Ready to shatter stereotypes and understand what truly drives the younger workforce? Dr. Jason Wiggins, an authority on multi-generational dynamics, joins us to reveal the surprising truths behind millennial and Gen Z professionals. Far from the lazy, tech-obsessed caricatures often presented, these generations are reshaping the landscape of productivity and work-life balance. As a millennial myself, I offer personal insights into the unique hurdles we've leaped over and the innovative ways we've turned technology into a formidable ally in the quest for efficiency. We also tackle the profound shifts brought on by COVID-19, especially the new normal of remote and hybrid workspaces, and how Gen Z, in particular, is navigating this evolving terrain. Tune in for an episode that promises to equip business leaders with the knowledge to harness the strengths of a diverse, multi-generational team.
Ready to shatter stereotypes and understand what truly drives the younger workforce? Dr. Jason Wiggins, an authority on multi-generational dynamics, joins us to reveal the surprising truths behind millennial and Gen Z professionals. Far from the lazy, tech-obsessed caricatures often presented, these generations are reshaping the landscape of productivity and work-life balance. As a millennial myself, I offer personal insights into the unique hurdles we've leaped over and the innovative ways we've turned technology into a formidable ally in the quest for efficiency. We also tackle the profound shifts brought on by COVID-19, especially the new normal of remote and hybrid workspaces, and how Gen Z, in particular, is navigating this evolving terrain. Tune in for an episode that promises to equip business leaders with the knowledge to harness the strengths of a diverse, multi-generational team.
Welcome to the Spring Forward podcast. I'm your host, spring Richardson Perry, the organizational change agent that is going to help your business achieve the excellence you desire. If you're a business leader looking to take your business to the next level or simply looking for new ways to spring your business forward, then this is the podcast for you. So let's get down to business and spring forward into excellence. Welcome, welcome to another episode of the Spring Forward podcast. It is me, your host, spring Richardson Perry, and, of course, our wonderful co-host, little Miss Winter. Today, we have a fantastic guest lined up for you Dr Jason Wiggins. He's an accomplished author, keynote speaker, consultant and a university professor, and he brings over two decades of leadership experience to the table. He's specifically studied millennials and Gen Z in the workplace, and so we are going to dive deep into that topic today. So welcome, dr Wiggins. Welcome.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:Well, thank you very much for the great introduction. It is fantastic to be here and I'm looking forward to providing some great foundation and concepts to your listeners today.
Spring Richardson Perry:Yes, I'm excited to explore this because this has become a very big topic lately in the workplace, and so I am super excited to have you on today to be exploring this. And so, dr Wiggins, you've been exploring multi-generational dynamics in the workplace for 15 years now, I believe it is, so talk to us about what led you to dive into this generation, into the realms of retention and motivation in the workplace for these two generations.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:Well, one thing first started was I started leading teams and really going through the motions back in the late to early, to excuse me, late 90s to early 2000s and what I noticed right off was that every individual is different. And I started looking at, you know, the older generation and the new generation and my current generation, and I started to see that every single generation is different on how they view work, how they have life and work balance, what's important to them and how really they are impacted by employers and what the employers expect. And it was interesting, as I was recently at Universal Studios and one of the things I learned about was how the making of movies and all of the background work they do to make these movies and what it is is. Things are not what they appear because of all of the different editing and whatnot. And that's the same thing.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:If you start looking at generations, everybody has these mystique about what a generation is, who they are and how they operate, and there's a lot of misconceptions like, for example, millennials they're lazy, they don't want to work, they just want to collect a paycheck, they're not motivated. And then you can go to Gen Z all they want is electronics, they want to be on their phone. They don't really want to work. There's a lot of similarities and differences among generations, but the key thing is is they are all different but they all have a foundation to want to work. But it's how you're going to express that work, it's how an employer is going to be able to understand that work and how can they get the most out of an employee.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:And that's kind of where I started looking at the foundations and learning about the different aspects of just to give a brief history so your listeners understand it. For example, you know the baby boomers. They were born between the years of 1945 to 1964. And then there's generation X from 1970 excuse me, 1965 to 1979. That's the forgotten generation. And then there's the millennials, again 1980, roughly to 1995. And then now you have the generation Z from roughly 1996 to 2012, and we had the current generation that's not in the workforce, that winter would fall on and that would be generation alpha. So that's kind of a long-winded way of showing you how, demonstrating how I got into into the understanding the generations and understanding the importance of being able to retain and motivate all of the generations, but particularly generation Z and the millennials.
