly you don't know what you're talking about. You must not blank. And I think we do that to everyone in the workplace. I don't think it's just me. This is me experiencing what I believe to be looked down on because I'm younger, but Roger, I've looked down on people because they're older.

I'm not immune here, right? I jump to that assumption and I say, Oh, well, you all, you, you must think that this is the way it's always been done and do that. And I've, I've taken a step back and say, no, that's not true. I'm assuming that, but I need to ask them, you know, why are you so interested in keeping this process around or keeping this thing alive?

Maybe it's because they built it and this is so important to them. And I know that if I built something, I would, I would have some hesitancy, someone coming in who I perceive to not know a whole lot. questioning this thing that I've built and the way that we've always done it. Um, and so I think that opportunity there to move past that, that looking down on is in a workplace.

How can we think a little bit more egalitarian from every side? So we all are employees moving this proverbial bike in the same direction and we're all part of the wheels and the gears instead of you're the reason why this bike broke, you're the reason why this isn't working and Just trying to move away from that a little bit.

[00:20:39] Roger Courville, CSP: Let's talk about marketers with regard to the topic that we were talking about off camera. So, uh, just a little bit of a setup for those of you that are listening. I used to follow this guy who tracked marketing technology, and each year would put logos in different categories on a slide. Uh, with regard to companies who had software applications where the target market for the software application was Senior, senior marketers and marketing departments.

Well, over the years, it got to be north of 3, 500 logos and he, he had them all shrunk down really tiny. And one of the things that, and the reason that relates to me and one of the reasons I was talking to, with Elena about it, because I think it really relates to this discussion about, uh, Gen Z is because one of the things, you know, my background being training trainers, People learn differently, not just in terms of, you know, learning preferences, but they relate to the process differently.

And this is a, this is a very large generalization, but for traditionalists and boomers and maybe even a lot of Xers, the pattern of learning was you go learn it. and then you go apply it. Right? I had to go to school. I had to learn this thing. And now I and uh, it's almost like the division between digital natives and, and, and digital immigrants, right?

Some people are really comfortable just jumping in and learning as they go and just pushing buttons. I remember trying to help my grandma use her windows, you know, Windows computer and, She was wanting a training course before she even opened the thing. I'm like, grandma, just start pushing buttons. You can't, you can't, you can't mess it up.

And there's an undo button. What? And so it was just a, that's a personal example in a, in a context. But I know that Gen Z is kind of unique, even maybe relative to Millennials with regard to how they learn and how they get in and might explore technology, given the technology is part of every marketing department.

What's, uh, what's different about Gen Z in this case? 

[00:22:44] Alayna Thomas, PHR: Yeah, from a work perspective, Gen Z only knows a work world with smartphones. So Millennials, you saw that wide range, I told you 28 to 43. So you have some older Millennials who did know a work world without smartphones. And now you've got Gen Z, And I have to tell you, I think that I only scratched the surface with technology and education at my age and I've got two younger siblings and they know tremendously more than I do and are faster than I am so I already get a bit of that, that, Oh, okay, there's a little bit of difference here between how we learned.

I'll say from, from a curiosity perspective, I'd like to believe that everyone's curious to some extent about certain things. And I have seen such a curiosity in Gen Z to acquire skills that they need. So if, if I tell, I had a supervisee and I told her, Hey, I need you to learn our HRIS. I need you to learn this so that you can do payroll.

She learned it in a week and it took me three weeks of reading the manual and doing this and she said, Oh, I attended this training course. I follow their newsletter now on LinkedIn and I watch 15 YouTube videos. I think I'm ready to go. And I think it's this, again, I think I talked about resourcefulness earlier.

It's like this resourcefulness and then from the, you know, College student perspective. I can't speak to a high schooler that just goes right into the workplace with a specific example. So if you are hiring college educated individuals, their resumes, are looking pretty different than they used to look.

The students that I've helped and mentored through this, my marketing students especially, the top of their resume is like five lines of technology that they know. And it is things from HRIS and full on CRM to Canva. And I have the certification in this specific thing. I know how to make content for social media and they know marketing at so many different levels.

