WORK

Gen Z Might Just Save Your Business

I really don't like talking about the differences between generations. Because we're really more alike than different. But, audiences I speak with and clients I consult with are often interested in how to manage across generations.

And especially interested in learning more about how to work with Gen Z.

I'm a GenXer. Raised on Schoolhouse Rock, garden hose water, secondhand smoke and Aquanet. (Allyn Bailey wrote something similar recently. She's a great LinkedIn follow.)

I am a GenXer, as is my husband. Raised on Schoolhouse Rock, garden hose water, secondhand smoke and Aquanet. (Allyn Bailey wrote something similar recently. She's a great LinkedIn follow on GenX, AI and so many other things!) Our kids are all Gen Z. They continue to be my greatest teachers. And now I think of them, and my GenZ friends, as mentors. (Thanks to Mike Marks who often speaks and writes about his GenZ mentors.)

It has been far too long since I spent time with my niece Brooke, so I corrected that today. She reached out looking to talk about internships and business (more on that later), but we had a wonderful time catching up.

In three decades of HR work, I’ve interviewed hundreds of people. I've worked with thousands.

And I've never been more hopeful about the future of work than I am now.

Sitting across from this twenty-year-old reinforced this again for me.

So many people I talk with have this generation all wrong. And they are potentially missing out on what they are bringing to our organizations.

If that's you, keep reading. I hope to change your mind with lots of research, data and a little bit of unsolicited advice, one of my favorite combos!

The Numbers Tell a Different Story

In 2024, Gen Z officially outnumbered Baby Boomers in the workforce for the first time (18% vs. 15%, according to Self Financial research). By 2030, they’ll represent 30% of all workers—nearly 50 million employees in the U.S. alone (Zurich Insurance/Qureos).

The data shows us lots about this generation that contradicts the stereotypes:

They’re focused. Research from Self Financial shows 70.5% of workers believe their Gen Z colleagues perform better than workers from other generations, and 88.4% think Gen Z workers make good managers. Only 11.6% describe them as lazy, and just 7.3% see them as uncommitted.

They want to work in person more than you think. While 72% prefer hybrid arrangements (Statista, 2023), 57% actually prefer in-person jobs to fully remote work (Amply, 2024). Gen Z is the most “pro-office” age group, with 37% missing the office as a place for focused work—higher than Millennials (25.6%) or Gen X (19.8%) (Amply, 2024).

They’re career-driven. Nearly half (47%) describe themselves as career-focused (GWI report via CAKE.com, 2024), and 70% want a promotion within their first 18 months (Job Today, 2024). They’re not expecting to get things handed to them. But they are expecting clarity on how to grow.

They will leave if we don’t get it right. 72% have considered leaving a job due to lack of flexible work policies (LinkedIn survey via Qureos), and 74% would quit if skills-building opportunities dried up (FDM Group, 2024).

What My Kids Keep Teaching Me

It's such a privilege to watch my three kids and my Genz friends navigate their early careers. Each has taught me something different about what this generation needs:

Clarity always beats ambiguity. Gen Z grew up with instant access to information. When processes don’t make sense or expectations are vague, they don’t stay quiet like I used to. They ask why. In the deskless workforce environments I work with, this questioning has led to issues and outcomes we’d never have discovered if people just kept their heads down.

Purpose is a retention strategy. According to Deloitte’s 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, 89% of Gen Z employees want purpose-driven work, and 75% scrutinize a potential employer’s societal impact before applying (Deloitte, 2024). This isn’t naive. Your company should have a purpose. And that should be communicated to your employees regularly, and lived by you.

Mental health support is not optional. A staggering 69.8% of Gen Z workers feel guilty about calling in sick—higher than any other generation (Self Financial, 2024). They’re not asking for special treatment. They are simply asking us to acknowledge that sustainable performance requires sustainable practices.

The Trades Are Having a Moment—And Gen Z Is Leading It

Here’s something that I found really exciting, especially for the distribution, manufacturing, construction and industrial sector companies that I work with: Gen Z is choosing the trades in numbers we haven’t seen in decades.

Enrollment in vocational-focused community colleges jumped 16% from 2022 to 2023 (National Student Clearinghouse)—while traditional four-year college enrollment continues to decline. This group has been called the “toolbelt generation,” because there is a shift happening.

In a 2024 survey by Jobber, 75% of high school and college-age respondents said they’d be interested in vocational schools offering paid, on-the-job training. When DEWALT surveyed high schoolers enrolled in trades programs in 2024, 68% were fully committed to their future career, and 84% believed they’d be hired immediately after graduation.

