It’s June, and for millions of young American students, that means one thing – school’s out for summer! With the summer months also comes an influx of young people looking for seasonal employment. In fact, last summer there were 20.3 million employed 16- to 24-year-olds according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
This summer, even more Generation Z-ers, or Plurals, (those born between 1995 and 2010) will enter the workforce. With this, companies and managers face the constant challenge of adapting their workflow and managerial styles to fit the latest generation of workers. To help, we’ve put together some top tips for managing today’s seasonal student workforce.
Offer frequent, diverse communication:
Communication has always been key in managing younger workers. However, the best ways of communicating with young workers have changed. For example, rather than long phone calls or in-person meetings once a week, Generation Z prefers frequent communication across diverse channels including email, text and video chat. Unlike their millennial predecessors, they do enjoy frequent face-to-face feedback. Offering these types of informal and quick interactions constantly is the best way to ensure communication and engagement with this generation.
Offer flexibility vs. more money:
Over the last few years, work-life balance has become an even more critical component for any job seeker, especially Generation Z employees. This means they desire flexible work hours and schedules and the opportunity to easily make any necessary adjustments. In fact, Generation Z appreciates flexibility more than a raise when it comes to company benefits and compensation. These constant changes can often cause headaches for businesses with hourly workers, but to fully thrive in the 21st century, embracing this type of flexibility is vital.
**Offer visual training opportunities:**Members of Generation Z are said to be highly visual with a short attention span. These employees live on YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat instead of Google, Facebook and Twitter. So training and communicating with them should be short, concise and include lots of visuals. Instead of training manuals, companies may want to consider training videos. Moreover, companies with a Snapchat account will motivate, engage and energize this generation to become brand ambassadors.
Offer recognition:
Generation Z-ers thrive in environments that offer opportunities of recognition based on hard work and performance. Not only does it make them feel their work is respected and valued, but it also increases their satisfaction, productivity and motivation. In return, this benefits the business as a whole.
Here’s how Deputy works for both managers and their Generation Z summertime workforce:
Our communications feature allows companies to easily keep all employees in the loop. Managers and employees alike can share important messages, upload videos, contribute to workplace conversations and more straight from their mobile devices.
Managers can quickly and effortlessly assign tasks to staff using our tasking feature. Employees then receive messages detailing their assignments in their task lists and can communicate that it has been completed by simply checking it off within the app.
The scheduling feature within Deputy enables every company to embrace a flexible work environment. In fact, managers can fill shifts, inform employees of open shifts and more in just one tap. They can even allow employees to swap shifts on their own within Deputy, easing their own burden. Employees can also self manage their leave and availability straight within the application.
With Deputy, employee performance will also never go unnoticed. Our journaling feature provides managers the opportunity to write notes directly to employees and our Journal Reports easily help managers identify and recognize top performing employees. Managers can give constant and instantaneous feedback from a smartphone or even face-to-face!
Interested in experiencing Deputy for yourself as you onboard those Generation Z-ers this summer? Sign up for a free trial and get started today.
