What Gen Z actually wants at work (and how to make them want to stay)

You know that feeling that’s going around the workplace right now that no one really wants to be here? Yeah. If you haven’t really put a finger on it, that’s what we’re all experiencing right now. And that is what I’m so excited to talk about. I have Grace Lee with me, my new brand manager. Yes. And we were talking about what’s like top of mind in the workplace? What’s going on? And Grace, you said it. And I was like, oh, we got to get this on camera.

You said, I think people are in these jobs and they don’t want to be in them. This is this moment in time where because of the economy and the uncertainty and you don’t really want to shake things up almost to the end of the year, post-summer, a lot of folks are in jobs, just kind of doing the day by day, going through the motions, and they don’t really want to be there. Now, why is this so important for us to talk about on the show?

Well, if you’re a manager, if you’re a leader, if you’re a business owner, this is what your employees are experiencing. So that is what we are so excited to talk about. I’m Leah Garvin, and this is the new manager playbook. And I’m on a mission to make managing your team the easiest part of your job. And that job is hard when no one gives a shit. So that’s what we’re here to talk about today. Thank you for joining me.

Awesome. Well, Grace, if you want to introduce yourself and kind of share really what you’re experiencing, and what you’re seeing trending across Gen Z folks and folks in your network, because I think it’s a really great opportunity to give our listeners a real sneak peek into actually what people are feeling on our team. Well, wait. Yeah, I’ll just intro myself briefly. Hello, I’m Grace, Leah’s new brand manager. Super excited to be here. First ever podcast appearance, so bear with me.

But yeah, I mean, a little like 30 second elevator pitch on who I am. I’m from the Midwest. So born and raised in the state of Michigan, Midwestern gal at heart, California transplant, as I like to explain myself. Moved to California six years ago. I went to Sonoma State. So moved out here for college. My family also moved out here, moved to Petaluma. So that’s what brought me out here. I studied international business in Spanish in college.

So I was a double major. And then all throughout college, I worked in the retail space. So I worked in retail management, growing, scaling teams, opening stores for Lululemon and a brand called Veronica Beard. So moved into more of like the luxury fashion space. Super fun. I love the fashion world. But I’ve always been like a marketer, loved making content. All throughout college, started in my dorm room and then just kind of fell in love with the concept of content creation and social media.

And so I really wanted to give social media a shot, marketing, post-grad. Long story short, wanted to try out the sales world. Tech is booming in San Francisco and it isn’t going anywhere. And I had an opportunity to enter the sales world at actually a crypto-based company. So Web3, totally tech focused, like jumping in the deep end. My friend worked for the company. There was an opening and then it just aligned. And yeah, that’s what I’m currently doing, working in sales.

Full transparency, not really sure if the Web3 space is for me. So this is a great segue, right? It’s like, I love this and thank you for sharing your background because I think it gives folks a sense of, first of all, what’s going on with your 24, what’s going on with Gen Z right now is there’s a lot of different, you’ve explored a lot of different areas from retail to athletics to now sales to tech. So there’s a lot of exploring different industries, different types of roles.

And the perfect segue was you’re in a role, right? You’re doing some part-time work as well. And the question is, is this for me? And I think that’s the thing that I want to really unpack, right? Like what that’s feeling like. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that’s the golden question. Like I said, I’m 24 years old. And so almost at that quarter life crisis, and I’m definitely feeling that. I mean, I listen to Mel Robbins podcast, like about 20 something all the time, whenever I’m having like an existential re like crisis on my, like who I am, what am I doing?

And I think honestly, just everyone, everyone feels those feelings, like in every season of life that they’re in, people just don’t talk about it. So I love this, love this conversation today. I think being a Gen Z one year post-grad, I think now’s the time to try all the things like dating. So you learn your preferences, what you like, what you don’t like. I’m in a loving relationship. So I did the whole dating preferences thing. And I mean, I think like, even like similar to dating, like same thing, same rules apply, like with careers.

I don’t think that there’s, I mean, in the perfect world, you get a job out of college, love it so much and be in that space for 20, 30, 35 years until you retire. Right. I think that that’s sort of the narrative that is it’s sort of within like my parents’ generation, particularly my parents are in their fifties and, and for them, they went into careers and then sort of climbed the corporate ladder and companies for 15, 20, 30 years.

That’s not the case anymore. And so let me pause you there because I think you, you, the analogy of looking at jobs more like dating, I think us folks that are running businesses or leading teams and thinking we want folks to be there for the long haul. The reality is that’s not the way that Gen Z necessarily is looking at it. And like, I think even thinking about it, like, you know, looking at a job, like you’re, you’re dating someone that you’re like found on hinge or whatever.

