Five Steps to Managing Gen Z

Gen Z "Zoomers" in the Workplace: Effectively Managing and Leading the 28-and-Under Crowd

Managing Gen Z workers effectively poses challenges for many employers. Complaints about the 28-and-under crowd often sound like this:

• Gen Z “Zoomers” or “Centennials” often set firm boundaries regarding what they will or will not do.

• They take as much time off as possible and bristle at organizations that don’t offer hybrid/remote scheduling arrangements.

• Zoomers often want immediate promotions and salary increases before they've earned them.

• They can come across as entitled and disengaged.

• Zoomers have become associated with the principle of "quiet quitting" (doing only what's required) or being unwilling to "go the extra mile."

Managers sometimes report that Gen Z employees are overly sensitive to constructive criticism, dress too casually, and often lack appropriate communication skills because they overly rely on digital communication (texting, IMs) rather than face-to-face dialog.

True, every generation has the right to reinvent and redefine itself relative to the generational cohorts that preceded it, its societal role models, and its own experiences. This generation, however, is uniquely different: Zoomers are the first truly digital generation. They don't know a world without the internet, smartphones, streaming platforms, or social media. As such, digital tools have become the baseline of how they communicate, learn, work, and socialize.. They also have been significantly impacted by the COVID-induced isolation that robbed them of their school and early career years. Most significantly, because of mandatory remote work during the pandemic, they missed opportunities to make friends and establish coaches and mentors in the office or on the shop floor like previous generations have done.

Gen Z: Who Are They and What Do They Prioritize?

As of this writing in 2025, Gen Z Zoomers are 28 years old and under. They were born (roughly) between 1997 and 2012.  Luckily, they, along with Gen-Y Millennials, are the most studied generational cohorts in world history. Key priorities include:

• Career and professional development

• Work-life-family balance/equilibrium/control

• Corporate social responsibility, environmentalism, and sustainability

• Diversity of thoughts, ideas, and voices

Further, they generally want to work for an ethical employer, doing meaningful work, for a management team that cares about them personally. The more you can match your organization’s priorities and programs to the values of Gen Z, the greater the chances that you’ll align your corporate culture with their needs.

Finally, remember that Gen Z continues to test out as the loneliest, most isolated, and most depressed generational cohort on the planet—even more so than retirees in retirement homes. The digital technology revolution, worsened by the isolating effects of the pandemic, have left this generation struggling to find its social footing in the workplace.

Managing Gen Z and Building Your Leadership Strategy

This background and macro understanding of Gen Z can go a long way in helping you build an effective leadership strategy around this particular generational cohort. Typical approaches to managing Zoomers effectively include:

1.    Communicate, Socialize, and Integrate

As a society, we’ve somehow lost the ability for elders to sit around the proverbial campfire and pass wisdom down to the younger generations. Social integration at work needs to occur where “elders” (.e., managers and business owners) share teachings and lessons with young adults looking to establish their careers, find traction, and stand out among their peers. Read that: one-on-one and staff meetings are incredibly important to this generation, which differentiates itself from its predecessors due to the disruption from COVID, political strife, AI threats, global warming weather effects, and much more.

2.    Redefine and Embrace Boundaries

The "firm lines in the sand" you're seeing often stem from a desire for work-life-family balance and a more integrated, human-centric approach to the workplace. In an age of burnout and limitless connection to work, they are protecting their mental health and personal time, which they are much more aware of than earlier generations. To the degree possible, incorporate mental health and wellbeing into your organizational benefit offerings, including financial literacy, which Zoomers tend to value highly.

3.    Shift Your Focus to Purpose and Ownership

Gen Z is often called the "activist generation." They want to know that their work matters beyond the bottom line. This is the key to developing an ownership mindset. To the degree possible, connect work to mission. Explain the “why” behind your decisions. And help Zoomers understand the bigger picture: how things look from your perspective, why your CEO may have made a particular decision, or why a new system or tool is being introduced. Then ask how it impacts them and how they can lead the change.

A coaching mindset can certainly help in this regard. Ask questions in private, one-on-one professional development meetings like:

• Who are you and who do you choose to be relative to these concepts of individual contributor, manager, or leader?

• Would you want to work for you? (Be honest. . .)

• If the whole company followed your lead (in terms of your role model behavior and conduct), would you be happy where you took it?

• What's your superpower? What do you want to be best known for, and what can you give away to others and pay forward?

Zoomers will generally appreciate this focus on career introspection and professional development. To the degree that you can co-create goals, explore how they want to grow their careers, or select special projects or stretch assignments that align with their deeply held beliefs and priorities, you will likely gain stronger commitment levels, discretionary effort, and overall engagement.

4.    Incorporate Social Impact

If your company has corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, involve Zoomers directly. Giving them a leadership role in a cause they care about can build engagement and teach selflessness—focusing their energy on a collective good. Likewise, provide rotational leadership and volunteer opportunities that help them expand their internal networks, build stronger technical muscle, and gain greater organizational exposure.

5.    Leverage Management as Coaching and Mentorship

Coach and mentor the younger generation and encourage social engagement via weekly, monthly, or quarterly social events. (Remember, they have a lot to make up for due to the pandemic.) Per Harvard Business Review’s book On Teams, the overall effectiveness of a team relates to and correlates directly with the amount of time the team spends together doing non-work-related activities (i.e., the company picnic and holiday party are more important than you think!).

Social connection and mentoring include high-frequency, real-time one-on-one and team feedback. Recognition for a job well done or extraordinary effort in addition to course-corrective feedback go a long way in helping people learn their trade and master their craft. Partnering on goals, key performance indicators (KPIs), or key behavioral indicators (KBIs) strengthen and enforce an achievement mindset. By focusing your leadership strategy on clarity, purpose, continuous feedback, and career and professional development, you can harness the incredible energy and digital-native skills of your youngest workers and transform perceived entitlement into ownership. Now that’s a leadership development strategy that’s sure to pay dividends for companies, managers, and Zoomers alike.

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