Hello everyone and welcome to our newsletter on all things Gen Z.

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Back from hols!! We hope you have all had/are having good breaks. Now, we know that Get to Know is like a holiday in your inbox every week. So we are both very happy to be back at our desks toiling away for the good of the world.

YES WE ARE.

When Hillary Clinton said “I am still convinced the future is female” after losing the Presidential race to Donald Trump, the crowd at AOL’s 2017 “Makers Conference” in California clapped and hollered in warm support.

The phrase was first coined by the founders of a lesbian book store, one of the first, which opened in Greenwich Village in 1972. It was called Labyris, and is well worth looking up. And although now “the future is fluid” has sparked new debates on the role of gender in the workplace, particularly for young people, the future is still not female enough.

At The News Movement, our newsrooms in London and New York are led by women and we have majority female teams. But the data shows that companies like ours are still outliers. This piece from the Harvard Business Review reveals how, from Gen Z to Gen X (from Holly to Kamal, to go weirdly third person given we write this thing together) women still disproportionately face “ageism” in the workplace. That can be from being seen as too young (and therefore, if a woman, too inexperienced) or too old (and therefore, if a woman, past it).

And then there’s this on what Gen Z women risk losing because of remote and hybrid work.

One thing we do know - attitudes or systems that work against fair treatment of all your colleagues are much more likely to be called out by Gen Z. Or they might just leave, and tell all their friends.

Talking of friends…

Gen Z might want privacy from their parents, but not so much from their friends. The Apple ‘Find My Friends’ feature (or Snapchat’s Snap Map or Google’s location sharing) is hugely popular among young people, who enjoy checking to see what their friends are doing without asking. But this doesn’t mean they’re having fewer real conversations. Gen Zers will text their friends saying, “hey, how’s dinner?” after seeing their location at a restaurant. The Evening Standard made a statement we agree with - that location sharing is “a new love language for the smartphone generation”, helping foster a deeper sense of digital intimacy.

The future is fluid “Part II”…

A new study based on updated census data has found that Gen Z Americans will be the last generation with a white majority. Gen Alpha, who were born after 2012, will be a “majority minority” generation - a factor which means there will be a ‘racial ageing gap’, where the younger population are way more diverse than older age groups. The change – when non-Hispanic white people make up less than half of the overall US population – should come around 2045.

Not hired

A new survey by Intelligent, an online magazine focusing on student life found that 40% of business leaders thought Gen Z grads were unprepared for the workplace, with work ethic and communication skills the top causes. What’s more, 94% of those said they had avoided hiring recent college graduates.

Now, fingers are being pointed at the pandemic and shifting standards. It’s in the latter where perception really matters - how we talk about people, how we respond to individual situations, and how responsible it is to brand an entire generation as the same. It’s not necessarily a bad thing for younger generations to question the norms around working culture, and we’d like to see more focus on the mutual benefits that come from questioning what’s working and what’s not - regardless of our age.

Not fired

And talking of attitudes in the workplace, this lovely data picture on generational changes by our friends at Visual Capitalist is well worth a few minutes of your time. It’s based on the report we created with Oliver Wyman and is the ultimate deep dive into the lives, loves and icks (dislikes for our older readers) of Gen Z.

And finally…

52%

Of Gen Z and Millennials believe that moderate drinking (that’s one or two drinks a day) is unhealthy. That’s up from 34% five years ago and is the biggest jump amongst adult generations. We’re all far more likely to be “sober-curious” now, Gen Z are driving the market for non-alcoholic alternatives and women are the most cautious about the effects of alcohol consumption.

Have a lovely, healthy, sober(ish) weekend everyone.

How can we help?

In my many travels and conversations, I’m increasingly talking to CEOs, executives and civil society leaders wanting to better understand the next generation of consumers and the next generation of employees. Gen Z is putting pressure on us all to transform in fascinating ways, and many of us are asking questions about how to cater for younger workers and future proof our organisations.

If this sounds like you, we’d be keen to have a chat and see if TNM can help. From our own content production to work we have done, for example, with The Oliver Wyman Forum, we have a raft of insights and data which can support you. We work closely with a number of global organisations – helping with high-impact story-telling, digital media, internal communications, through to employee benefits, HR and working structures.

Email me direct and all of us at TNM look forward to speaking further.

Kamal Ahmed
Editor-in-Chief and Co-founder
The News Movement