The newest segment of the workforce is young, and they have only been in it for less than a decade — but, they're about to take over the baby boomer generation by numbers, according to Glassdoor. This means big changes are expected.
Gen Z, or "zoomers," were born between 1997 and 2012 and are part of at least five generations in the workforce now.
As the years go on they'll make more and more changes happen, but as of last year there were at least 17.1 million Gen Z employees influencing various companies in various roles.
So, how will these different generations work together and respect each other?
Jason Dorsey, a generations and behavioral researcher, said it's not possible to overstate how much of an impact these generations are having on the workforce as they work together. These different generations have different ways of working and learning, and they may not be willing to change and adapt to managers.
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The constant use of digital devices and living through COVID-19 has also been shown to have had a large impact on these behaviors.
"Every new generation that comes in, frustrates the generation that comes before it," Dorsey said. "The difference here is, we're not seeing Gen Z saying 'Oh I need to adapt to everybody else, I'm likely going to be working forever.'"
"We also see Gen Z coming of age completely dependent on their mobile devices," he added. "The wise leaders are saying 'What do I need to do to get the best out of this generation?'"
Dorsey said it's a two-sided situation in which the older and younger generations need to find ways to understand each other to work together.
"What we see is that there has been a big shift around these things ... we see Gen Z expect mental health services from their employers," Dorsey said.
He says other generations want many of the things that Gen Z want — it's just that this new generation happens to be the driver of it.
