From mental health benefits to stricter work-life boundaries, Gen Zers are changing the definition of a thriving workplace and demanding change at all levels of an organization.

Gen Z is a generation of unique thinkers who have changed how we live, work, and shop. Not only do they demand and expect their beloved brands to be socially and environmentally conscious, but they also insist on working for companies who are purposeful in advocating for ESG. As they enter the workforce, Gen Zers seek companies that demonstrate the same values they hold dear and are not afraid to hold them accountable when they don’t. 

According to a Deloitte report, 49% of Gen Zers said they made choices regarding the type of work they will do and the companies they are willing to work for based on their values and ethics.

As a very individualistic generation, Gen Zers are finding their own ways to move the needle for their generation and those to follow, including delegating to senior team members, asking for mental health days, establishing more work/life balance, and setting their own hours for more flexibility. For this group, championing change is non-negotiable. So how can businesses support this growing workforce to attract and retain talent? Below are five ways that Gen Z employees are demanding change in the workplace:

This group is hyper-aware of empty brand missions

According to data from Knit, only 25% of Gen Zers think brands are genuine in their efforts to make the world a better place. Organizations can no longer get by on surface attempts to appear authentic on social issues when an entire generation of workers won’t hesitate to call them out. As true digital natives, Gen Zers are more sophisticated and critical consumers of media than any generation before them. That means being hyper-aware of empty brand missions, greenwashing, and false company promises. Knit data also cites nearly a third of this generation has canceled a brand due to a recent marketing campaign, ad, or brand affiliation in the past. Unfortunately, the majority of Gen Zers don’t have faith that businesses are having a positive impact on the world. This group is unafraid to challenge the status quo and call companies out on unethical business practices. Businesses that implement authentic initiatives to narrow the gender wage gap, improve wealth inequality, dedicate resources to the mental well-being of employees and genuinely support environmental initiatives will draw the attention of young talent. 

Mental health initiatives are the norm, not a bonus

According to McKinsey, Gen Z is one generation more likely to report having been diagnosed with or struggling with a mental health condition than Gen Xers or Baby Boomers. Deloitte reported 46% of Gen Zers claimed to be stressed or anxious most of the time and cited the intense demands of their work environments as their primary reason for burnout. It is an epidemic, and this group is more likely to seek support and treatment than others in the past and recognizes the importance of self-care and support. That includes being prepared to walk away from a current job if these needs aren’t being met. This poses a significant retention problem for employers, with Knit reporting that 63% of Gen Z employees expect their employer to offer mental health benefits second only to a 401K. Employers will lose out if they don’t seriously consider developing safe, secure environments with strategies to help support mental and emotional well-being.

A bold, in-your-face approach to DE&I

This group demands a more transparent DE&I strategy and practices. They look beyond the next cubicle and into the highest board rooms for representation and understanding and have zero fear in holding those in charge accountable. The Gen Z generation is already a very diverse group and demands employers to be a progressive tool for social change. This includes not just hiring a diverse workforce but creating clear paths for promotions, professional development, and more for all employees equally. A well-crafted DE&I agenda must go beyond celebrating or acknowledging important dates and address systemic inequalities at the foundation. This will keep young employees engaged in the business and the company’s growth but will lead to more innovation, a positive work environment, and more revenue. In fact, according to McKinsey & Company, companies with more gender diversity were 21% more likely to experience more profitability than industry competitors, and those that were more culturally and ethnically diverse were 33% more likely to outperform. 

Commitment to work-life balance

According to the Deloitte report, 75% of Gen Z employees prefer hybrid or remote work. Flexible work often offers opportunities to save more free time for loved ones. It can positively impact mental health, which we know is a significant factor in deciding where to work. This group understands that work is often just a paycheck; that their well-being and work-life balance are necessary. A Microsoft study indicated that Gen Zers are leaving jobs over well-being and mental health, lack of work-life balance, and a lack of flexibility almost equally. Work-life balance can look different to each employee, and leading companies understand this. They offer various options, from flexible hours or remote work to unlimited vacation time to support this balance.