So if you don't see the skill that you're looking for on the resume, I would really encourage you, especially if you're struggling to find talent, to just ask them. If they would be willing to learn that before their first day, and I bet you that that young hire will say yes, because there's this resourcefulness and this ability to learn, are there any tools, Roger, that you have had to learn now that you wish you could have learned earlier in your career?

[00:25:29] Roger Courville, CSP: You know, I ended up in technology really early. um, in part because, uh, my first career was as a musician. And, um, 

[00:25:41] Alayna Thomas, PHR: That makes sense with your background. 

[00:25:42] Roger Courville, CSP: Yeah. Well, with, if you're just, I got a couple of guitars hanging on the wall behind me. Yeah. So I was going to pursue my fame and fortune as a songwriter.

The very earliest music software was on the Mac, which is this way, how I ended up a Mac user as opposed to a PC user. And, um,

to apply that in this particular context, Uh, with regard to, to marketing to me, if there is a,

I'm going to kind of skirt your question and get back to you and it relates to actually what we were talking about before we, before we hopped on a traditional, traditional past, a traditional kind of like a job description would ask for, if it, if it was necessary for the job would ask for something at a specific time, You know, something specific like salesforce.

com CRM and the, to me, that curiosity that you were just talking about with Gen Z is like, Oh yeah, no, I didn't, I've never used salesforce. com, but I've used notion and I've used, I can jump in and learn it in a week because I can watch. YouTube videos and stuff. How do you think about even putting together a job description so that when they create their resume, it doesn't get screened out by the auto HRS system, right?

Because I mean, how many resumes get looked at for the first time by a human being depends on the size of the company in the industry, et cetera, right? There's a reason why I mean, so if you're looking for salesforce. com and what I want to communicate is no, but I've got this other transferable experience and I know I could jump in and do it like you're the, the HRS story you shared, how do you even think about maybe putting a job description together differently so that somebody like Gen Z can go, ah, here's no, not that, but I do have the transferable skill.

I can do this. 

[00:27:40] Alayna Thomas, PHR: Yeah, my favorite thing about job descriptions at the top when it's sounds conversational and like a pitch to the applicant, because y'all might think that they should be grateful to have a job like you should be grateful to work here. But honestly, that's not the first thought that I have.

The first thought is, I just hope that I can get an interview here. And so I love that. I hope that I can get an interview here. If somewhere else offers me more money, then I'm gonna go work there, right? It's a little bit one sided maybe for someone just joining the workforce, but I love those that say, are you a curious person?

Do you like to do this? Do you like to grow? Do you like all these questions? This is gonna be the great, you know, the best place for you. And if you have a statement like that as an organization on your job description, then what comes after that has to match that initial statement. So if you're saying that you want someone who's ready to learn and can move quickly, give your applicant a chance to show that they are ready to learn a new skill and that they can move quickly, because chances are they can learn Salesforce, at least the basic functions, in one week if you give them the time.

And then I also think, for anyone here who's heavily involved in ATS, Applicant Tracking Systems, there's those screen out questions, That are just yes or no. Do you have Salesforce, Salesforce experience or do you not? And it's hard because I have students ask me, Professor, how should I answer this question?

Because I don't write this moment, but I can learn it by the time they read my application. So what do you do here? So could you maybe say instead, rethink your dropdown, rethink the system that you already use? Yes, I am absolutely proficient. I have worked with this for over a year. I would like to learn this skill and I have transferable skills, but not exactly in this area, or no, I'll learn it when I get there.

Because what do you really care about? You probably care about your applicant being willing to learn and being willing to adapt and having attention to detail and all these different things. And so, Think bigger picture about what you're looking for and not just what you're going to write down as a bullet point because it's going to get harder and harder to find the quality talent that you want.

If you're thinking in this yes or no, yes or no, I think just expand that a bit to leave some more gray area. 

[00:30:05] Roger Courville, CSP: We've been talking about hiring. Let's talk about retention. Help me even ask you the right question. What question should I even ask you if I'm thinking, Oh, maybe I need to get better at retention because we've been turning over Gen Z ers.

[00:30:20] Alayna Thomas, PHR: Well, it's a good question on what question you should ask me on retention. There's so many that I could answer here. I think the question to ask is why do you care about retaining Gen Z? Why should companies care about retaining Gen Z? Because on one side, it seems like a lot of work to have to adapt and adjust and do everything differently than we've always done it with this vocal, selfish, Gen Z, higher, whatever you're thinking, leader.

