What Gen Z need from work

Gen Z have been shaped by recessions, the pandemic, geopolitical instability, not to mention financial insecurity and world changing technology.

That’s the finding of the Edelman Gen Z Lab as told to me by the leader of the project Jackie Cooper. Most powerfully she explains that Gen Z’s have a ‘visceral need for safety’ – that’s financial, social, cultural and even physical.

They respond to fear by asking questions and wanting to be heard, which older generations often misread as entitlement or disrespect for hierarchy.

Politically, Gen Z is fragmented. Younger Gen Zs, especially boys/young men, are leaning more conservative and drawn to strong-man archetypes; older Gen Zs, shaped by Obama / BLM, are more idealistic about progressive politics. Algorithms and “TikTok-isation” amplify those splits.

I was blown away to see Jackie Cooper from Edelman talk about the research that the company has done to understand the new generation of workers entering the workplace – I think you’ll love this discussion.

Read the full Edelman Gen Z Lab report

Summary:

A deep need for safety: Shaped by economic recessions, the pandemic and constant political upheaval, Gen Z workers enter the workplace with a visceral need for security. This includes financial, social and cultural safety.

Misunderstood communication: Younger workers manage their anxieties by asking a lot of questions and demanding transparency. Older managers often misread this curiosity as entitlement or a blatant disregard for traditional workplace hierarchy.

A fractured generation: Gen Z is not one single group. Driven by social media algorithms, a clear gender and political split is emerging between more idealistic older Gen Z workers and more security focused younger colleagues.

Transcript

Introduction to the Gen Z Lab

Jackie Cooper: I’m Jackie Cooper and I serve as Edelman’s Global Chief Brand Officer and a senior advisor.

Bruce Daisley: And you run something I saw on your resume called the Gen Z Lab. I wonder if you could explain that, as that is the context we’re talking about today. Could you just explain to me what the Gen Z Lab is?

Jackie Cooper: Yes. It’s really interesting that we established the Gen Z Lab to help our clients understand how to engage with this generation. It was prompted by me being on a workshop panel for Adweek, where I was asked to moderate an internal workshop around the future of marketing. It happened to be with six CMOs, and I didn’t really know which aspect of that rather wide subject we should look at.

So, we rang them up before the workshop and asked, “What’s keeping you awake at night? What would you really like to have in this hour?” I didn’t imagine that every single one would say, “Actually, can we address Gen Z?” That came out because, as a senior marketer, you’ve probably grown up in a workplace where you are used to leading audiences, leading creative work, and leading marketing direction, and your audience follows and engages. What they were all feeling with Gen Z was that this was not an audience that was doing any of those things. This was an audience that was not only asking more questions, but had the ability to share their opinions and, at the extreme, bring brands down and cancel them.

They were paralysed by indecision, saying they’d rather do nothing than do something that caused a backlash. Out of that workshop came the idea when I said to them, “Look, if I could establish insights, data, and guidance that would help you make those decisions with knowledge, would you be interested in that?” And they all agreed.

The Visceral Need for Safety

Bruce Daisley: So give us the top-line perspective then. I’ve read through the latest Gen Z report that you’ve done, and I want to delve into some of the ways that the group is a bit more bifurcated than we might imagine. But could you give us the top-line perspective of the state of Gen Z and how they see the world?

Jackie Cooper: Yes, it’s such an interesting conversation to have because it’s a generation that has changed generational behaviour because of what they’ve experienced. They have seen their parents go through two recessions and they’ve gone through a pandemic. We have geopolitical unrest, financial unrest, technology opportunities, but also technology fears.

The one thing that came across from the very first global survey that we delivered was this visceral need for safety. We were quite surprised by some of the feedback that we got. The fear goes across finances, social elements, and everything that is going on culturally.

