What Will the Kids of COVID Need at Work?
By Strategist Emily J. Drury
How long did a year seem to last when you were 7 years old?
In our house it is not unusual to hear someone say, “remember COVID?” Then we all groan and fold in something like, “yeah, 2 weeks to ‘flatten the curve,’” or “Christmas in the carport during the blizzard.” We are two Generation X’ers raising three members of Generation Z (Gen Z). My oldest daughter graduated from elementary school via Zoom on our living room couch. My youngest daughter experienced panic attacks for the first time. My middle daughter developed an impressive Tik Tok dance compulsion. And my husband paced while drank wine as quietly as possible in our bedroom.
COVID’s shelter-in-place years seem oddly distant now, but their impact is far from over.
As a Strategist in workplaces, I must consider what the new generation on the block will want and need as they enter and rise in the workforce. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that Gen Z will be 30% of the workforce in 2030. Birth year groupings within a generation vary by source. Using the Pew Research generation definitions, Gen Z’ers were ages 7-22 when COVID stunned the world in 2020.
Take a moment to consider what was going on developmentally for COVID Kids: the progression of autonomy, motivation, and identity. They were Kindergarteners – college age. How was the quality of their education impacted? What did they learn from their friendships? In what ways did social media campaign to support and hypnotize them?
What are the compounding impacts of their household’s financial health during “lockdown”? How independent were they and what were the realities for their caregiver(s)? Were the adults around them able to stay healthy and employed?
Also in 2020, witnessing the highly televised killing of George Floyd by a police officer and Anti-Asian Hate, our country struggled to communicate through the pre-existing condition of racism. How did the young peoples’ racial identity impact their experience? How did early exposure to human mortality and racially motivated hate change them forever?
What does this context mean to their preferences and demands in their first jobs? Or their 10th job?
Even though we talk about them as a group—Gen Z—wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that folks who went through Zoom Kindergarten are impacted differently than Zoom Prom? How will individual Gen Z’ers feel about remote work? Will they hate or prefer to work independently? What will they need from their leaders? Will they be difficult to retain, or seek the stability of a long tenure?
What do our emerging leaders need to prepare now to support what Gen Z will need to thrive in our organizations? When we consider the wide range of experiences within the single event of COVID-19 (or dual event to include the national reflection on racism), we would be wise to practice curiosity.
Go ahead, start a conversation. What questions should we be asking? What are we pretending not to know? Could the decisions we make now about work location need to change dramatically soon? How can we take care of each other when some of our too-familiar and/or untested efforts flop on a new audience? What needs to be celebrated? It is time to listen.
Maher A, Dehnavi H, Salehian E, Omidi M, Hannani K. Relationship Between Income Level and Hospitalization Rate in COVID-19 Cases; an Example of Social Factors Affecting Health. Arch Acad Emerg Med. 2022 Apr 9;10(1):e23. doi: 10.22037/aaem.v10i1.1600. PMID: 35573715; PMCID: PMC9078072.
National Geographic. MapMaker: Generations. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/mapmaker-generations/
Orenstein GA, Lewis L. Eriksons Stages of Psychosocial Development. StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf. Published November 7, 2022. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556096/
Pew Research Center. Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins | Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center. Published May 22, 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/
US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Projections Overview and Highlights, 2020-30. www.bls.gov. Published October 2021. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2021/article/projections-overview-and-highlights-2020-30.htm