But this is the way that the workforce is moving. We have, and I have to double check my numbers on this, but we have Sorry, I don't want to say the wrong thing. Let me just, let me just rephrase. We have many 

[00:31:11] Roger Courville, CSP: Rephrase, go ahead. 

[00:31:14] Alayna Thomas, PHR: We have many baby boomers turning 65 every day. And so, where's your pipeline here?

Some of it is keep people longer. through retirement. I think that's wonderful. I think people should be able to work as long as they want to, but for the love of God, if someone wants to retire, let them retire and don't make them feel bad about it. They've worked an incredible career, so you have to be thinking succession planning.

And who is your next bit of talent? Yeah, you can try to tap an unworking Gen X and Millennial population, but your next bit of talent is Gen Z. And y'all, right after them, I think the phrase that we're using, the new name is Gen Alpha. And so if you're thinking that we're still operating in a workplace that mainly benefits the preferences of a Baby Boomer or Gen Xer, You're already behind because you, what about the Millennials, and then you're going to be even more behind if you're not thinking about your Gen Z and your Gen Alpha.

So this is the future whether you want it to be or not, and I think some of the things that we've talked about here are one, you've got to check that assumption. And I have already said, I am not perfect at this, I have already said 15 assumptions that I did not give the disclaimer for, right? So go back through, re watch this, and call me out on all of my assumptions here, because I need to go check them.

But, I'm speaking from the 12 years of work that Magnet Culture's done, and our clients, and so I am building some data trends. So I think that's one piece is that you have to retain them and you have to care about hiring because that's your pipeline for talent. And then the other side is this is how you can be more competitive than your competitors.

How you be competitive in the marketplace because you can have fresh eyes and you can bring in new perspectives. And You can tap into one of the most curious, quick to learn groups of people that I have ever seen, um, when it comes to this technology. Um, and then I think there's, there's a lot of opportunity there to have some more conversations in the workplace too of, Let's make sure that, you'll hear me say this a lot, but just that egalitarian, let's make sure that everyone feels valued, because it might be that this individual is really great at learning this specific technology quickly, but what about when we move to email?

That is a big technology that had to be adjusted and understood, right? So I want to make sure everyone feels heard in what I'm saying right now. Um, but what else? What else does that bring up for you, Roger? I was just thinking. It's kind of processing out loud here about all these things I think about Gen Z and retention.

[00:34:04] Roger Courville, CSP: Well, no, well, one of the things that you mentioned earlier was the experience that your dad had, right? Senior executive and Gen Z wanting and needing to feel heard and seen and, and, and have the ability to give feedback and what great results he had just by sitting down for an hour. and feeling, you know, an all, all come, come one, come all kind of questioning session.

Are there other mechanisms by which you could, that you can put in place that, that are part of my, what might help Gen Z feel seen, heard, et cetera, that they, that might be a little more accessible than just how frequently a senior leader can give them an hour. 

[00:34:50] Alayna Thomas, PHR: Absolutely. Oh, there's so many different ones.

And one of them is you've heard me talk about curiosity and wanting to learn new skills, training. If that doesn't, if it doesn't cost too much money to you, because I know people are thinking, well, money and time, money and time, we don't have enough money and time, right? But do you have something already that someone had built before that you really want to make sure that knowledge isn't lost when they leave?

Could your, one of your younger hires see that? Sit down with someone higher up in the company might not be the most senior executive, but what about the individual who's been here for 30 years and just having, I think that's where we hear a lot about mentorship, right? And and allowing that your interns, if you're hiring a college intern, is majority going to be Gen Z right now.

How do you make sure that your youngest new hire. I'm saying new hire because I assume you've hired them in the last five years. You probably didn't have someone that you hired at 16, I hope not. Uh, right? But how do you let them mentor to the next person coming in? So it doesn't have to be your time that you give up, but give them permission to use their time in a way that's really meaningful.

Um, And that benefits the company. So if, if I haven't said it already, make sure that you hear that I said it. This all has to benefit the organization too. But I really believe that retention benefits the organization. And I really believe that meaningful work benefits the quality that you put out and all of those things.