The way this generation is dealing with fear is by asking questions, wanting to understand, and wanting to be heard. This doesn’t always go down very well with older generations, who often see this in the workplace as entitlement or a disrespect for hierarchy. A lot of the time when we’ve been talking about this behaviour, we’ve been trying to contextualize it within that initial finding of fear. If you are frightened, the thing you want to do is find out information. If you find out, you are less fearful. So, that visceral need for safety has been a common thread for subsequent surveys.

Politically, obviously, it’s a challenging time. In that latest survey, we wanted to continue to understand them because they really are the most influential generation that we have. But what we also know now is that younger Gen Zs are leaning much more to the right, and we feel that it’s quite fragmented among Gen Z. It’s not one single cohort, so we really need to understand the tapestry of how they’re behaving, how they’re showing up, and what’s going on.

The Gender Split and Political Fragmentation

Bruce Daisley: I saw that in your report. The easiest way for us to understand Gen Z is anyone born since the millennium. So, we have people who are 25 years old, but we also have people who are as young as 12. I saw in the report it said that younger Gen Zs—maybe because they’ve grown up in the post-COVID era as they came of age—are leaning right. Is that in the US in particular, or is that everywhere across the board?

Jackie Cooper: It’s stronger in the US, but we see it everywhere, probably because we don’t fully understand the source of it yet. What we are seeing is that this trend is much more heavily emphasised towards boys and young men than girls. There is a gender divide amongst Gen Z where the boys and men are wanting to hold on to more conservative values. There is a challenge that we see around masculinity, how they behave, and how they show up. You look at some of the noise around people like Andrew Tate, and it’s quite shocking in terms of how many Gen Zs were following that kind of movement.

You could ask a thousand questions and get a thousand answers. When you do a survey, you try to take a slice through those responses, but what we do see is this need for them to be heard. Sometimes people within Gen Z will express opinions that are quite idealistic or theoretical, but they express them very firmly because they feel they absolutely need to be heard, and maybe this world doesn’t hear them. It doesn’t factor them into the workplace, into government, or into the future of work given the advent of AI. So, it’s a very challenging place for them. Obviously, that’s a generalisation, but we do see that in large numbers in the US, the UK, and across the world.

Bruce Daisley: One of the things that I got from the work you’ve done was that there was almost a cause-and-effect relationship in everything. The older Gen Zs, who grew up through Black Lives Matter or the Obama presidency, had a degree more idealism about what politics could change. The ones who grew up through the COVID era were very much shaped and defined by algorithms and algorithmically driven content. They were a touch more focused on safety and security, and you could see the appeal of a confident, strongman leader archetype.

Projecting forwards, political chaos was one of the things that defined the last few years, certainly in the UK, and that chaos seems to be extending into the future. Would you imagine then that this state of mind for younger Gen Zs is going to continue?

Jackie Cooper: I think if you look at the world, you can see that absolutely. There’s no reason for anyone to feel reassured. The political situation really helps them decide how they’re going to behave. Gen Z is basically shaped by experiences and shaped by algorithms. While Gen Z spans multiple ideologies, we’ve also seen them act as a group with quite a lot of clarity, whether it’s pushing industries together or demanding new brand actions.

I think it is absolutely a mirror to what’s going on in the world. What happens in Gen Z then trickles through into wider behaviours. Gen Z are absolutely concerned right now about the world they live in. In both the US and the UK, we do not see things improving; we see things becoming more fractured. Out of fracture comes a desire to be counted, seen, and heard.

They don’t have trust in traditional institutions, government, or the system. Out of that, quite often we’re asked about activism, and we say it’s not really activism; it’s more about Gen Z just wanting action. Expressing an opinion and wanting action doesn’t automatically make you an activist. Having said that, Gen Z is probably one of the most activist-oriented generations we’ve seen since the sixties. That notion of having a voice, standing up for what you believe, and not letting the authorities tell you what’s what is spreading beyond Gen Z. They are triggering families to get out, and they are triggering the workplace to address issues and be more transparent. We often say this is the most influential generation. We have a Longevity Lab that targets ages 55 to 72, which is the most economically powerful generation, but the influence is coming from Gen Z.