It’s, it’s an interesting concept of like the level of attachment to it of like, Hey, I’ll try this for a little while, see what I think. And if it’s not for me, like nothing personal, we’re just not a fit. Now, a lot of times, especially business owners that have smaller teams that are really investing a lot of their own time in the hiring, a lot of money. I think a lot of folks come to me through my 90 day COO program or, or kind of in one of my one-on-one advisory.

And they ask like, why do I have a revolving door of talent? I’m trying to do everything I can. I’m paying people well. I’m really trying to, you know, set up a team that they want to stay on. And I think you just unlocked something for us that it might not be anything personal, right? It’s like, it just wasn’t, I wasn’t feeling it. And I love this point because I think this is a reminder that there are some times just like you go on three or four dates with someone.

You’re like, I don’t really know if I’m feeling it. That’s okay. And there may actually not be a ton that we can do as leaders to prevent that. It’s just part of acknowledging the reality in the state that we’re in that we, we might be in this thing of like, we’re like dating employees a little bit longer than we thought. And so I just, I love that you call that out because it’s a, it is a shift.

And like you’re saying, if you are Gen X or millennial and you’re leading a team, you know, or even a boomer, like your, your view on this and company loyalty and how, you know, what it means to actually go through an onboarding process and how long you should stay and what that means. We have different views on that. And that’s just the fact of the matter. And so I think it’s a reminder that there are best practices we can put in place with hiring.

There are things that we can do to make sure we’re finding folks that are more of a fit, but sometimes it’s just like, she’s not feeling it. Right. Yeah. I think I want to add something there. I think like being freshly post-grad, like you said, the economy is not great right now. And so it makes finding a job really difficult, like particularly a job, even an entry level position that has anything to do with your degree or the industry that you want to go in.

So I know a lot of my friends who are fresh graduates from just in general, just fresh graduates that major who live in major like metropolitan cities, like New York, LA, Chicago, Atlanta, um, are experiencing the same thing. It is not it. They’re, they’re getting, it’s the job world, like to get a job right now is so hard. Yeah. So much competition. So many people going. So much competition. Like you apply for an entry level position and some roles get 4,000 or 5,000 applications, submissions in four days.

You know, it’s insane. Like, like the Golden State Warriors, for example, they only post job listings for 24 hours and they get 24 hours. It’s so crazy. Average. It’s insane. But that being said, right. It’s so almost impossible right now, the hiring, the job world that it’s like, we kind of just go to wherever we can get a bite. Right. So I think that there’s such a desperation from like primarily like with, with Gen Z people right now to get a job that just makes sense and they can just pay their bills.

Right. Yes. So then that’s, I guess that’s the point of where then you get a job and you know, it’s going to be so hard to find something else that you end up staying, even if you’re like, oh, it isn’t for me. So then you’re in the, instead of just dating, like you stay in the bad relationship where like you both are just like, okay, we’ll just sleep in different rooms and not really talk to each other.

Like now you’re in that phase. Yeah. You’re separated, but you stay together. No, yeah. Fully. Yeah. And I think that that’s where a lot of the, I think that’s where like a lot of the, um, like the instability for Gen Z is like in their jobs. Like it’s so prevalent right now. And I think that’s why too people in our generation job hop so much is because of a, that instability and the fear that you’re going to get laid off just because the economy is just not great.

Companies have to make budget cuts. People, companies have to, um, like lay people off. Um, so I think in that it’s just creating a trend of not staying in positions like longer. I think realistically, I don’t necessarily know if it’s a characteristic or a characteristic trait of our generation, just holistically, um, job hopping and not staying in jobs super long or like having like company loyalty. I think that’s what we want. Like, I would love to find a company, be there for three, four or five years, really grow within the organization.

I just think that with the economy, with the state of our, of corporate America nowadays, primarily like there is this sense of instability. And so I think Gen Zers definitely feel that. And so that’s the way, like the attitude and the way that people in my generation are acting with like career changing and pivots and job dumping and all of these things aren’t coming because we want like to have to be that way. It’s because we don’t know another experience.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And it’s, so it’s like, it’s not like, sorry, I’m bored of this. It’s like, well, you know, Hey, if, if this company isn’t feeling like they’re, they’re looking out for me, there’s not opportunities or it’s looking like there’s a lot of instability. Maybe I should get ahead of that and make a move so that I don’t get laid off. But I want to dig more into staying in a job when knowing there’s instability, knowing there’s millions of applicants for a single role.