So I really do think these are all intertwined. Um, and one more I would say is, Kind of this, this double piece of guidance and support. So kind of like if anyone's looking kind of like the guidance up top, like the umbrella and support underneath. I think that we need to be ready to guide and give clear instructions where we have them, and then to be able to empower in a couple areas and say, Hey, You run with that.

You might be thinking, I'm gonna let them run with that because that's lower stakes and y'all, that's fine. You do what you have to do, but the feeling there is, I'm home at the dinner table talking to my partner and saying, I just got to do the coolest thing at work today. My boss let me run this from beginning to end, right?

And that's experience and then that's something that Later down the road, I can say, Oh yeah, I was, I helped on that project earlier. So I understand how that impacts other people and other things. So I just think there's so many opportunities here and I could go on and on. I know I'm giving more general, but I think take what I'm saying and apply it to if you've got a very specific thing, where are you short on time?

And how can you get any employee who's longing for more? value, you know, and more input plugged into that specific thing. 

[00:37:48] Roger Courville, CSP: You know, as you were talking, one of the things that came to mind for me was the, the nature of online asynchronous collaboration, right? Like Microsoft Teams or Slack or something like that.

So like our little company's got a dozen people and we technically have an office in Portland, Oregon, but only three people go into the office and we get people scattered around the country and we live in Slack. Right. Celebrating birthdays there and there's a sense of connectedness that, uh, that provides a bit of community and you could easily in teams or slack or something like that also provide places where feedback could be given or you're, you're posting something in a way that others can see it.

Meaning the, I think you could configure that in a way that would, would help people probably be very comfortable with online, you know, like that. I, 

[00:38:44] Alayna Thomas, PHR: if I can add something that made me think of one of the organizations that I worked for had over 120, 000 employees. And so many of them being hourly frontline workers.

So those who, they don't live at work. This isn't every single, this is a shift during the week. And so how do we communicate? And so we had a whole, this team dedicated to internal communications. I'm sure many of you have that as well. And if you're a small company, then that falls under the responsibility of one person rather than 15, right?

And one of the things that they did that caused a lot of heart, uh, not heartache, a lot of pain points for HR, Was their open comment policy, um, maybe not policy, but the people were allowed to comment on anything on Slack, on the intranet, all of that. And we put that little HR policy, you know, put your HR hat on, that it said, when you post, you are, You know, saying that you are in compliance with these guidelines because this could impact your employment.

But a lot of times it still met the guidelines, but it wasn't necessarily creating the culture that we wanted. So we asked our head of communications. Why can't we just take this down? Why can't we just take this down? And I'm even saying this as someone who loves to give feedback, but I'm seeing this as, we can't do, we can't make changes based on all this feedback, right?

And she said, what we have found, is when we don't have this open, when people can't comment internally, they comment externally. And so we know this causes some headaches for us, but this is the only way that we can reduce all of that external out of our control. And her team was on the Reddit pages. Her team was on Facebook.

Her team was everywhere in these groups, hearing what employees had to say outside of work. And they saw the opportunity to build trust and to really engage employees by bringing that conversation into work. And I, yes, I do think there are some challenges there, but if a company with 120, 000 people could do it and lose very few employees because of it, I think it's something to try out in other organizations too.

[00:41:05] Roger Courville, CSP: Seems like a killer learning opportunity. I mean, because particularly now that, um, I'm a heavy AI user and particularly now that, um, these tools are all beginning to implement. I mean, they're all searchable, right? I mean, all when you, when you type something into slack that that becomes something you can search and I can see what, what Elena posted two years ago, but now you can do analysis.

With AI, meaning you could, you could ask, you could set up a query that would, that would say what are the, not just what are the most frequent or whatever, but you could, you could investigate that as a data source in terms of better understanding your workforce in a powerful way and a whole lot easier if it was internal as opposed to external.

[00:41:51] Alayna Thomas, PHR: And it's free. And if the question is about time, you just answered it. Pop that sucker into whatever your AI platform of choice is. A lot of times. You know, people, uh, leaders will say, we can't really get employee feedback because we don't have time or money for employee survey. And we don't have the team for that.

We don't have the bandwidth, whatever language you're using. And this is such a great opportunity to get that feedback because here's the thing, you're going to get it, whether or not you ask for it. So same with how I said earlier in the conversation about how can a leader, can a leader make an assumption and speak to an entire room, all hands meeting, and then, with that assumption, right?