How Gen Z View Corporate Leadership

Bruce Daisley: I wonder if we could talk about the impact at work. Edelman’s Trust Report often talks about how our organisation or company is the smallest big thing that we think we can have an impact over. We become a touch idealised when it comes to our organisation because we can see the boss and perceive that something can be done by someone close to us. When Gen Z come to work, how do they perceive feedback and do they have faith in companies?

Jackie Cooper: They do have faith in companies, which is quite interesting. They have a lot of faith in their own CEO, which is super interesting, but that will go up or down depending on accessibility and transparency within the leadership group. Hierarchy doesn’t automatically dictate to them that they shouldn’t have an opinion or ask questions.

The workplace experiences that have helped optimise communication have been when Gen Z is able to have a voice, feel heard, and have systems set up so that right to the top, they feel there’s input from them and an understanding of the executive direction. Gen Zs really want to make an impact at work, but they also expect their company to make an impact in the world. We see numbers go up if a company can show a Gen Z cohort that they take their role in the wider world seriously, and if they are communicative and open about what they’re doing to make the world a better place.

That doesn’t mean businesses all have to save the planet, but there is an element of using your brand, your marketing acumen, and your influence to help the world be better. Gen Zs will ask of their workplace, “What are you doing?” The more the company can come back and explain what they’re doing, the more favourable Gen Z feel.

The other thing that’s really important is that it’s okay to say no to Gen Zs. A lot of people think, “Oh my goodness, just keep them over there and we’ll keep doing what we’re doing.” But conversation and transparency are everything for them because it helps them feel safe. Like parenting, if you say, “Look, we understand why you want this, but we can’t do that right now because of X, however, it’s on the docket for later because of Y,” our Gen Zs say that’s fine. At least they know they’re being heard and trusted to have an opinion. They’re pledging their time to a company and they want that to be respected; it’s not blind time for Gen Z. They’ve seen their parents go through a brutal lack of work-life balance and they don’t want that imbalance. That’s not laziness, that’s quality of life. Quite often that gets misinterpreted, and maybe they actually have quite a lot to teach us.

The Changing Economic Deal of Work

Bruce Daisley: When we look at the deal that work represents to Gen Z workers—let’s say a 22-year-old—the deal represents less optimism than the one presented to their parents. A lot of parents might have owned a house or had a mortgage by the time they were 30, and be mortgage-free by 55. Most of those things don’t seem attainable now without the bank of mum and dad. With the lack of wage growth in addition, are they more pessimistic, or have they turned their focus elsewhere regarding the upside of work?

Jackie Cooper: Both. They’re more pessimistic, or you could say more realistic. This is the first generation that won’t do better than their parents financially. You are right; they won’t achieve certain milestones without the bank of mum and dad, and if the bank of mum and dad isn’t wealthy, they have a problem. That’s a reality check for them.

Because of this, they see that they want to live a life that isn’t just about being strapped into a financial straitjacket, trying to aspire to a house they’re never going to afford. It also depends on their socioeconomic situation. For some, moving away from the traditional academic university process is highly appealing. We hear anecdotally from Gen Zs saying, “I just want to go out there, earn money, and have a job where I know people are always going to need my services.”

What are those jobs with the advent of AI? The threat to their jobs and the workplace is real, so it’s a time of unknowns. The notion of being a plumber and earning money can look better than going to university if you are not sure where your economic safety is going to come from. We’re always going to need plumbers.

A Complex Relationship with Technology

Bruce Daisley: That safety thing is a recurrent theme, isn’t it? Safety projecting forward. I want to talk about technology, because one of the surprising things in the report is that young people feel like they’ve got a conflicted relationship with their phones. They feel cautious about AI and what it represents. Typically, it’s young people who are optimistic and idealistic about new things, so it’s interesting to see this phone guilt, which I normally associate with being acquired later in life.