Spring Richardson Perry:Well, I can remember when I'm a millennial and so I can remember when my generation was entering the workforce and there was all this talk about we are lazy and we don't want to do this and we were Entitled, and all these things about my generation, and I remember thinking, no, we're not lazy, we work smarter. Number one, because my generation, we grew up as technology grew up, and so I can remember AOL and doll up and all that good stuff, but we sort of we sort of learned how to use technology and integrate that into our lives, and so it it really made us learn how to Work smarter and not harder. Whereas a lot of us had baby boomer parents and and Either they were either baby boomers or generation X if you had younger parents but my parents were baby boomers and so I saw how hard my mom worked. I saw, you know, every day, getting up, going to work, getting you know Beat down at work with these antiquated rules and all these things, but she was thankful to have a job and I remember, violent to myself, I'm not working like that, I'm not letting anybody dictate to me All these different things, all these different rules that my mom had to follow, and especially when it came to taking time off from work, I was like, oh no, like when I need to take time for me or if I have something going on with my kids, I don't need a job making me feel guilty for not being there. Like you're the, the work goes on. But my life, my children, if they need me, I'm gonna be there. And so I just remember feeling really misunderstood in the workplace Because, again, we didn't work the way that Jent the boomers worked, or we kind of didn't work the way gen Xers worked either.
Spring Richardson Perry:So it you know, we were like really misunderstood, and so I am glad that you are really lifting this up and really bringing light to the differences and the motivators that you have and the things that you know that that are beneficial for employers to know about, how to create that inclusive work environment for this younger generation entering the workforce. So I want to talk about your book, and it's called how to retain and motivate millennial leaders. I want to talk about about that, how, what inspired you to write it and you know how is that helping to create these inclusive workspaces?
Dr. Jason Wiggins:Absolutely, thank you. One of the key things about the book was to provide a foundation, a theoretical foundation to understanding the different motivators, from Adam's theory to Maslow hierarchy and needs, understanding self-actualization, the needs that each generation, and particularly in millennials, leaders would need in this case. And that was to understand, okay, if you have a certain values and you have the foundation. And then we went ahead and did the research on it. So we we basically had 20 different individuals that were millennial leaders and we went through a whole qualitative study About what was important to them, and that's what the book emphasizes. It emphasizes what the current leadership Of millennial leaders are looking for, what they expect in the workforce and why it's so important to be able to keep them motivated. And when you lose that talent, you lose thousands of dollars. Many cases it's two to three times what their salary is is what it costs to lose them, or You're not able to find those Individuals to replace them in a timely manner. And then about the knowledge retention, that knowledge that you're losing when they walk out the door. And then people also forget about the part of the culture hit that it hits on your organization when you see so-and-so, that was a big part of your organization, walk out the door, then you've got to start peeling the onion back and finding out really what is going on.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:So the foundation of the book is to understand why millennial leaders are who they are, and there are seven key points that were demonstrated in the book and a lot of them revolved around work, life balance, the ability to you know, understand that they want to work.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:So these foundations provided the concepts of the book and really it was for me, it was just, it was just inspirational to write it for the fact that the motivators that it takes for each individual to excel in the areas they choose and how they're affected by those employers that maybe don't know how to motivate or don't know how to have those communication abilities to to Bring out the most out of them, because it's not up to the employee To always motivate themselves all the time. The employer has to provide a great foundation to express the ability that we find your work important, and that was another concept that really showed up Was how is my work valued? How am I recognized for the work I did? And so just, we talk about diversity, inclusiveness and all of those things. Those are all Important to not only millennials, but we've seen that with with generation z, and so those are just some of the concepts and foundations that really motivated me to write the book and demonstrate to the readers why and how they can benefit from reading this book.
Spring Richardson Perry:Yeah, I love that because, again, one of the big things with my generation and I know with Gen Z as well is that work-life balance and because I saw the baby boomers, again with my parents being examples and specifically my mom, just seeing how much she was working day in, day out, giving herself, giving so much of herself to this company that to me really chewed her up and spit her out. And so, like I said, I vowed not to have that type of life, to have more of a balance, to be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor, because what's the point of working, putting in all this work and, yes, I may have the financial resources because of the work that I do, but if I can't enjoy those resources, then what's the point of it all right, so I love, love, love that.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:And think about this. Right now, 65% of millennials and Gen Z are currently looking for another job or they've recently brushed up their resume, and over 70% of millennials and Gen Z plan to leave their job within the next year. So if you're an employer, you're an organization. This should be one of your number one priorities to identify what can you do differently.
