Gen Z will never be content to labor quietly and obediently in a sink-or-swim environment. Some might believe this is another sign of the “death of loyalty” occurring in today’s workplace. But loyalty isn’t dead—it’s just changing.
Globalization and technology have been shaping change since the dawn of time. But during the lifespan of today’s young workforce, globalization and technology have undergone a qualitative change. Young people today are well accustomed to connecting with their farthest-flung neighbors in real time regardless of geography through online communities of interest.
As our world shrinks, events great and small taking place on the other side of the world can affect our material well-being almost overnight. Great institutions—nations, states, cities, neighborhoods, families, corporations, churches, charities, and schools—remain in a state of constant flux just to survive. We all must filter through the endless tidal wave of information coming at us from an infinite number of sources all day, every day.
Meanwhile, the pace of everything continues to accelerate. Nothing remains cutting edge for very long. What we know today may be obsolete by tomorrow. Amid such rapid change, one year is long-term.
Unlike some of their older colleagues, Gen Zers are comfortable in this rapidly changing web of variables. Uncertainty is their natural habitat: they’ve never known the world any other way. Constant change means you can’t count on anything to stay the same. Thus, young people today are less likely to trust the system or the organization to take care of them indefinitely over time. And that means they are less likely to make short-term sacrifices in exchange for promises of long-term rewards.
Young people today don’t look at a large, established organization and think, “I wonder where I’ll fit in your complex picture.” Rather, they look at an employer and think, “I wonder where you will fit in my life story.” Every step of the way, twentysomethings want to find a work situation they can fit into the kind of life they are building for themselves. Indeed, their typical career path will be a long series of short-term and transactional employment relationships: “What do you want from me? What do you have to offer in return now and for the foreseeable future? I’ll stay here as long as it’s working out for both of us.”
Gen Zers have very high expectations, first for themselves, but also for their employers. And they have the highest expectations for their immediate bosses. Because they look to their immediate supervisors to help them meet their basic needs and expectations, they freely make demands of them. And they are more likely to openly disagree with employers’ missions, policies, and decisions, and challenge status quo conditions.
For a lot of leaders and managers, the takeaway is that young people today are less loyal. But loyalty shouldn’t be confused with blind obedience. Instead, they offer the kind of loyalty you get in a free market—that is, transactional loyalty. This is the same kind of loyalty you extend to your customers and clients.
Today’s young workers see their employers as gatekeepers in control of resources, rewards, and work conditions. If they are asking for more, what they are really asking is, “What do I need to do to earn more?”
Loyalty also shouldn’t be confused for willingness to do the grunt work. The best and brightest young people are usually so eager to prove themselves—to you and to themselves—that they will do whatever you ask and then some. But they won’t do the grunt work, or anything else, if they start to fear that nobody is keeping track of what they are doing and giving them credit. Gen Zers are not about to do tasks outside the scope of their position in exchange for vague, long-term promises of rewards that vest in the deep distant future.
But here’s the thing: it’s not just young people. Employees of all ages, positions, industries, and tenures are beginning to say, “Forget about five years from now. What do you have for me today, tomorrow, and next week?” It’s a trend that has been steadily increasing for decades and spiked during the pandemic, when job seekers had more power in the labor market than ever before.
If managers want to succeed in engaging and retaining people—of all ages—they must abandon the myth of dying workplace loyalty and embrace their side of the transactional relationship. It means being hands-on enough to provide guidance, help people solve problems, and keep close track of individual successes. That’s a lot harder than sitting back and letting hierarchical authority do all the work.
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Employee Loyalty Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Changing - Forbes
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