Why the shift? Student debt for a four-year degree now averages over $100,000. But electricians earn a median of $62,350, plumbers $62,970, and many wind turbine installers make over $100,000 annually. Gen Z has done the math.

Need more proof? Social media is the second-biggest influence on Gen Z’s career paths—above teachers and family (Thumbtack, 2024). They’re seeing real tradespeople on TikTok and Instagram showing both the challenges and rewards of the work. No sugarcoating. Just honest looks at what these careers actually involve. And it’s working. Posts about skilled trades increased 52% year-over-year, and 77% of Gen Z report seeing more attention to the trades on social media.

There’s a catch, though. In that same DEWALT study, 52% of students reported being waitlisted for technical or vocational programs. The demand is there. The infrastructure isn’t keeping up.

For companies in distribution and manufacturing, this is your chance. Gen Z isn’t just willing to work in these sectors—they’re actively choosing them. But they’re choosing companies that offer clear training pathways, mentorship, and modern approaches to development.

When 18- to 24-year-olds made up nearly 25% of all new hires in skilled trade industries in 2024 (Gusto), that’s not a trend. That’s a demographic shift that’s reshaping the workforce.

Are we ready to meet them where they are?

What Leaders Need to Do Differently

75% of managers say they don’t understand what Gen Z needs in the workplace (FranklinCovey, 2024).

74% of managers call them the most challenging generation to work with (ResumeBuilder via Job Today, 2024).

That’s not a Gen Z problem.

That's a company problem.

If you’re managing Gen Z employees here’s what actually works:

Stop talking about them and start talking with them. The biggest complaint I hear from Gen Z workers in industrial settings? No one explains the “why” behind decisions. They don’t need you to convince them. They need context. (Context is also necessary for your neurodivergent employees - and over half of Gen Z identify as neurodivergent.) Share your reasoning. Be transparent about constraints. Trust them with the full picture.

Build real pathways. When 70% want promotion within 18 months and you’re used to three-to-five-year development cycles, you’ve got a disconnect. You don’t have to promote everyone in a year, but you do need to show concrete progress markers and skills development at every stage. And maybe, just maybe, it's time to re-think years or decades old processes and start looking at careers through the eyes of all your employees, including GenZ.

Match your tech to your talent. Gen Z will judge your organization by whether your technology helps or hinders their work. In my manufacturing clients, this means everything from modern HRIS systems to communication tools that actually work on the shop floor. (Huge fan of YourCo for this!) If your tech stack looks like 2016, your recruitment will struggle in 2026.

Provide mentorship, not micromanagement. Research shows 83% of Gen Z says mentorship is crucial to their development, but only 52% report having a mentor (Adobe, 2023). They want guidance, not surveillance. Consider mentorship programs, not “open door” policies that require them to figure out when to knock.

Embrace collaborative leadership. Gen Z prefers leadership models where expertise—not hierarchy—determines who leads on specific projects (Stanford research, 2024). This can feel uncomfortable if you’re used to top-down structures. But in practice, it often means better decisions because the people closest to the work are driving solutions.

Make flexibility real, not performative. Don’t just say you support work-life balance while emailing at midnight. Model it. Set boundaries. Encourage people to use PTO. Take time off yourself, and talk about it. According to McKinsey research, 77% of Gen Z prioritizes work-life balance when evaluating jobs (Qureos, 2025)—that’s not negotiable territory.

Invest in continuous learning. Nearly 90% of Gen Z undergraduates say learning and development benefits are essential when evaluating opportunities (HR Vision Event, 2024), and 42% identify on-the-job training as the best professional development tactic (Indeed via CAKE.com, 2024). Budget for it. Build it into roles. Make it visible.

The Real Business Case

Here’s what I tell the CEOs I talk with: This is about business survival.

Gen Z is bringing digital fluency, adaptability, collaborative instincts, and a willingness to challenge inefficient processes. They grew up building things together online—wikis, fandoms, collaborative projects. They were, as it turns out, accidentally training for the modern workplace.

The companies that figure out how to channel that energy will innovate faster, retain talent longer, and build cultures that attract the best of every generation. The ones that keep dismissing Gen Z as “difficult” will find themselves competing for a shrinking talent pool with outdated tools and empty promises.

