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Contrary to popular belief, younger workers don’t want to work from home (sometimes).
Almost all workers between 18 and 34 years old said in-person experiences, like holiday parties, boost engagement (95%), and team offsites positively impact their overall employee experience (91%), according to a recent Indeed report. While younger workers continue to be the staunchest supporters of flexible work, they’re craving some face time.
“You have this really large percentage of young workers that…don’t even have [office] experience, or if they’re maybe older Gen Z, younger millennials, they got a couple of years of the taste of that, and the pandemic hit, and it was taken away,” Gabrielle Davis, a career trends expert at Indeed, told HR Brew.
While younger workers want in-person experiences, Davis said HR pros should remember that they want it in tandem with flexible work options.
Gen Z’s way of working. Whether it’s a yearly holiday party, quarterly team offsites, or weekly hybrid workflows, Davis said Gen Z workers have “perfected the craft of wanting to have their cake and eat it too.” They want in-person experiences without sacrificing flexibility.
HR pros will need to pay attention to this shift, she added, as Gen Z workers rise into management, and younger millennials rise into senior leadership. They’ll have to balance providing in-person experiences and building connections and communities, all while remaining competitive with flexible work opportunities.
“Something that I personally can’t wait to see unfold is that…they’re going to start becoming the decision makers as well,” she said. “And seeing what they decide to do based on their own experiences and the knowledge that they have…and how the workplace will shift as a result.”