Gen-Z workers now make up 12% of the US workforce. Chances are if you’re working in a seasonal industry, or one with high rates of employee turnover, you’re no stranger to working with Gen-Z employees.
These workers have the potential to be a great asset to your business. They’re young, often eager to learn, and are less demanding in terms of benefits and compensation than more senior workers.
However, Gen-Z workers have a different set of needs when it comes to communication and training than more senior employees. For example, they’re used to doing everything on their mobiles and have shorter attention spans so reading a user manual might not be their cup of tea.
As a result, if you want to maximize the potential of your Gen-Z workforce, you have to keep a few things in mind when it comes to training and communicating with them. You’ll find all the information you need to onboard Gen-Z employees the right way in this blog.
How to Hire Gen-Z Workers
For starters, hiring Gen-Z employees requires a different approach and procedure compared to that of other generations. You can’t just create a job post on a recruitment portal and wait for resumes. Chances out they’re not going to see it.
Here’s what you can do:
Create Your Job Post
Write a job post for your vacancy and describe the responsibilities clearly. Mention it is paid employment and include details like working hours and days off. You can also mention a few things about your company or business.
Use Social Media
90% of Gen-Z use social media today. You can post your vacancy on different platforms like:
- Tiktok
Leverage your team, asking them to share on their socials and consider including a small reward in the event that someone brings a successful hire. Additionally, update the career section of your website with your job post.
Try different types of posts
Gen-Z employees are tech-savvy and spend more time online. A great way to attract young talent is to use short videos for advertising your vacancy.
Working with Gen-Z Employees
Gen-Z workers will require a bit of inspiration and understanding to thrive in your organization. This means that your Gen-Z onboarding will also be different.
Below are a few suggestions to get you going:
- Clearly express the workplace rules to your new hire. Put up the rules in writing if necessary.
- Introduce your new hires to the whole team and give a walkthrough of your office or shop.
- Foster an inclusive culture: take into consideration whether your team have any disabilities and make professional materials accessible: (e.g. consider adding subtitles to your training videos)
- Provide a mentor for each teen you hire. They should be able to approach the mentor for any assistance.
- Offer incentives and appreciate good work. You can also arrange contests like employee of the month.
Modern training for your modern workforce
Our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. Therefore, using short, interactive videos to train and communicate with your team can improve your onboarding process and improve learning outcomes. Research also backs up the claims to show that video-based, digital training units can:
- Improve learning experience and outcomes
- Increase retention
Employers can use Bites to easily create interactive training videos. It’s a modern training platform for your modern workforce. You can make easily-digestible, interactive training units about any part of your onboarding process.
Best of all, your workers can receive the videos on the messaging apps they’re already using so they can always access your training content.
Working with Gen-Z employees can be tough. You can make it easier:
- Teens experience 2 times more injuries at the workplace and need to visit the emergency room. Therefore, ensure a safe workplace and provide safety training to all recruits.
- Young folks don’t always speak up. So ask often and listen more to what your young workforce says.
- Recognize good work. Talk about your best teen employees in meetings to make them feel valued and provide more confidence.
- Use texts or messaging apps such as GroupMe or WhatsApp to communicate with teens. They are more likely to reply to your messages there instead of traditional ways like emails.
- Give your workers more responsibilities as they meet your expectations. It will motivate them to work harder.
Key Takeaways
Gen-Z employees can be a great asset for your business. They are often young and eager to learn, and are a good fit for seasonal and temporary roles.
However, they have certain needs when it comes to training and communication which need to be met to unlock their potential, and that means you might benefit from a modern training platform for your modern workforce.
Bites can be a great training and communications tool for Gen-Z employees. With Bites’ video editor, each manager or business owner can create modern, short-form videos, like the content teens are used to consuming on social media and add interactive elements like flashcards and quizzes.