Gen Z in the Workplace: College Grads Supervising Seniors?
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Here's your Money Briefing. I'm J.R. Whalen at The Wall Street Journal in New York. The arrival of Generation Z in the workplace, those are workers turning 21, means that in some places there are five generations of workers under one roof. In a moment, we'll hear from a human resources executive on the challenges that poses to employers. First, some money in market news you should know. The Wall Street Journal markets team spotlights big banks offering incentives to customers who open checking accounts. Total interest expense at U.S. banks rose 70 percent from the first quarter of 2018 to the first quarter of this year.
How is Generation Z changing the makeup of today's workforce?
So instead of raising interest rates on checking accounts, which cost the banks money, banks like Citigroup keep the rates relatively low and offer perks like reimbursement for a customer's Hulu or Amazon Prime account. Other banks like the Seattle area's Washington Federal offer identity fraud and cell phone insurance. See the full story on WSJ.com or the WSJ app. And you might need to take a break from ordering meals with tortillas at Taco Bell. Turns out the fast food chain's outlets in various cities around the country are running short, and everything from burritos to quesadillas is affected. Taco Bell says it's working to address the shortages and suggests that customers try other menu items such as the Power Menu Bowl or Cheesy Gordita Crunch.
Heard on the Street also points out this should not be confused with a storyline in the 2006 film Idiocracy, where the U.S. faces crop failures and a shortage of what is described in the movie as burrito coverings because crops were watered with sports drinks.
The first wave of Generation Z has entered the workforce, and that means there could be five generations working together. It also means someone at a college could be supervising someone old enough to be their parent. So how does this impact the ecology of a company as compared to years past, or does it? Let's bring in expert HR legal editor Robert Teachout, he's on the line with us, to fill in some details. So, Robert, by Generation Z, we're not talking about millennials, but rather 60 million people born after 1996. Is this a particularly large cluster of people entering the workforce at one time?
Not yet. They're just graduating high school and college. So they're coming in. They're one of the smaller segments at this point, millennials being the largest. But they are going to be the ones that are coming in steadily.
Can you take me through the five generations that could be working at a company at one time?
Sure. We'll just start. We'll go from oldest to youngest. And you start with the traditionalists. These are the people, the generation that preceded the baby boomers. And they're more hierarchical. They've got the loyalty. And they're a heck of a lot older. They're up in their late 60s, early 70s and 80s. And they're still there because, frankly, people live longer. They're healthier. They're able to. To some extent, there might even be some that came back into the workforce because of the Great Recession and they needed to bolster their income. And then there's the Baby Boomers, which everyone is familiar with. A demographer I know once said it was a ridiculously 20-year-long celebration of the end of World War II.
And everyone's very familiar with that group. Then you have Generation X, which is kind of a sandwich generation. They're the ones that are currently in the workplace. They're probably raising kids, maybe helping raise grandkids. But at the same time, they're likely to be helping their elderly parents as well. Then you have the millennials, the Generation Y, whatever you want to call them. Millennials is the one that picked up the steam. And now we have the newcomers, the Generation Z. The Pew Research, I'm relying on them as far as the year. Beginning in 1997 is where Pew Research Center is starting to count that generation. And they're the ones that came of age first. smartphones, the internet of things, and they're going to be a fun group to watch.
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