Gen Z inspires organizations to rethink workplace norms with their call to address mental health, work flexibility, learning and development opportunities, and a greater commitment from companies to implement ESG initiatives for a more positive impact on the world. Employers can attract and retain talent in the younger generations by aligning with these values, listening to their needs, and allowing Gen Z employees to have a seat at the table to discuss what matters in their work environments. In nurturing Gen Z employee relations, businesses can generate a more positive work environment, promote innovation, contribute to improved mental health and well-being, and, as a result, stands to claim a more significant market share. 

What do you think is the primary driver of people at work? The conventional wisdom is that it’s either their hopes for the trappings of promotion—more money, status, vacation time, maybe a parking spot—or their need for self-efficacy, creativity, and self-actualization.

I’ve asked this and other related questions to over six hundred people in a wide range of companies and organizations ranging from Fortune 100 companies, police departments, and psychology clinics to small businesses and nonprofits.

The interviews I’ve conducted have led me to a surprising revelation about our deepest motivations at work. The people I’ve spoken with in-depth about what wakes them up in the morning and propels them into an office, hospital, art studio, or sports arena do not show any of the above as the primary drivers of their intrinsic motivation.

Not So Fast

What, then, is the ultimate motivation for most people at work? Just as a vast trove of psychological research converges on our social relationships as the most critical ingredient of our long-term well-being, the primary motivations of the hundreds of people I’ve interviewed are social. 

The primary reason people join and stay in a company or organization is not that they want to earn more money and possess a high status (although they enjoy both) but because they wish to belong. Their deepest intrinsic desire they want to fulfill at work is to feel included, accepted, appreciated, and valued by a social group that, in their eyes, is worth belonging to.

An operations manager in a retail company described what it feels like not to experience this belongingness. “I felt alone because my boss had favoritism and spent much time outside the office with the sales manager. This caused unfair treatment and made me feel excluded.”

What does such treatment at work lead to at home? A sales associate in a biotech company told me how the failure of leaders to help her feel like she belongs and is appreciated could affect life outside of the office: 

It’s that isolation. It’s excruciating – that loneliness, that feeling of not belonging … It’s affecting every part of my life. It is because I go home and I’m like…I don’t do anything … I sit there, sad and depressed, and my kids will try to say, “Mom, let’s go here. Let’s do this.” And I say, ‘No, you guys go. Here’s some money, and I’ll be here.’

The need to belong plumbs the depth of our composition as human beings. A recent study found that a lack of belonging (in other words, ostracism), like for this sales associate, disables essential elements of psychological functioning, including a sense of meaningfulness in life. 

Believe it or not, even feeling rejected by a social group one despises—in another study, participants were manipulated into believing the KKK was ostracizing them—can be hurtful.

The Real Way We Organize Ourselves at Work

Researching and teaching leadership for over thirty years has led me to believe that the organizational chart that best reifies how organizations truly operate contains the CEO in a circle in the middle. Inches away in all directions are other circles—the people the CEO most trusts. Fanning outwards into other circles are the people they trust. 

Leaders play a critical role in helping people experience this sense of belonging. The security of the people you lead hinges on this feeling of being central to and valued by the social network that is the organization. 

Bring It Home

How can you foster this feeling of belongingness in the people you manage or lead? Here are three strategies that, based on my research, are worth giving a shot.

Scale kindness. The simple act of being kind and empathetic toward people is the first step. A lack of genuine caring is like air—you don’t notice it when it’s there every day, yet when it’s gone, it’s all you see.

A software engineer (yes, they have feelings, too) shared with me, “What reduced my feeling of belonging was [the senior leaders] not saying hello to you. Not making eye contact with you or having any small talk or discussions. The only communication you had was something that was demanding, like ‘I need this or ‘You need to do this.’ 

Facilitate opportunities for social connection. While enabling your team members to feel like they belong begins with common courtesy, that’s not where it ends. Bring them together in meaningful ways, whether brainstorming for a new project, hiking together, playing softball, or having a picnic. 

Bring people back to the office as soon and safely as you can. Now that social distancing measures are softening, it’s time to safely—and resolutely—rebuild the social connections people need to feel they are necessary—and belong—in your organization.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently claimed that returning to the office will help improve diversity. And if he’s right, that’s an important argument for office-centric work. After all, extensive research shows that improving diversity boosts both decision-making and financial performance. 