So let’s talk about the sentiment of staying in a role that you’re not really enjoying. And if you could wave a magic wand and have a leader, like do certain things to help make that experience better for you. What would some of those things be besides pay you dramatically more money, which I think, but like, if you’re leading a team and you have employees, you know, I think all of us are wondering that, okay, there might be folks on our team that don’t, would, would kind of move on if they could, but they’re here for the long haul.

How do I make that experience better? How do I maybe turn it into a place that they do want to stay at? Like, what are things that you would like to see leaders doing? Yeah. I mean, I think honestly, it can’t just be paying me more money. Money talks, but I think just knowing your team, like on a more personal level is so important for retaining talent and creating that sense of loyalty that we were talking about within, within your team, your company, just in general.

I think that the personability of like one-on-one like human relationships is often lost, particularly like within the corporate America slash tech space. It’s super cutthroat, especially in like large metropolitan cities, hubs like San Francisco within like the tech world. And, and so I honestly would like love to like debunk that. And I mean, that’s, that’s your work. You know what I mean? Like you work one-on-one with, with, with management teams and, and like HR leaders to sort of figure out what’s not working with retaining talent, with all of these, all of these facets that we’ve been talking about.

So I think as an employee, particularly from that Gen Z perspective, I would love leaders like team leaders and managers to put in more effort to get to know their team, their team, honestly, as like a one-on-one person, not just an employee, not just a number. Like I think that’s probably the biggest thing that I’ve noticed. And from my friends, from my network of young people is there, we’ve lost the one-on-one human connection within the workforce.

And so I think number one, cultivating that, bringing that back, getting to know your team one-on-one and, and, and actually creating outings within your team, like outside of the office that, or wherever, maybe pretend like if you work fully remotely, having offsites. Zoom events are an offsite, yeah. Exactly. That you actually get to know your team. And also I think being there to support them, like in every area and every season that they’re in and creating like a very much open door policy with open communication is so key and having your team feel supported, seen, heard, valued.

And if you can do that, you’ll retain talent and you’ll want people to work underneath you and want to grow the ladder and really develop within the pipeline of your team and your company. And if you’re able to do that, you can really create a level of excitability among like your team that, that is just like infectious and people will want to be working for you, working under you, and then creating like this semblance of togetherness that I think is, is lost right now.

Yeah. You heard it here first folks, right? I mean, this is literally, this is underscoring. I just want to kind of recap everything said. Treat people like humans. Get to know them one on one. Take a little bit of time to build that relationship with your teams. These are the fundamental foundational things that we talk about this in this show. This is the foundational elements of the new manager playbook program that I’ve been talking about that we’re launching.

My book, my talk, how to be a manager people want to work for. It’s the foundational elements because it’s not made up. I didn’t come up with it out of thin air. It’s because that is what our employees want. And I love what you said, Grace, because it’s, it’s, you didn’t say, no, it is really just the money. It is just this stuff. You said, I want to be treated like a human being. I want, I want my manager to know what’s important to me to like, listen to me when I ask a question, to take a little bit of time.

And I want to really reiterate for folks listening, this is not extra stuff. This is the job. Like that is what it means to be a leader, to get to know your team. It is part of your job to create spaces for folks to get to know each other so that they build rapport and they can collaborate better. It is part of your job to, to have the conversations that, you know, where you uncover someone’s interests and stretch goals so that you can be more effective at delegating.

When you do the stuff that Grace just talked about, that’s when you get more out of your employees. Like you said, it builds more loyalty. It builds more excitement. If folks are just like, I’m just going through the motions. Now they have actually shifted into caring, right? We said, it’s hard. Your job’s hard when no one gives a shit. Well, now they can give a shit. And so I like, I’m all amped up from that because not because of my second coffee here, but because you, you’re literally like, we’re all wondering how do we engage our teams?

And you just fricking told us like, yeah, I mean, honestly, like if you’re onboarding someone that we call it syllabus week, like when during onboarding, like Gen Z refers to it, kind of a syllabus week, like within, within the workspace, within any professional environment, take that time to just really have one-on-ones with your new hires, get to know them, get to know what they’re passionate about, why they took the job, what they’re hoping to do with the company.

And I really like within that first week, if you really can make your employees feel valued, feel seen, feel heard, feel understood. And like you actually, like you’re saying, give a shit about them, their career goals and them as people, the likelihood that they will put their best foot forward, particularly as a lot of companies are going back into the office, they’re mandating four, five days a week in person. Like people post COVID don’t know how to interact with, with, with each other on their teams, right?