Because they don't have time to go talk to each person. Well, that same principle there, where the leader says, here's how I would like to get your feedback, is what we're doing here. So you can say it, it doesn't have to take any prep, you can say it in a meeting, here's how I'd like to get feedback from you, or any pushback that you have, or you can choose not to say that, and know that there are texts and there are private messages going that are all the feedback's being shared with everyone but you.

Right. And that's the worst feeling, when you're the last to find out that there's feedback that was for you that was shared with everyone else. 

[00:43:03] Roger Courville, CSP: Yeah, that just got my brain spinning, because I'm working on my doctorate. One of the things that, that is traditional in, in qualitative research, right, is something like interviews.

And if you interview 20 people and you record it and create a transcript, you could end up with 70, 000 words. And then you go through and code and looking for similarities because Elena said it this way and Roger said it this way, but I realized they were talking about the same thing and we can therefore begin to, you know, have some statistical analysis in a, out of a quantitative bunch of data.

But now you can do all that with AI.

comments and kind of start to see patterns and similarities with regard to those comments. You could, AI could save you an immense amount of time and it takes everybody's stuff into account. I don't know, it'd be beautiful. One final, two final questions here as we, as we wrap up. How does Gen Z, how is Gen Z similar or different to other generations with regard to their desire for workplace flexibility?

[00:44:12] Alayna Thomas, PHR: It's a hot topic question right now, because it's easy to assume that Gen Z doesn't want to work, based on some of the, like, they don't want to come into the office, I think we're hearing a lot of that, but I want to give a little shift, a societal shift here, and Millennials came to work, so 28 to 43, came to work.

They're also known as Gen Y and I like to say Gen W H Y because Millennials were known for asking a lot of questions. Why do we do it that way? Why haven't we done it this way? But Millennials have been in the workplace for a little while and I see an immense patience and dedication to change because They've, they've been there and they've asked these questions over and over.

And so then you've got Gen Z coming into the workplace. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. I finally got the job. It's very competitive market for mid level jobs right now, entry level, uh, for college degreed workers. And I come in, I'm ready to share all my feedback, and I'm not going to ask why. I'm just going to tell you what I think we should do.

I'm not going to take the time to get to know the history because millennials already took care of that, right? They already did all that, right? And I try to set my students up for success and say, please ask the why. Please get to know the history and the way, even if you disagree with it, get to know the way it's always been done.

At least that's what you're perceiving, right? It's always been done this way. Get to know the history because you need that in order to make any influence, meaningful influence. So that's one is I think kind of this patience versus lack of patience there a little bit between Millennial and Gen Z. Um, I think just to make sure I'm not forgetting my, my Gen Xers and my Baby Boomers.

I think there's incredible patience and change there too, but it looked different. Um, and I think There's a lot of that, but you asked me, not about that, but about flexibility, so let me get back to that, which is to say that we had this kind of crazy traumatic thing that happened called a pandemic, and I have to say that I Never worked full time pre pandemic.

I worked 40 hour a week internships, but I never had a full time permanent job. And so, what I expected was not what I got when I joined the workplace. I graduated with my master's in May 2020, and thank goodness the company I was interning with decided to keep me full time, because I had friends who were out of luck.

But for me, The only work experience that I have that's been permanent has been a flexible work arrangement. And actually, I wanted to go into the office, but our office was shut down. I wanted, I was longing for connection and collaboration, and I couldn't have that. But then I learned I actually could.

Like you said, I could have that through Slack and Teams and virtual meetings, and I'm one of the oldest Gen Z, so imagine everyone behind me, what examples they had for the work world, and for the longest time, the message was, we can't do that, right? We don't know that someone's being productive if they're at home.

I mean, all the arguments everyone here has heard. But then there was this big thing that realized we not only can that happen, but we can make that change happen quickly. So why do we need to be patient? Why do we have to ask the way that it's always been? Because that's no longer relevant because you change things immediately when this big life shifting event happened and I think that we are experiencing, I only know this from the professor lens, or I want to share that I know this from the professor lens.