Yet does office-centric work really improve diversity? Meta Platforms – the owner of Facebook and Instagram – decided to offer permanent fully-remote work options to its current employees and new job applicants as part of adapting to the post-pandemic environment. If Dimon is right, this shift should have undermined Meta’s diversity. 

In fact, Meta found the opposite to be true. According to Meta Chief Diversity Officer Maxine Williams, the candidates who accepted job offers for remote positions were “substantially more likely” to come from diverse communities: Black, Hispanic, Alaskan Native, Native American, people with disabilities, veterans, and women. Sandra Altiné, Meta’s VP of Workforce Diversity and Inclusion, said “embracing remote work and being distributed-first has allowed Meta to become a more diverse company.”

The numbers bear out these claims. In 2019, so before the pandemic, Meta committed to a five-year goal of doubling the number of Black and Hispanic workers in the US and the number of women in its global workforce. Frankly speaking, large companies usually tend to make bold promises, but underperform in executing on these commitments.

However – thanks to remote work – Meta’s 2022 Diversity Report shows that it attained and even outperformed its 2019 five-year goals for diversity two years ahead of its original plans. It substantially improved on other diversity metrics to which it didn’t commit in 2019: for instance, people with disabilities increased from 4.7% to 6.2% of Meta’s employees. 

Is Meta special in some way? Not at all. 

Do you think minority groups, such as African Americans, want more or less time in the office compared to white people? A Future Forum survey on this topic among knowledge workers – who can work fully remotely – found that 21% of all White knowledge workers wanted a return to full-time in-office work. 

What would be your guess as to how many Black knowledge workers wanted a return to full-time in-office work? The answer: only 3% of all Black knowledge workers would want to return to full-time work in the office. That’s a huge difference!

Another survey found that 38% of Black men and 33% of Black women wanted a fully flexible schedule. The comparable numbers for white men is 26% and white women is 25%. 

Plenty of other surveys show similar findings. For example, the Society for Human Resource Management last September found that half of all Black office workers wanted to work from home permanently, while only 39% of white workers did so.

What explains this enormous disparity? Well, unfortunately, Black professionals are still subject to discrimination and microaggressions in the office. They are less vulnerable to such issues when they work remotely much or all of the time.

In addition, Black professionals have to expend more effort to fit into the dominant cultural modality in the workplace, which is determined by traditional White culture. They have to do what is called code-switching: adjusting their style of speech, appearance, and behavior. That code-switching takes energy that could be spent better doing actual productive work.

Similar findings apply to other underprivileged groups. That includes not only ethnic and racial minorities or people with disabilities, but also women.

Since this data is widely available, why did Dimon make the false claim about returning to the office improving diversity? He might have fallen for the belief bias, a mental blindspot that causes us to evaluate truth claims based on how much we want to believe them, rather than the data. Another problem might be the confirmation bias, our mind’s tendency to reject information that goes against our beliefs.

While Dimon is absolutely wrong about diversity and remote work, that doesn’t mean it’s a panacea for underprivileged groups. Research shows minorities deal with bullying on video calls and harassment via chat and email, as well as other online settings. Another problem: surveys demonstrate that men frequently interrupt or ignore women in virtual meetings, even more so than at in-person ones.

How do you address such problems? Companies need to train staff – and especially managers – to conduct remote and hybrid meetings in a way that’s sensitive to diversity concerns. This will help your team build skills in avoiding such problems and especially help minorities feel supported as you build a more collaborative atmosphere.

For example, when bullying and interruptions happen in virtual meetings, managers need to learn how to address it in the moment. They can say something like, “Please let them complete their point before asking questions. Use the raised hand function so that we can come back to your suggestion afterward.” Similarly, managers also need to check with underrepresented staff about bullying in private team member communications, making it clear that any such behavior should be brought to their attention. In both cases, the manager needs to be trained to talk to the offender, explain why it’s inappropriate, and request that they change that pattern of behavior.

Stopping online harassment of minorities is not enough. One of the biggest challenges in remote work is decreasing connections among workers. 

For instance, research indicates that the number of connections made by new hires in the workplace decreased by 17% during the pandemic, compared to the period before the pandemic. Since the successful accomplishment of company goals often requires cross-functional collaboration, such loss of connections is worrisome. Fortunately, scholars found that connecting junior staff working remotely to senior staff during the pandemic worked very effectively to expand the network of junior staff. 