Like we have, we have a, we have a, we have a standup on Monday and maybe I have a couple of one-on-ones with my manager. We have a, a sales sync once a week. Like we were so focused or we were so used to remote work. And now a lot of companies are mandating, like if they have office space mandating, going back into the office. So being able to create those spaces, create those events, those happy hours, those outings with your team, even if it’s like, Hey, let’s just go scheduling 30 minutes with your team of eight to just go to Blue Bottle and grab a cup of coffee and chat for 30 minutes, not on lunch.

Just, you know what I mean? And just connect one-on-one. And I mean, yes, work related as well, but keeping things professional, of course, but asking them how they’re doing, asking them how their family’s doing. Building rapport, building trust. What are you up to this weekend? Literally the simplest 30 second coffee sync in person creates such a big difference. Like especially if you have a smaller team, it really can go a long way with the development of your team and honestly just creating that personability factor.

And also just continuing to bring that buzz and excitement that everyone genuinely wants, particularly young people who have that energy, who are hungry, who want to work hard, who are enthusiastic about building their careers and really bringing that out. Because I think that that was definitely lost post-COVID. Like did everyone really work full-time fully remotely? No. You know what I mean? So now people are back in the office. Did you know that I do team workshops on all of the stuff that I talk about on this show with large companies like Google and also with startups and small businesses like marketing agencies, law firms, and med spas?

Whether it’s making those feedback conversations a little less awkward, how to support your team through all of the change and uncertainty making us all, well, a little on edge right now, or delegating to empower your team to step up as owners, I come into your teams and give you the tools you need to wrestle with all this tough stuff and feel like you’ve got it handled. Reach out at hello at leahgarvin.com or pass my info along to the decision maker in your company and let’s make all this team stuff easier and a lot more fun.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I think, you know, if you have teams where you all work remotely, you can do parallel things like you said, right? Bring, you know, have a virtual coffee time, have a, you know, whatever that looks like. But you pointed out some, there’s the activities, which may, may involve, um, you know, additional time, like a coffee or a hat or a team event or something like that. But there are things you spoke to that are specifically like within the day, within the rhythm that really fuel this, that go a really long way, whether you’re in person or, or hybrid or remote.

And I want to underscore those because these are really the foundational skills of management. And again, if you’re kind of unclear, hazy about that, the new manager playbook program is in digital program that literally gives you all of the tools that we’re talking about. So reach out at Leah Garvin.com slash program to get on the early access list. Cause it’s game changing. Um, but the, the foundational things having one-on-ones, how do we have those effectively? When do we do those?

The frequency, that’s all the stuff we talk about in the program, because we don’t all know how to do this stuff. And like Grace is saying, but we have to be doing right. Like we’ve got to be having, um, career conversations. We have to do team connection activities, right? So all of these things that you might be listening, but like, Ooh, I like where she’s going with this, but I don’t really know how to do that.

That’s why we’ve built this program because it gives you all the tools you need. Now, whether, you know, I think the big question that I hear from folks is I am so underwater. I am so slammed. I don’t even have time to take a second to do this. These things are part of your job already. So like, I just want to underscore, you know, taking a few hours to go through the digital training, like this will save you hundreds of hours of time because even that 30 minute coffee, like Grace is talking about, if you have two team members that were like a team of eight, you mentioned, right.

And you take, so it’s like four hours of office power time, right. That four hours of people stepping away, them building relationships, getting to know each other, like kind of understanding each other’s communication styles that will save you dozens and dozens and dozens of hours of miscommunications of, Oh, you know, I’ve only seen this person on a zoom screen. I don’t really, you know, they’re just like a, not a person to me. It’s just like, you know, another like box or like this fictitious being square.

Yeah. These things that actually, um, I have a calculator I’ve put together. It’s kind of like overwhelming to people, but it’s crazy. Like it, like I actually added up what is the cost of like meetings that are derailed, two people working on the same thing, your priorities. And we’re literally spending upwards of 10, $20,000 a month for a team of five people, at least on miscommunications. Those are the things that we’re resolving through what Grace is talking about through these, in these touch points in person or via, you know, zoom or meet or whatever your tool is like, just like where people are talking to each other.

You know what I mean? Yeah. It’s a scheduled section time. And I think too, like, I mean, I worked in retail management. So like when I was managing big teams of people and I had to facilitate all of these touch bases in a crazy retail environment, like blue lemon, when everyone’s running around, like with a chick with her head cut off most of the time, because we had so much demand and not enough bodies having a clear plan going into the meeting.