It is a struggle to get some of my students to want to be in the classroom. They're asking, can I stream the class over Microsoft Teams? But Roger, it's not asynchronous. We're back to synchronous learning in the classroom. There are asynchronous classes, but mine isn't that. And so I have to follow the guidelines that my leaders have set to make it synchronous.

And I just can imagine that so many of you, whether you're hiring or you're talking to people who are thinking about leaving, that this flexibility conversation's coming up. And I, if you're having that assumption, right, that it's all these, this is the problem group. They're the ones who don't want to come into the office.

I, I like to, to give that question. Why might that be? And have you considered the, the expectation that they might've had for the, their first job with many jobs going remote and hybrid, right? When they were going to start working. 

[00:48:53] Roger Courville, CSP: Well, you just made me think of something because my specialty was teaching presentation skills, virtual facilitation skills, mostly in learning and development, right?

Training trainers. And I wrote four books and all of that will get you a latte for four bucks or 14 bucks these days. Yeah. The challenge with one of the critical distinctions between synchronous and asynchronous is that If I'm, if I'm, if my in learning environment is a whole bunch of talking at me, then what I've been enculturated into is, why do I need to sit here for two freaking hours as opposed to just 

[00:49:33] Alayna Thomas, PHR: two X that can I get the recording and two X that speed later?

[00:49:37] Roger Courville, CSP: Yep, exactly. So, so the distinction, you know, then became in terms of instructional design. Well, hey, if this is going to be, you know, synchronous, then how do I make it worth their while with that, which is unique, which is somewhat peer to professor, but it's a whole lot peer to peer. And so of course, people started flipping their classrooms and pre recording parts of their lectures and they would go, you know, whatever, but.

Last question and we'll get you on with your day. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. 

[00:50:08] Alayna Thomas, PHR: Thank you, Roger. This has been great. I love the 15 ways that we've taken the conversation. So thanks for that. The 

[00:50:13] Roger Courville, CSP: whole point of just having a virtual cup of coffee 

[00:50:14] Alayna Thomas, PHR: and 

[00:50:16] Roger Courville, CSP: doing it. Where's this going? Gen Z's are going to be five years old or five years from now.

Are there any particular changes you see coming that we should be keeping our eye on? 

[00:50:28] Alayna Thomas, PHR: I could talk about this for a long time, keep it succinct, is that Gen Z are in this emerging adulthood stage of life right now where their prefrontal, prefrontal cortex is still developing. So I don't say that to talk down to, but to say that we are, they are still learning who they are.

And we are still learning who they are in the workplace. Emerging adulthood is age 18 to 26 for, for those who are curious about that, right? So with this generation being 12 to 27, hello! We are still growing and developing and we want freedom, choice, and change. There's so many things. And so I can't say fully, Because I'm trying not to make assumptions on what this will look like, but I can say that I'm actively researching this with my boss, Kara, and I know you would ask me if there was anything that I wanted to share with the group, um, and I don't have a title for you yet, but we are working on a book where we're going to really research this over the next year and do interviews qualitative and quantitative and to capture what we think are some of those trends for Gen Z.

So keep an eye out, follow Magnet Culture, and follow me to learn more about that. And I hope I have some more answers soon. 

[00:51:38] Roger Courville, CSP: Perfect transition. Elena, how do we get in touch with you? What's the best way to connect? 

[00:51:43] Alayna Thomas, PHR: LinkedIn is going to be the best y'all. Um, so you can follow me on LinkedIn, Elena Thomas.

And then I also am part of the phenomenal team at Magnet Culture, which Roger spoke all about at the beginning. So you can also find us magnetculture. com. I've got a page there and I would love to come speak with you to speak to your leaders. Um, We're just to connect and share thoughts. Like I said, I'll be doing research over the next year.

So you don't have to, uh, need anything from me. I would just love to have a conversation. 

[00:52:13] Roger Courville, CSP: Well, thank you. Thanks for dropping a little wisdom, a whole bunch of wisdom nuggets on us today. Thank you again to our wonderful guest, Elena Thomas. You can learn more about her and connect. Uh, I will drop. links to both Magnet Culture and her LinkedIn page on the places where we post this video.

And thank you again to our sponsor today, Virtual Venues, where you can instantly scale your hybrid and event production team. We'll catch you on the next episode of Thought Leader Conversations.

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