Engaging millennials and Generation Z

The following is the first part of an excerpt from Leo Lee’s presentation at the 37th Annual Caribbean Conference of Accountants held last week in Jamaica. Leo Lee is the immediate past president of ACCA. Part 2 would follow next week.

According to the Financial Times, millennials are big news and with good reason as they make up an exclusive club of 1.8 billion people. This is about a quarter of the world’s population.

By 2020, millennials (born from 1981-1996) will make up 35 per cent of the global workforce, however, they are about to be overtaken by Gen Z (born from the mid-90s until 2015), who will comprise 32 per cent of the global population of 7.7 billion in 2019, ahead of millennials. To give some idea of the numbers in the US alone, there are 65 million Gen Z people and by 2020 Gen Z will account for 40 per cent of all consumers.

This spells a huge demographic change to the working world and our economies, and employers and businesses alike must find ways to cope or adjust.

What is the difference between Millennials and Gen Z?

Perhaps confusingly, both Generation Y and Generation Z can be called millennials, with the primary difference between the two being technology, especially the developments in technology that have happened over the years and how they use it.

Generation Y grew-up on personal computers, cell phones, and video game systems, while Gen Z has grown up on tablets, smartphones, and apps. Yet, the common ground between both generations is that both have been changing communication and identity.

Millennials grew up with electronics and in an increasingly online and socially networked world. As the most ethnically diverse generation, they tend to be tolerant of difference. Having been brought up with the mantra ‘follow your dreams’ and being told often that they were ‘special’ millennials tend to be confident.

They are seen as more optimistic about the future than other generations - despite the fact that they are the first generation since the Silent Generation, those born between 1927 and 1946, who were brought up to be seen and not heard. There have, however, been reports that the result of millennials’ optimism means they are entering into adulthood with unrealistic expectations, which sometimes leads to disillusion.

Many early millennials went through post-secondary education only to find themselves employed in unrelated fields or underemployed and they tend to change jobs more frequently than previous generations. Their expectations may have resulted from the very encouraging, involved and almost ever-present group of parents that became known as helicopter parents – watching and hovering over their every move.

Conversely, Gen Z is the generation that never had to deal with the dial-up internet or brick-sized mobile phones. They have grown up with the knowledge that they can speak to anyone around the world at a moment’s notice, and through assorted social media networks, that’s what they’ve been doing for their entire lives.

For this generation, electronics that were a luxury to their parents and older siblings have always been a must-have for living in the modern world. This facility with technology has sometimes been used to describe the entire generation; they are the ‘neo-digital natives’.

Gen Z is the first generation that finds the extraordinary technological advances of the last part of the 20th century and into this 21st century to be just a normal part of life.

Undoubtedly, they will see the same huge changes in technology in their adult lives as baby boomers, Gen X and millennials have done in theirs – but with their early experiences, Gen Z may well be better able to adapt and cope.

The second key question that separates Gen Z from the others is whether or not they remember the stormy news headlines while they grew up – especially around the financial crisis and its aftermath. Many were born during or just before the 2007 financial crisis and resulting recession. For the unlucky members of this generation, their earliest memories might well include repossessed homes, family members losing their jobs, and other signs of massive international financial upheaval.

Contrast this with boomers and earlier millennials, who were both born in times of prosperity and typically did not have to face economic downturns and their consequences until they were well into their teens. It’s no wonder that Gen Z has a reputation for frugality and caution in comparison with the generations that came before them. These new adults are responsible savers, not rash spenders.

To be tolerant of differences has always been the default position of Gen Z – while their politics vary and can tend towards the economically conservative, they think that being socially liberal goes without saying. They can be often shocked that anyone could think otherwise. Partly this is motivated by the fact that Gen Z are themselves a very diverse generation; they are the generation whose parents travelled more widely because of cheap flights and met people via the internet. As a result, there are now more multi-racial young people and often they hold more than one nationality than those who came before.