Research shows that one of the primary reasons minorities fail to advance stems from the lack of connections to senior staff in the form of informal mentoring and sponsorship. To address this program requires creating a formal hybrid and remote mentoring program, with a special focus on underprivileged staff. 

As an example, consider one of my clients, the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute, which carries out basic and applied research in machine learning and artificial intelligence, networks and cybersecurity, high-performance computing, microelectronics, and quantum information systems. At ISI, we are implementing a formal mentoring program that will provide special support to minority groups. That means providing minority staff with two mentors, one from the same minority group and one representing the majority population. Doing so offers the minority mentee a diverse network of connections and experiences to draw on among both minority and majority staff. It provides mentees with the implicit knowledge and relationships they will need to advance, while the fact that each mentee has two mentors lightens the load on each mentor and makes the workload manageable. To help uplift the importance of the mentoring program, mentoring is included as part of the performance evaluation of each mentor. 

Creating a diverse, inclusive, and equitable culture in remote and hybrid settings requires recognizing problems and taking action to remedy them. An easy way to start advocating is to conduct internal surveys to determine those issues.

The best surveys will ask minority staff about their experiences with the problems outlined above and other diversity-related challenges. They’ll also request feedback about what the staff believe might be the most effective ways of solving these problems. Then, they’ll integrate the best solutions into plans to address the situation.

You have probably heard the famous phrase, “what gets measured gets managed.” Once you know the nature and extent of the problems, you can work to change them systematically, rather than only in one-off, ad-hoc situations. Measure the problem, create a plan to fix it, then measure how well you are improving it.

By following this path, and adopting best practices for diversity in hybrid and remote work, you’ll avoid Dimon’s failure to look at the data and patently false statements. Instead, like Meta, you’ll outperform your diversity goals and thus improve your company’s financial performance.

Some real-world examples of situations that are negatively affecting your Hiring Brand:

• Manager turnover. A Midwest company hired a new Director of Human Resources whose LinkedIn profile shows six jobs in ten years.  How would you react to new policies or ideas if you thought the new person would stay only one-two years?
• Abusive personality. A manufacturing company hired a new COO who quickly gained the reputation as “the screamer.”  Employees started voting with their feet, and turnover became a serious problem.
• Ineffective management. A large retail store had an employee that management called “the bitcher” because he never said anything good about the company. Recently, he received his 10-year pin during one of their daily employee meetings.
• Theft. An 800-person distribution company found that $60,000 had been stolen from their largest branch in an important market. The branch manager, who had major contacts in that marketplace, was the chief suspect. Three months after the discovery, the Regional VP had not even investigated or discussed the theft with the manager.

Today’s employees are tech savvy and impatient with the status quo. They respect people — not their title. If management does not effectively deal with performance issues, they can expect to be trashed on social media. That will have a lasting effect on your Hiring Brand.

How are you protecting your Hiring Brand?

Today’s employees want to be validated for what they bring to the company. They want to learn and grow professionally, want more life-work balance, and a manager they can respect.  

Importantly, they want to know they are making a difference and contributing to something larger than themselves.

Employees are far more open about their needs and will turn off  or turnover if those needs are not meant. To meet these challenges, CEOs must look at the HR function differently. A supportive role is no longer acceptable. HR must have a seat where the strategic decisions are made.

HR is a supporting role if:

• Your website identifies the key executives without including the head of HR.
• Remote branches are “doing their own thing.”
• HR is blamed for an increase in the employee turnover rate.
• HR reports to the accounting or legal department.
• Managers say, “we would have hired better if HR had gotten us better candidates.”
• HR is not involved on the front-end of the company’s strategic decisions.
• An executive drops a resume in HR’s desk and says “can you get the paperwork going? We just hired him/her, and they start in two weeks.”

If you answer “yes” to four or more, your company is at a significant disadvantage. One way to gain a competitive advantage is by splitting the HR department.

• Vice President – People and Culture – this includes the recruiting, leadership and talent development and onboarding. This is an executive level position with the person reports directly to the President/CEO.
• Human Resources – Administration – reports to the CFO and includes the important support functions like benefits, payroll, compliance, etc.

Hiring is the front door to your future success.  Make sure it is working properly for today’s business environment.