Jackie Cooper: I love this because it’s a bit counterintuitive. Gen Z often use the phrase, “I fell into the TikTok hole.” It’s this experience where you go on the phone—and obviously, Gen Z has grown up with everything being on that device—but then you get completely lost in it. Before you know it, hours have burned, you’ve watched all sorts of rubbish, your head’s buzzing, and you’re probably doing it at night so you’re not going to sleep.

That relationship applies across social media. You add to that the mental health challenges, the pressure, the speed, the lack of depth, and the constant adrenaline rush. It is helping this generation—and all of us, actually—feel quite rattled by spending a huge amount of time on these devices.

What we see from Gen Z is an absolute thirst for nostalgia and an incredible trend for going back to what is tangible and hands-on. We see knitting, crochet, cottagecore, old-fashioned baking, and changing decor styles. They want to go back to the safety and nostalgia of when things were simpler. They will bake and put on a vinyl record rather than Spotify. When they are around the dinner table, quite often it’s the Gen Zers who are telling their parents, “Mum, Dad, put the phone away.” They want conversation in real time.

Even with online dating, there’s a shift toward meeting in real life. They’ll put the phones in a basket in the middle of the table and see how they get on in real life. If you talk to psychologists, or even people within technology companies, we know it’s not good for your mental health or your creativity to be online constantly. Gen Z are looking at their quality of life and making some super smart decisions to get back to a place where things aren’t all about that digital hit. Today is the slowest the technology will ever be, which is scary; it’s just going to get faster and faster. The only way we’re going to mentally deal with it for our wellbeing is to be disciplined about when we’re connected and when we’re not. I love that Gen Z are leading on this.

Managing Intentions, Mentorship, and the “Grey Area”

Bruce Daisley: Do you think the expectations of Gen Z are almost inevitably going to be disappointed? I say that largely because when they join the workforce, they have expectations about having a voice and a say. Previous generations might have had that expectation, but it was hazed out of them pretty quickly on a slow corporate scheme. Are their expectations unreasonable, and is the “TikTok-isation” of some jobs creating unrealistic views of the workforce?

Jackie Cooper: To answer your first question, we see in the numbers that over 60% of older colleagues say they’ve been influenced by Gen Z. That’s a really high number across how they work, mentoring choices, and social impact engagement. I find that very reassuring because you’ve got the wisdom of older generations who aren’t going to take everything as writ, but they can take the influence and improve.

The workplace will be better for it, especially against the assault of AI. Keeping in touch with the human aspect—being more questioning and saying, “Please make my world better”—is a great antidote to technology handles the grunt work. I’m generally optimistic about this dynamic: Gen Z pushing and asking questions, and the older generation being influenced and listening.

We see a desire for deeper connection with leaders, mutual mentoring between generations, and a true work-life balance. Older generations might realise, “You know what? Maybe you’ve got a point. Maybe we have over-egged the drive to achieve, where work is everything and weekends are just for recovery.” Gen Z also wants to use the workplace and their personal lives to upskill, which makes you a better all-around person. On balance, it’s optimistic, but we have a responsibility to have them in the room, literally and metaphorically.

Bruce Daisley: It seems like one thing coming out of what you’re saying is that being comfortable with contradictions is an important part of this. Young people often have contradictions at the heart of their own feelings; their thoughts aren’t fully formed yet. It seems like if organisations start with good intentions—thinking, “We’re going to try our best, we might not get it fully right every moment, but the attempt is putting us in the right direction”—that’s not a bad place to be.

Jackie Cooper: Yes. In the workplace, we’ve been schooled to believe that we have a strategy and a set way, and then we all execute that way. That is a good thing because we all know where we’re going. But within that, you’ve got a tapestry now of multigenerational people who can make that strategy better. Being comfortable in the grey area and hearing those nuances rather than sticking to black and white can improve the strategy. We’ve heard that “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” and that’s because culture is made up of human beings in a human workplace with their own feelings, opinions, and life influences.

During COVID, it was an extraordinary, challenging, and frightening time, but we were all experiencing the same world event. It was a weird experience to have a call with someone you’d just met but you were talking to them from your home, so you were immediately in each other’s spaces. The intimacy of that helped conversations be speedier and more constructive.