My Coffee with Brooke

Six months before she'll even start an internship, Brooke is already looking. Already preparing. Already asking the kind of questions that separate companies worth working for from companies just looking for bodies to fill roles.

She's strategic.

She's discerning.

She wants to work in person. She wants to learn. She wants to contribute to something meaningful.

Brooke and her generation aren't the problem. They're the solution we've been waiting for. But only if we're smart enough to recognize it.

They're asking us to be better. To mean what we say. To build workplaces that actually work. To stop treating "flexibility" and "development" and "purpose" like buzzwords and start treating them like business imperatives.

Every generation brings something new, and every generation gets dismissed at first. We did it to my generation. We did it to Millennials. And now we're doing it to Gen Z.

Companies that figure out how to harness the questions, the expectations, the digital fluency, the pragmatism that GenZ brings will win the next decade. The ones that keep complaining about "kids these days" will wonder where all their talent went.

So here's my challenge to you: Stop asking if Gen Z is ready for your workplace.

Start asking if your workplace is ready for them.

Because they're coming. They're choosing your industries. They're bringing skills you need.

Will you be ready when they arrive?

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What’s your experience managing or working with Gen Z? What’s working, what’s not, and what are you still figuring out? I’d love to hear your perspective.

And if you are looking for an amazing business intern next summer, connect with Brooke below!

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Connect with my niece Brooke Morin on LinkedIn!

COMMUNITY

I am finishing writing this early in the morning before Thanksgiving Day. The last few days of this week are some of my favorites. We have a small dinner on Thanksgiving with the kids (and before this year, my Dad, who we will miss dearly this year.) We all go shopping early Friday morning, and we cut down our tree.

And, we visit the Concord NH Bektash Shriners Feztival of Trees, one of our favorite Concord community events.

For the past eleven years we have donated a tree and gifts in honor of my stepdaughter's mom. (You can see it on the right of the picture.) We thought this was a nice way to honor her. The tree changes every year with gifts that roughly correspond to the girls ages, and a few little touches of her favorite things.

The community buys tickets to get in, then they buy raffle tickets and place them with the trees they want to win. We've won a few over the years, and it's gloriously chaotic and unchanged probably since the beginning!

There are a lot of trees donated in memory of someone. One of the first year, we won Amy's Favorite Things tree. This year, we got to meet Amy's parents when we attended the special night for those who donated trees. They lost Amy the same year the girls lost their mom, and every year, like we do, they decorate a tree in her honor, and this year we got to tell them how much the girls loved winning that tree, and how much it meant to us that they won it, in the early years after losing their mom.

The Shriners do incredible work supporting children at Shriners Hospital. And this event is so fun - a must attend if you are in the Concord, NH area any Thanksgiving week!

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Learn more about the Bektash Shriners Feztival here

COFFEE

Last week, Dave and I spent some time on Amelia Island. I was working for much of it, as was Dave, but we had a lot of fun too, with dinner with friends and tons of time to swim for me.

We also checked out some local coffee places, including 1929, a Cuban Bistro with an absolutely delicious iced cuban espresso!

Definitely worth checking out if you are ever in Fernandina Beach Florida.

Have a great week ahead!

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ETC....

Here are a few random things....

Here are a few things I'm doing in December!

December 3, I'll be joining my friends Jessica Winder, Alex Seiler and host Phil Strazzulla for an SSR and HRCI webinar on "5 HR Lessons Learned: Turning 2025 Insights into 2026 Impact"

On December 4, I'll be joining another SSR webinar, "The Secrets of Effective HR Leadership"

On December 10, after our Transform event, I'll be joining my friend Dr. Matt Poepsel for a Predictive Index webinar

On December 11, I'll be joining my friend Coreyne Woodman-Holoubek and Progressive HR for the annual HR Trends LinkedIn Live

I'll be sharing those on LinkedIn, and will link them here next week.

In the meantime if you are in Distribution or Manufacturing or similar industries and want to chat, grab some time on my Calendly!

My Calendly Link

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Until next time....... thanks for reading!

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Tracie

My Partner Spotlight ​ WorkStory makes the review process easy - and while maybe not fun, much more human - through using AI. Dave and I had the chance to catch up with founder Matt Meadows in West Palm FL this week - over coffee of course! I've been thrilled to work with WorkStory for the past several months, and I love every time I hear from some of you about your interest in it! It's a great platform and the company is made up of wonderful people. Definitely check it out if you are interested in doing performance management differently. And, stay tuned for the final installment of the History of Performance Management next week! ​

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