You may have noticed that employees from the so-called Generation Z are a little different from their non-Z coworkers, and recent research in Fast Company tries to explain why.
Many of the old-fashioned management approaches aren't working with the so-called Gen Z because they're not looking for charismatic leaders or abstract approaches to business, they say they need fairness, structure and leaders who listen, not dictate.
Covenant Case Management CEO Paul Peters says that's why Gen-Z members are quietly quitting, among other things.
"They have an expectation because it's been drilled into them habitually what their work life is going to be," he notes, but much of that was derailed by the events of the past four or five years.
After being pulled toward vaccine mandates, social distancing, remote learning and lately, in the workplace, remote working, they're looking for fairness, transparency and employee values, with leaders who will listen to the needs of employees, according to research.
And Peters says Gen Z members are finding it better to do the "quiet quitting" thing than to loudly protest inconsistent and disinterested bosses.
"People are no longer to tolerate the type of management that they once had before. They have a voice, and they're speaking up with their feet."
And that's one reason, too, that Gen Z members may be among the most vocal against returning to the office after years of remote working.
"They're being forced back into a model, going back for years, that is no longer relevant because people are no longer going to tolerate that."
That's one reason why, in the Fast Company research, it's said, if your company is losing Gen Z people, the problem may not be their attitudes and expectations, the problem may be you.