Gen Z Ans The New Rules Of Workplace Culture

Alex: Hello everybody and welcome to the Curiosity Code podcast. As usual, I'm your host, Alex, and today I'm joined by Akita Somani. She's a Senior Vice President of Inclusive growth strategy at US bank and a global leader recognized on the 2024 Women in Fintech Power list. We will be exploring how Gen Z is reshaping collaboration and culture at work today. So we will explore it from rethinking leadership and inclusion to building purpose driven teams that thrive across generations. Welcome to the show, Akita.

Akita: Well, Alex, it's great to be here and thank you for having me. Having a Gen Z in my own household will probably join the workforce in a few years. This is definitely an interesting topic for conversation.

Alex: Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited about it as well as many my own employees actually, Gen Z. So it's very exciting to, you know, chat about that and see what comes out of it. Let's start with, in your opinion, how has Gen Z changed the way leaders think about collaboration and communication at work?

Akita: Gen Z are digitally fluent or digitally native and therefore the way they think about collaboration and collaboration tools is significantly different. They need these tools to be immediate and they also rely on these tools for transparent communication. So one of the most important things about leveraging new age tools, so whether you're using tools like Team Slack or other such tools, the intention is to create an overall transparent, agile communications in the moment and creating collaborative environments that encourage the creativity. And this provides them opportunities to learn and grow. It's important that they feel like they can connect with others and at the same time it positions them uniquely for development, which is a pretty important thing for Gen Z.

Alex: So it's a stress on digital instant communications, isn't it?

Akita: Absolutely. And while maintaining transparency, it's about being with them in the channels that they interact with as opposed to what has traditionally been done in organization. So for example, instant messages coming to them as opposed to everything being sent on an email or a huge PowerPoint document is significantly different.

Alex: Right. I think even me being a good example of Millennials, I think I would also prefer instant Communication to emails and to phone calls, by the way. What about phone calls, like live phone calls? What's happening there?

Akita: I think as long as the communication is transparent, authentic, it doesn't stretch to a really long time span where they tend to lose attention. So it's kept lively, it's kept authentic, it is connecting with them in a way that appeals to them, it makes sense, but it has to be managed effectively and thought through to ensure that it's not an hour long phone call with lots of information thrown at people. I don't think it's applicable only to Gen Z, as you said, right? A lot of people would lose attention because these days we have access to so many, so much information and media that we're used to watching 30 second clips, 2 minute clips and a lot of attention over the span of a long time is hard to sustain.

Alex: So what makes Gen Z relationship with work fundamentally different from previous generations?

Akita: I think one of the critical aspects for Gen Z is alignment with values and purposes. They look for meaningful work, work that gives them purpose and in addition they value things like well being, overall well being, flexibility in how and where they work, and that piece around doing meaningful work over and above compensation. Compensation seems to be a hygiene factor for them, but these other aspects are incredibly important and, and there are Studies done by McKinsey and other organizations which validate that in terms of how Gen Z values these other components that contribute to overall well being and growth much higher than compensation. So it's important for them to find meaning and purpose in the work that they do. And it's important for them to feel that sense of engagement and generate an overall sense of well being, which include physical and mental well being.

Alex: So let's shake things up a bit. So we have team with different generations, different approaches to work. Now you add a cultural layer to this because you've built quite different teams and across continents and industries, so you have lots of experience in that regard. So in your opinion, how generational and cultural diversity intersect inside a global organization?

Akita: That's a brilliant question, Alex. I think we're all working in organizations which have anywhere from four to six generations in the same workspace. Now I was reading an article in HBR recently which said in order to maximize these multitude of generations in one workplace, it's important to even more than ever before to understand unique strengths and abilities that you can leverage irrespective of age, age and experience. So I think getting better at being able to recognize these unique skills and strengths and being able to leverage them is More important than it has ever been from a talent management or a culture perspective. The cultural diversity piece adds another aspect or layer. Right? So it needs leaders to consider the entirety of a person's life experiences. It's not just their education. It's not just where they were born. It's not just where they grew up and what they imbibed as a result of that. It's understanding their entire narrative to be able to recognize them and make them feel valued. It's about feeling heard and being valued.