Spring Richardson Perry:Yeah, and because, again, with my generation, no longer are we staying at company, just 20 and 30 years the way that our parents did right, and especially if this company number one doesn't have some sort of social impact that we aligned with because that was another thing that sort of came about with the millennial generation was aligning yourself with companies that aligned with your values as well, and so if they didn't have some sort of value that aligned with our personal value, our personal motivations and those things, we quickly was like bye, we'll see you in the next lifetime. And so that speaks volumes when you give those numbers, because no longer again, like I said, are we staying, are we sticking around 20 and 30 years with one company. A lot of times the best you'll get these days is what? Five to 10 years out of your employees.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:Long-term employee. A long-term employee is now considered over one year. That's what millennial and Gen Z's consider. They consider long employment. I worked over there about over a year, so for them that's long-term employment, which that's really concerning. If you're an employee, employer, one year is considered long-term and I've looked at a lot of resumes and when I view them, if I see anything over two years, I go wow, they've got a long work history.
Spring Richardson Perry:Yeah, it's the same for me too. Right, I don't consider one year long, but I think two years to me makes up long-term employment, which is considerably different than our parents' generation. So yeah, that is very, very interesting. So I know that you had a podcast I don't know if you still do, dr Wiggins, but it was your motivational Gen Z and millennial expert. Do you still actively record for that or what's going on with that?
Dr. Jason Wiggins:No, absolutely. Thank you for asking. No, I have about 148 episodes currently and we did take about a two and a half year break on it, but we did restart it here about four months ago and I think we have an additional 20 episodes, since it's a weekly podcast episode and what it details is anything that's important, professionally and personally, to millennials and Gen Z, and there's always a motivational spin on it. It can be catered towards organizations, it can be catered towards specifically a Gen Z and millennial, but it's all wrapped around what's important to Gen Z, what's important to millennials, and there's always a positive spin. It's always about because the one thing I found is the Gen Z and millennials. They're extremely intelligent, they are by far the most intelligent generations.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:I keep saying that every generation, with the resources that they have available, they are smarter, they have the abilities, because Gen X, which is my generation, we had nothing. We had the newspaper to look for jobs. We had the telephone book to figure out where somebody, what their phone number was, but now, oh, we had encyclopedias. That was the thing I love to read the most. But now, with instant gratification of the social media, we have everything now. So everything you wanna learn. You see kids looking down at their phone. They just barely learn how to walk and they're reading their phone as they walk with their parents. So, again, the generations are extremely, extremely intelligent and that's what this podcast really revolves around. It's the aspects that are important to Gen Z, millennials, and we have a great listenership. And it's important because I get excited about the emails that I get from the listeners that say hey, you always have a positive spin, you're always very transparent and and you're real, and I think that's really important in the podcast that we do.
Spring Richardson Perry:I Love that. So what? What advice, then, would you give to Employers that are trying to figure this whole Generational gap out in their workplace? Like what? What advice do you give? Is it something you do on your podcast, where you offer advice as well?
Dr. Jason Wiggins:Yeah, no, absolutely. We offer advice, we offer ways of doing things. The first advice I would give an organization is Stop rolling over and playing dead. And what I need right back yes, take your head out of the sand and realize that this is not the baby boomer generation. They are not going to. Just as soon as you jump, they're not going to ask you how high.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:Now, if you ask somebody to jump, they're going to ask you why, why should I jump? Why is it important? What would you like me to do when I do it? So they're going to actually pursue additional questions. So, as an employer or an organizational leadership, you have to be able to Communicate. You have to be able to provide them the foundation of why it's important, how it's going to benefit the organization, how it's going to benefit them, and so those are many of the concepts that we cover Within the podcast. And then how does Gen Z and Millennials? How do they answer back to that? And then how can they promote the growth of their career Through being able to identify with their employer and those key concepts.
Spring Richardson Perry:Yeah, that was the first question that came to mind when you said when somebody says they want to ask you to jump, the first thing in my mind was like why, why am I doing this? What am I going to do that for? What is the benefit of me doing this? How's it going to benefit me? I know it's going to benefit you, but where's the, where's the mutual benefit here? So that makes perfect sense. So all season two is all about community, as you know, and so talk to me about Building community. How is the work? How does the work that you do Build community, either in business, either locally or even at home, if you still have small children at home?
Dr. Jason Wiggins:Well, first of all, first and foremost, it revolves around Understanding and communication within what we're doing, how we're doing it and really that the important part is to how do you retain and Motivate? And motivation, I think, is the key word that I'm going to take out of this, because being able to motivate you talk about young kids. At home I have a seven year old. I have to figure out ways to motivate him to understand. This is why we do something. This is your opportunity to shine, but at the same time, we have to understand it to something you don't want to do. Then we're not going to continue to push it upon you. We're going to either find a new way to do it or find something else that's going to be more important to you, and I think about community in the workplace, in the classroom and having young kids. It's about finding your place, finding your understanding of where you fit in in this crazy world that we live in. There's, we are there's.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:The key thing is is we are not all in one box.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:We are all different. We all have different views, we all have different backgrounds, we all have different Aspects of our life that are important in everything we do, so we can't be molded Into just being one sort of key Be component in the world. We have to be able to diversify, we have to be able to jump at opportunities, and that's where community employers, the foundation that we have, is Set up for us to continue to promote grow, not only within our work, our personal life and our overall ability to Make the most of who we are. And so for me, as as a, as a motivator, my goal is always to say okay, we all struggle in different pursuits in life, but what are we good at? Let's focus on the aspects that were really good at that make us who we are, and that's why it's important to ensure that we have a foundation that sets up for success. And that's where I think my goal within either career, workplace, classroom and just overall, you know, being able to motivate is important.
