Empowering the Future Workforce: Business Leaders Concerns on Gen Z Graduates’ Readiness

Gen Z has always been known as individuals who has a lot of positive attributes despite being seen as someone who are sensitive and demanding. Johnson Adeyanju, talent acquisition partner at Bright Network, support this by saying “Post-Covid Gen Z workers are highly engaged, social, ambitious, and pragmatic”.

Meanwhile, a survey was made by Intelligent found that 40% out of 1,243 business leaders think that those generation are not prepared to enter the workforce. For information, the survey is about what business leaders thoughts on working with college graduates from 2020 until 2023 who are born from about 1997 to 2012.

What are their concern?

To understand the business leaders’ perspectives, here are their concerns:

• Unprepared for the workforce
• Culture influence
• Unreasonable salary request

Is there a way out?

Worrying and dwelling on concerns will never solve problems. Successful business leaders will always find ways tackle any new challenges. Here are some of few ways that will help the Gen Z to be prepared and ready for work:

Embrace Technology and Flexibility

From birth until today, Gen Z are already being equipped with diverse of technologies. Business leaders must make sure the work place are equipped with the recent technologies. They should also promote flexible working time and remote work
since it is an appeal. Hence, it is important to keep up-to-date with today’s technology and tools. It will not just help them, but also this will bring new innovative business ideas to the business leaders while learning new technologies.

Provide Learning Opportunities and Mentorship

Gen Z appreciate learning and personal development as it will help them to require new skills and to keep up with the fast-changing working environment. Since most of them are post-pandemic graduates, they have problems in developing skills
such as the communicating effectively in the workplace. The data from Asynchronous Work report posted on April 2023 reveals 64% of Gen Z workers worry that asking too many questions will annoy their work colleague.
Leaders also can help them to develop soft skills and hard skills through regular feedback, mentorship and training. This will help them to grow. Also, through a mentorship with the business leader or the third party, employees can be exposed
with a clearer career path which will help them to utilize the skills to move up the ladder. Leaders can also encourage them to have an entrepreneur mindset which can help them to provide creative new ideas for the organization.
Other than that, leaders could also provide them some side projects which are related to their passions that will not only make them learn, but also will increase their focus, engagement level and creativity.

Promote a Healthy Work Culture

Gen Z are also the generation who embrace traumas and a generation cycle breaker so they despise toxicity and prefer a healthy environment. Hence, they appreciate a healthy environment at home and also at work. This is why putting
importance in having a work-life balance is one of their way putting healthy boundaries for both of their mind and the body.
Business leaders should encourage 10 to 15 minutes breaks between tasks, discourage excessive overtime and provide resources or activities that would help them to manage stress. A healthy work culture will bring mutual benefits to the
employer and employees. Employee will be motivated and productive which helps the company operations to be running smoothly.
A healthy work culture can also include an engaging environment between colleague. Gen Z tend to be socials due to the exposure to the online community. Hence, encouraging teamwork, open-communication and sharing knowledge with
colleague can be done to foster a healthy work environment and also boost team participation.

Acknowledge and Reward Performance

After doing many tasks and facing difficult challenges, it can feel empty without receiving validation and recognition from others. It can be from the peers, colleague or the team leaders itself. While it is good to receive affirmations from ourselves,
not many people are doing this.
For business leaders to be regularly giving feedback and acknowledging their work, this could greatly boost their motivation level and improve morale as well as increase in job satisfaction. It will also give a prime example of a good leadership to
all other team members within the organization. While this does not only apply to the Gen Z, leaders should know that it can also be apply to all generations.