Young people in Romania face low self-confidence, fear of making mistakes and lack of value from various interactions with teachers or the family environment, which affects their performance at work and in life. When these young people enter the labor market, the expectation from companies is that they will come up with initiative and be involved while they actually need a restoration of self-confidence. In addition, although Generation Z has a better understanding of their own identity, they face greater pressure from those close to them to make a decision about what to do in the future, in a context where job offers are varied and they lack mentoring and career guidance.
“We can connect more with millennials (managers) than with our own parents.” – said one of the participants in the event.
Critical thinking is essential
Generation Z (young people born between 1997 and 2015) has access to a lot of information and this causes a greater degree of confusion because they are often contradictory and the filtering effort is high, sometimes even exhausting. As a result, this constant exposure to information makes critical thinking essential and important as a skill.
Another learning conclusion is that Millennials managers (born between 1981 and 1996) learn more offline while young people learn more online and are accustomed to having their information needs met immediately.
About the skills needed for and learning
One of the conclusions of the event was that soft skills are more important than hard skills in the sense of managers. Starting from the World Economic Forum report related to the top 10 skills needed in the future, both young people and managers have arranged in order of importance what they are, and the top two skills for both Generation Z and managers were creativity and originality along with active listening.
From the point of view of the differentiating factors between generations, managers see adaptability as the most important soft skill while for young people it is communication.
Asked about their preferred learning styles, most respondents said that practical learning, face-to-face training, micro-learning and e-learning are relevant to them. One aspect that stood out in the sessions was that young people expect to shorten the way and duration of learning.
“Time at work must be time gained, not time lost.” – said Andreea, manager within the multinational company.
How GenZ prepares for employment
Young people prepare for employment by obtaining certificates, participating in extracurricular courses, workshops, technical courses and mentoring. They mentioned that they prefer to pay for a course, even a small price, in order to make them more ambitious to continue learning. Also, involvement in volunteer activities is very important for them because it prepares them for a future job.
If we talk about the expectations of young people from the moment they join a company, they highlighted:
- they expect to receive feedback, especially at the beginning of their careers to identify both strengths and weaknesses;
- find out more about the company, how it started, find out about the company’s mission and vision and then receive specific information about the activity it is going to carry out;
- to receive encouragement from management and colleagues, to feel safe;
- to strengthen their self-confidence and to have the context through which they can develop their soft skills through trainings;
- mentoring as a mainstay of learning.
If among the company’s expectations from young people the adaptability was noticed, from them was noticed the desire to benefit from a work environment that favors inclusion, including trans-generational.
The event was held with 15 Millennium Generation Managers from Societe Generale Global Solution Center and 22 Generation Z youth selected from across the country to create a bridge to support knowledge and learning between different generations.
“I discovered that even if you have a job from 9 to 5, you can be happy. I thought that only if you are an entrepreneur you can be happy. ” – said Andrei, one of the young GenZ.
“Such events contribute to shaping the future of the organization by raising awareness of the expectations of each generation and adapting to perform at its best together.” – said Radu, Continuous Improvement Project Manager within the company.
The post-event report can be downloaded for free here. There you will also find answers to questions such as:
- What are the expectations of managers from a young person who joins the company?
- What are the expectations of young people from a company regarding development?
- What are the expectations of young people when they join a company?
- What does the learning and development strategy look like for a young person joining the company for their first job?
- How much time do you need to invest in your employees’ personal and professional development, favorite topics and skills?
Insights is a brand concept ”Vreau sa fiu Antreprenor” and Insights, a Romanian Business Leaders project.