Alex: What's interesting about this is that it's not something that you can learn in college and university. It seems like it's more like a life experience, isn't it? Probably not even workplace experience. If you had exposure to multicultural, multigenerational slices. I'm not sure if it's the right way to say that of community. Then you know how to balance this like intuitively or there is a way to learn it other than that.

Akita: One of the interesting things about how workplaces are set up today is we spoke earlier about how Gen Z brings in those digital skills, the lean toward creativity and innovation if they have strong mentoring relationships in the workplace where they can learn from the stability and experience of workers in different generations while the other workers get advantages of these new skill sets that Gen Z is bringing into the organization. I think that mutually beneficial mentoring relationships can be incredibly valuable in the workplace to create one connection, but also for us to recognize those trends and skills that they spoke about and create a more productive work environment across the generation.

Alex: Let's talk about inclusive growth. What does inclusion look like inside a multi generational workplace today?

Akita: So we just spoke about the fact that this generation or across generations, the value of overall well being and the ability to manage work in different settings as well as this alignment with my value, like does this work create meaning for me? Does this align with my value? Increasingly there's a lot of emphasis on that, not just for Chenzy, but across multiple generations. And inclusion means that we are able to to incorporate all of these different experiences and perspectives in an environment where we can leverage these unique experiences and skills rather than segregating them based on stereotypes. Oh, this person's a Gen Z, you know, they can only do this or they expect to be treated in a certain way. I think if we move away from those stereotypes and we focus on the overall value proposition that they are looking for in the workplace and bringing that to the fore and finding those connection points like we just spoke about, whether it is through mentoring relationship, whether it is through transparent communication and allowing people to feel heard and valued is what inclusion looks like. So it's important to have the right channels and the right tone in communications while being transparent. It's important to have that intergenerational mentoring and that collectively can lead to innovation and higher productivity when these different parts can find a unique way to work with each other.

Alex: I don't know the exact statistics, maybe, you know, but from what I feel personally in the workplace, the percentage of Gen Z is growing year to year and now it feels like, I don't know, maybe Even close to 40% of workforce is Gen Z. So we as people who lead those businesses, teams, we get more and more exposure and direct communication and, you know, different situations, different cases. And I personally, you know, love interacting with these folks and learned lots of things from them. What lessons you learned from your Gen Z colleagues that changed how you lead or communicate?

Akita: I think this focus on being authentic, bringing their whole selves to work, but not just work situations. I think you made a really good point, Alex, earlier about how do you learn to interact with these nuances and differences. And I think this generation brings that authenticity and this ability to say what they think and tackle challenges head on. What that means is that overall it pushes leaders and others in the workplace to be more open and inclusive. So that's certainly a learning in terms of how much they value that openness and authenticity. It's also a learning in terms of how we are more thoughtful about the way we communicate, the tone, the language, the channels. And I think historically there was an assumption, right, saying if communications are coming from the top of the house, they need to found a specific way. But organizations are adapting across the board. Also with the advent of technology and a lot of companies, which are much smaller but employ a much higher proportion of Gen Z, their ability to drive innovation and productivity with this workforce, just because of the culture that they operate in, the way they communicate is something to learn from.

Alex: I'm just remembering, you know, different cases from my professional life about communication and how things that look quite normal in text message, then when you reconsider it and look at from the different aspect and try to read it in a different way or with different intonation like oh man, that doesn't sound sound right. And I think over years I've adapted lots of strategies in terms of how to communicate more efficiently and it's not. For many people in terms of how we communicate, how we protect our boundaries, how we manage our work life, balance all of the things in my mind at Least they predominantly come from workforce Gen Z and they influenced how things are done at day to day business operations level a lot. At least you know, the businesses that I had exposure to.

Akita: Yeah, and culture works both ways. Right. So culture is what an organization seeks to establish to toward the vision and mission that they are looking to accomplish. And at the same time it is the workforce of our Gen Z increasingly constituting a majority. And I'll speak to a couple of that in a bit. And the workforce starting to influence some of those aspects of execution of strategy to ensure that it is fit for purpose still for that mission and the vision that they have chosen to sign up for.

