A generational shift: How Singapore’s Millennials and Zoomers are reshaping the workplace
New technologies that encourage open management, communication and collaboration are key to building the new Gen Z workplace
THE new year is just around the corner, and an increasingly powerful driving force behind Singapore’s economy is emerging: Generation Z. Born between the mid-1990s and the early 2010s, Gen Z, also known as “Zoomers”, succeeds Millennials and precedes Generation Alpha. Like Millennials before them, they seek opportunities for growth, positive workplace culture, work-life balance, and flexibility. However, they’re much more tech-savvy than their predecessors and are prepared to demand a work culture that suits their needs.
Organisations that fail to recognise those needs will struggle to attract and retain talent. More than ever, managers – many of whom are Millennials – have to understand what exactly makes Gen Z different.
Millennials came of age during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, which saw unemployment skyrocket and wages collapse. As many economies around the world – including Singapore’s – were paralysed, Millennials were the hardest hit. They were the first to lose their job benefits, bonuses and career opportunities.
While Millennials certainly valued workplace flexibility and work life balance, job insecurity forced them to change jobs often, taking on a “hustle” attitude which continues to this day. Nowhere is this truer than in Singapore where, according to Deloitte’s 2022 Millennial and Gen Z Survey, 38 per cent of millennials feel anxious or stressed all or most of the time and almost half feel burnt out due to high workloads.
Gen Z, while similar to Millennials in many respects, are markedly different in a number of ways. Those who entered the workforce in the past few years have had their working lives shaped by remote work and heavily influenced by technology. During the pandemic their daily commutes disappeared. They found themselves working from home, interacting with their colleagues over Zoom.
Their training, work and even office social gatherings were conducted online, a practice which is continuing post-pandemic. They understand the power of a hybrid work style and, as the pandemic winds down, many GenZers are disillusioned by the conventional wisdom of everybody working in the same place for the same number of hours.
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Flexibility is a high priority for Gen Z, who are increasingly choosing their next job based on the ability to work from anywhere. A young office worker today will not as easily accept commuting to the office simply to sit in front of a desk from nine to five. The past few years have shown that they can be just as productive managing their own time, starting work as early or finishing as late as they please – even breaking up their working day for personal tasks like going to the gym or conducting household chores.
Gen Zers have even less patience than previous generations for inefficiency and hierarchy. Teams are flatter and the job of managers is to support and empower, rather than delegate and control. From a leadership standpoint, this means more focus on providing freedom and flexibility, greater independence, and accepting that occasionally failure is necessary for personal growth.
In addition, this generation came of age surrounded by technology. They are more tech-savvy and connected than even Millennials. They find it perfectly natural to communicate and work primarily through computers and smartphones. The same way management has to change to keep up with the times, so too do the tools and technology we use for business.
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I believe a major key to sustaining an effective intergenerational workforce lies in providing tools that allow for collaboration and open communication. We are all used to e-mail, which I don’t expect to die out any time soon, but it’s a closed communication medium. You choose your recipients, so who you share information with becomes your responsibility.
One of the biggest trends in business technology is the rise of platforms where open communication is the default. Everybody gets to see what’s going on in the company. Setting privacy restrictions is still easy to do, but it’s not the default. This style of communication is central to empowering Gen Zers to do their best work.
The trend toward open communication is being enabled by no-code workflow management software. Rather than relying on off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all solutions, no-code software lets employees develop their own solutions. Importantly, because they are developed from the ground up, by the employee for the employee, these solutions are much better suited to the specific needs of each company, department and user. This idea is central to the Gen Z approach to work: You know best how to do your own job.
The modern Gen Z employee, doesn’t want to waste time learning a bunch of functions they’ll never use on a one-size-fits-all piece of software. They grew up with intuitive, logic-based online tools, so no-code is a natural fit.
Importantly, as a company grows and evolves, its digital platform can be tweaked to better align with the team’s shifting requirements. We increasingly see diverse organisation use no-code/low-code to scale rapidly across multiple offices in numerous countries. They all work on the same platform that is customised down to the individual team.
Technology will play a key role in adapting to the needs of Gen Z, but not all technology is created equal. Many firms often misunderstand this basic premise and mistake digitisation for simply subscribing to numerous workflow automation programs. Ask any office worker and they will likely describe having to log in to two, three, four or more programs to communicate and collaborate with their team members. In fact, according to a recent survey, 49 per cent of employees are frustrated by the tech and tools their organisation provides, and 64 per cent believe that the way they interact with technology negatively impacts morale.
Gen Z will start to make up the bulk of the Singapore workforce in the coming years. This is a generation that is redefining workplace patterns and will demand a say in how their precious time is spent. We are in a period of historic voluntary turnover known as the Great Resignation. Unless organisations work towards creating a better working environment, improving work-life balance and implementing work changes that help attract and retain talent, they will struggle. Open communication technology and supportive leadership will come to define the next era of work.
The writer is CEO of Cybozu
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