We expect a system to run the company, but a system should support where a company wants to go, and that system has to change to be more lateral. It has to have a hierarchy, but a hierarchy that’s respectful of all levels. You and I met on a panel where leaders were asking how to hear from Gen Z and what to do with what they hear. They said, “I’ve never really asked them anything.” Asking is all they want. They’re not saying you have to change everything; they know their own naivety and lack of experience. They just want to ask questions to get reassurance and to love where they work. Having faith and excitement about your workplace is a two-way thing. The discomfort has to be welcomed.

How to Successfully Onboard Gen Z

Bruce Daisley: I’m interested in that discomfort. Do we need to graduate Gen Zs into the workplace slightly more explicitly than previous generations? I hear all the time that Gen Zs can be uncomfortable with direct feedback, or to your safety point, they might go straight to HR if feedback is too direct. It suggests to me that maybe we just need to do a bit of acclimatisation and adapt them to the working world, bringing them up to speed.

Jackie Cooper: I think “adapting” is the exact word. Everyone wants to advance, and if they don’t, they shouldn’t be in the workplace. It’s not like you should just say all Gen Zs are fabulous, should be mollycoddled, and need constant reassurance. That’s absolutely not what I’m saying.

The insight into the journey they’ve come through—the pandemic, political, social, and economic challenges—means that “traumatised” is not too big a word in many ways. They’ve had to fight or see their parents fight. We had 15-year-olds in the US in our survey telling us that they were saving up for medical insurance so that they wouldn’t see their parents go through what they saw them go through. This need for safety is a massive theme.

Adaptability for all of us is necessary. We’ve had to adapt post-COVID to understand hybrid working. We have to adapt to understanding that a commute for someone might now be prohibitively expensive. If they say, “Before COVID, I lived in a one-bedroom studio in New York and realised that was untenable, so I’ve moved out and now it costs a lot of money to come to work,” we shouldn’t criticise that. We have to recognise that the situation has changed fundamentally.

Gen Zs have been through all of this. Our media tells us we could be on the threshold of a world war; if you think about the period before World War II and how people behaved with that need to live their life because they didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, there are elements of that for this generation. We adapted to COVID, and this generation changed because of it, so why wouldn’t we recognise that further adaptation is needed in the workplace?

We can learn from them, but they also need to learn from us. On our Longevity Lab work, we look at older generations’ ability to understand what they bring to the workplace. We see bookend parallels between Gen Z and the 55-plus demographic. The older generation is asking different questions now; no one is saying, “Farm me out at 60.” People are saying, “Keep me in the workplace, I’m not done, I actually know what I’m doing.”

Author Chip Conley talks about the wisdom that’s necessary in the workplace. He notes that startups succeed mostly if they have someone over 60 on their board, even if most of the startup is made up of Gen Zs. That dynamic balances the Gen Zs, who have all the vim, vigour, and passion but lack experience, with the wisdom of the older generation. Older generations simultaneously need to understand the questions coming from Gen Z. With our Gen Z Lab, we have 400 Gen Zs around the world who we can immediately turn to for focus groups, workshops, creative reviews, and workplace advisory sessions. I learn from them every single day. Being unsettled is a great thing because it makes you better.

Actionable Advice for Leaders

Bruce Daisley: We’re out of time. If there was one piece of advice or one specific thing you’ve learned that has helped you empathise or manage better, what would you suggest to someone struggling with Gen Zs inside their organisation?

Jackie Cooper: My biggest learning is to pull them together and just talk with them, not at them. Don’t just present to them; talk with them and let them understand that what they say is interesting. You might not agree with it, and you might not act on all of it, but just hear them out. Once they feel that they’ve been heard, they will lean in 100%. Their ability to forensically research stuff is off the scale, so their ability to feed back to you with deep knowledge is on another level. That two-way communication is only going to help.

Bruce] Daisley: I love that. Jackie, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Jackie Cooper: Thank you so much.