Like if you want to talk about feedback, like in an onboarding week where you take someone out to lunch, you take someone out to coffee, whatever, just yes. Can you know them personally, but also intertwining super important components of your professional relationship to like better understand how to work with them and how to cater feedback, difficult conversations, delivery of X, Y, Z to one specific person, particularly with feedback, it’s going to save you so much time and so much energy.

And that person will feel seen, heard, understood even more because I guarantee you their past employers didn’t ask them those, like didn’t ask them those questions. Like, how do you like to receive and also give feedback? Like what has worked for you? What hasn’t? So I can cater my approach to be super digestible and tangible for you so you feel comfortable. And honestly, just leaving you more so inspired by the feedback that it’s for your improvement rather than a judgment is the best way.

Absolutely. I literally didn’t even know we were going this direction. It’s amazing. I mean, you’ve literally, again, underscored from an employee’s perspective, Gen Z, which is going to be the biggest population in the workforce, like in the coming years, what folks are wanting. And so if you want to figure out how to actually be ready for this, this is literally why I built the new manager playbook program. And so I encourage you to check it out, head to leahgarver.com slash program, get on the wait list for early access, because this is the tool to be able to do the stuff that we’ve talked about today.

Because if you’re just kind of trying to wing it, like, do you want to learn at the expense of your team? I know, yeah, you can ask chat, GBC, and yeah, you can kind of figure out, but you’re losing the excitement, the engagement, the morale, all of the things from your team that you could get support on. And I think the biggest thing, you kind of connect us back to the beginning. It sends a message to your team when you’re investing in yourself as a leader and in being a better leader, or you are bringing programming to your managers to show, I am investing in building better managers in this company.

That also sends a signal to talent that like, oh, wow, like they want me to be successful here. You know, one of the biggest things that I’ve been hearing lately is like, oh, we, you know, we’re not investing in manager right now. We’re not investing in teams. Like, what? Like, well, what the hell are you investing in? Because that’s the whole, that’s how work gets done. Like, I hope we’re, we have a game plan for what happens when no one wants to work at our companies anymore.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think the conversation of chat GPT is so interesting. How is AI going to, like, I think there’s a lot of fear also, it’s a very fear mongering, like the advancement of chat GPT and AI, like, are they just going to replace, replace like so many jobs, like particularly entry-level positions that companies think that they’re just going to save a ton of money on by eliminating roles and having chat GPT or AI do it.

Whereas I think like you’re saying so important, the entrepreneurship, the enthusiasm, the, the candor, the, all of those things that like, primarily like postgraduate people are super hungry, super ambitious. And there’s such a, there’s such a stigma surrounding Gen Z being lazy and being, you know what I mean? And utilizing AI for everything. But I mean, I just think, I think that sort of stigma has been developed as a result of not having experiences. Not feeling connected to it.

The lack there of opportunities within the workforce to really like prove ourselves and showcase who we are, what we can do. And so I love, I mean, the new manager playbook is really just going to change the game with sort of reinvigorating the zeal amongst teams and particularly amongst management, because it really is a trickle down effect. When you have a super great leader, super great boss, super amazing manager, that’s just like a ripple effect and a domino effect down throughout your teams.

And, and so I think, I love this conversation of it being, no, we need people that are genuinely excited and want to grow scale with, with companies within teams, within businesses. And I think that that’s just a huge conception amongst like corporate America and their relationship with Gen Zers, like private, like particularly like hiring Gen Zers, like, oh, we’d rather just have AI do it. You know what I mean? Where that’s actually like the worst thing that you could possibly do because AI doesn’t have that human excitability component that our generation really brings.

And I think that’s like our superpower is our excitability, our entrepreneurship, our, yeah, just zeal that we bring for enthusiasm. Like I always say I’m the personality hire. Like I bring a lot. I mean, yes, like I, on paper, I’m smart. I had got two degrees, but my, what I bring that people say, like with teams that I’ve worked on, I bring the energy, right? Like I bring the excitement. And I think that that’s what corporations, I think that’s what teams need.

And so being able to cultivate that, like through the new manager playbook and really finding those managers who are able to bring the enthusiasm, even when they’re stressed out is really going to be a pivotal shift that I think we need to see in the workforce. Yeah. Yes. Mic drop. Well, I think that is the perfect place to wrap. Thank you so much, Grace. I am so excited to have you on the team, both skills and personality.

And thank you so much. Grace will be on the show many more times from here. And yeah, check out, get on that early access list. Leah Garvin.com slash program to sign up and learn all the details. It is game changing. I will be having Megan on the show soon. My co-creator of the program to share a lot more about the nuts and bolts of it, why we created it, what it’s about. But why not hop on that list now?

So thank you so much and see you next time.