Joining us on episode 58 of Talent & Growth is Milimo Banji the Founder of TapIn a social-first creative agency, in this episode we dig into some of the characteristics between Gen Z and Gen Y, the types of content Gen Z respond well to and where businesses go wrong when it comes to trying to attract Gen Z.  

We’ve pulled out some highlights from this episode to give businesses some advice when it comes to attracting Gen Z, and help them get the best talent – we hope it helps your business. 

First, what are some of the differences in the characteristics of Gen Z compared to Gen Y? 

I think one of the most obvious differences is the years that Gen Z were actually born. We are digital natives and grew up in an era of social media and iPhones. What we’re seeing with Gen Z is that a lot of young people are interested in entrepreneurship and want to be their own bosses. Research tells us that over the pandemic, 65% of Gen Z’s actually started their own businesses. We’ve been brought up in a different era with technology at the forefront of how we operate business, participate in communities and engage.  

Mental health is also really important to us. When is speak to employers or our clients and ask them about what they care about, they talk about mental health and the importance of support being provided to young people as they develop through their career. It’s a massive thing for young people. 

There is then flexibility and being able to have some leadership or management. When we go into a company we want there to be structure, a clear progression and reward. Reward isn’t ping pong tables, having a slide or allowing pets. These things are great but they are all additional things. What we really care about is when companies or businesses pay real attention to us, our development and understanding our characteristics. They should have development plans in place which allow us to further ourselves. 

Over the pandemic, things that Gen Z care about have been spoken about more. Pre-pandemic a lot of organisations, if they’re being honest, might not have thought much about mental health. There was the attitude that it was ‘part of the job’ or ‘it is stressful’ and you were just expected to get on with it. But now we’ve seen a shift. People feel they have a choice and have had time to think about this and what they want from an employer. They have decided that if a company does not provide them with certain things, they will go elsewhere. We saw the ‘great resignation’ where people were moving to find businesses who pushed the mental health agenda and now some of these characteristics of Gen Z are now merging with older generations.  

How can businesses stand out and try to attract Gen Z? What advice can you give? 

We often talk about diversity and inclusion and why that is important. I think early talent, or early careers is the key to building longer term diverse businesses and organisations. I feel like any change that has longevity and long term value, always starts at grassroots level, and that’s in early careers. These are the people that come in as interns, apprentices or grads and then within two or three years they’re moving up the ranks. Off the back of that, the business starts to become diverse right from the get go.  

In terms of how you attract them, you first need to understand what platforms they use and spending the most time on? We’ve seen that the top four platforms at the moment are Instagram, TikToc, YouTube and Snapchat. Start to build strategies on how to engage them on these platforms. The biggest mistake employers make is that they think their strategy on YouTube is going to be the same as Instagram. But there are so many nuances that make each platform unique, so understand these and develop targeted strategies.  

If you want more from this episode just click here. 

On Talent & Growth we speak to talent leaders about the challenges they face and their solutions for attraction and retention. If you’re interested in hearing about how companies are building a more diverse talent pool, how you can attract top people from the big players, ways to create a more inclusive interview process or learn about the latest and greatest automation software to make your life easier, then this is the podcast for you.