Alex: So I'd like to get a perspective from a bit of my point of view as entrepreneur. As a business owner, we keep starting new companies, creating new teams, new products, new businesses. We all have very good intentions in mind when we're doing that. We all want to create value, want to create something new. At the same time there is a notion of inclusion and it's something like okay, we have to do it. And I've seen many cases where they take it even literally, like okay, it has to be done. We have to put inclusion word on our website. I think there is a struggle out there for companies of different sizes, from small business to large corporations who are trying to build the culture that you keep repeating. But I think there is still a challenge how to do it authentically and how to engage Gen Z authentically without turning word, inclusion and culture into just buzzwords that we use and say, okay, yes, we're inclusive, yes we do such and such, but in reality our culture doesn't come even close to that. What do you think how organizations can actually do that in the most. I want to say efficient, but I think it's the wrong word. Beautiful way, elegant way.

Akita: Absolutely. That's spot on. Right. We can say all the right things and we've spoken right throughout this in terms of culture and authenticity and being transparent in communication. I think one of the great ways, and again, something related to an HBR article I was reading recently is about exemplifying those behaviors. So if leaders across the organization are able to exemplify those behaviors of culture and inclusion in the day to day running of the business and also they're able to recognize and reward those behaviors. Multiple options. It could be a call out in a large team setting or a town hall, or it could be a formal certificate or an award for someone who is actually living the values and is able to demonstrate them in action. So I Think that leaders exemplifying the actions themselves and recognizing and rewarding those who exemplify those actions which drive towards a culture of inclusion is incredibly important for this workforce to be able to see that this is really valued in the organization. People are living those values. And the economists had done this analysis of 900 firms which shows that for workforce and not just the generation that we are talking about, good leadership is all about that transparency and authenticity in communication, but also providing that support and that agility to fix things when things are not quite going in the direction that they expect. And that's when employees start to feel like they belong and they start to connect with the culture. So it's important to demonstrate those actions in real life as opposed to just talking about them.

Alex: I think that brings me to another thought, that as Gen Z is becoming more mature, I think they will start taking more and more leadership roles. And that, I think will become a turning point where we would see completely different business culture, global scale.

Akita: Absolutely. I mean, the nature of business is already global today. The ability to be connected to any part of the world in any fashion, whether it's related to financial transactions or a trade transaction. People can do all of this in real time today. And they could be purchasing something from Vietnam and selling it in Europe or the United States. And it's all possible today. So in order to operate in that kind of environment, they need to have that agility and the ability to communicate with someone who's in a completely different market, different language and different style of operating. And so this workforce is going to be an interesting contributor to that increasing connectivity that we have across the globe in terms of how we work, how we do business, how we connect with people. So from a social, economical and business standpoint, this workforce is going to be at the center of that connectedness.

Alex: Akita, let's summarize it. I think we're getting to the end of the conversation, so I'd like to get a really good summary and perhaps an outlook on what kind of leadership will thrive in the workplace today and in the future when Gen Z becomes the majority.

Akita: There are multiple studies across the economist McKinsey and HBR which showed that this part of the workforce, Gen Z, is going to become a majority of the workforce. In fact, by the end of this year, it'll likely be a quarter of the global workforce. That is a significant number. And it's important in this environment. It's a function of this workforce and what they value, but also how fast things are changing around us. That leaders need to be agile and they need to be authentic. They need to align to a set of values that drive meaning and purpose across their multi generational workforce and certainly Gen Z and the way this generation connects with the workplace and the work that they do and with other colleagues in the workplace, it's important for them to get that overarching sense of belonging to well being and the ability to connect to meaningful work while using their unique skill set. Whether it's digital skills, whether it's creativity or other aspects that lead off to greater innovation which is required across multiple industries, it's important for us to think about those additional aspects beyond the standard ones around compensation and benefits.

Alex: Well Akita, thank you very much for being a guest of the show. It's been a great conversation on how Gen Z is reshaping collaboration and culture at work.

Akita: It was great chatting with you Alex. Very passionate about this topic.

Alex: Well, for the listeners, thanks for listening till the end. If you're watching this at YouTube, don't forget to hit the like button. Subscribe to the channel. If you're listening this on any of the podcast platforms, don't forget to subscribe and leave a positive review and see you in the next episodes. Bye bye.