Spring Richardson Perry:Okay, so talk to me about this. This is the last thing before we wrap up, because I'm thinking about this new way of work that came about because of COVID and it's not really new, right, because this was going on long before that but it's a lot more prevalent now. And so talk to me about the generations and remote work versus this hybrid and on-site work. I'm sure you've done a lot of work around this.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:Yes, and what's interesting is obviously COVID and the pandemic shifted everything, especially for Gen Z. They were right in the height of their high school career and all of a sudden, for two years, they're either starting to have to do remote work, and so what we see now is many of these Gen Zs have kind of shut themselves off a little bit from real life because they're so used to the online type of work or socializing. I mean, when I grew up, we would go to the baseball field and we would play baseball, we would ride our bikes around. You know, we did all that stuff, but now everything is focused to online.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:But here's the key thing is Gen Z, surprisingly enough, is getting tired of growing up online. They're getting tired of just being boxed into online format. So what we're going to see, and what we're starting to see now, is they're starting to shift. They're going to start wanting to be outside with people. They're going to start wanting to work within the different aspects and not remote. So it's kind of opposite of millennials to a certain degree, because millennials are hey, I get to work from home, I'm good.
Spring Richardson Perry:Yes, that is me all day. I'm like I get to be at home in my office like nobody's going to bother me. Sign me up.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:But remotely. Remotely is the key for, you know, being able to have a hybrid or type of, you know, work-life balance. And so what's going to be key is, you know, I think the generations as a whole are going to start seeing a lot more online type of work, and we won't get into it today. But let's introduce AI briefly. Ai is going to open up the doors to anything and everything, because 20% of the jobs by roughly 2030 or so, are going to be gone, and that's why Gen Z and maybe millennials to a certain degree, are going to start having to focus on, you know, managing AI, how it goes about, and one day they could be managing robots to do their work. So that is going to be an interesting concept.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:So I mean, all the cars are thrown out the window right now for Gen Z and millennials because we don't know what the future is going to hold, but it's safe to say that it's going to continue to be a challenging environment, and that's what's been key for Gen Z and millennials up to date is they've had all the challenges, obviously, particularly the millennials, from 9-11 to the recession, to the boom, to the recent great resignation, where 4 million people quit their jobs because they're not going to work the way they're told to work.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:They're going to work the way that is beneficial, and it doesn't mean you have to sit in your office for eight and a half hours a day with a 30 minute lunch. What it means is you might work for four hours, you might work from 8 to 12, take a four hour break and maybe you're going to work from 8 to 12 the next day or the next or that night, so everything is thrown out the window. So as an employer, as an organization, it's going to be vital to ensure that you're finding that work-life balance and being able to find the employee's way of working and then promote that work through the way they want to work.
Spring Richardson Perry:Ooh, I love that. Listen, guys. Flexibility is key here. So employers, leaders, listening, flexibility so well. Thank you so much, dr Jason. I appreciate your insights here. Of course, my little co-host is having a fit down there.
Dr. Jason Wiggins:He's been great, by the way.
Spring Richardson Perry:So we are going to wrap this up, but I appreciate you for coming on today. Thank you so much for giving us your insights and thank you. Thank you so much, guys. I hope you took some nuggets away from this and I hope that this helps you spring forward into expert. If you'd like to get in touch with Dr Jason Wiggins, you can reach him at jasonwigginsphdcom or genzandmillineoexpertcom, or you can email him directly at jasonatgenzandmillineoexpertcom. You can also catch his podcast called your Motivational Genzandmillineo Expert on all platforms where podcasts are located.
Spring Richardson Perry:Thanks for listening to the Spring Forward Podcast. I hope you were able to capture some of the gems that were dropped and are excited to start using the information to help your business spring forward into excellence. I would love to hear some of your biggest takeaways from this episode, so connect with me on LinkedIn or Facebook, or tag me on Instagram at springy underscore springtime. And don't forget to subscribe to the show so you don't miss an episode. And if you'd like to learn more about how we can work together, visit the website at time2springforwardorg. And until next time on the Spring Forward Podcast.