Randstad, one of the world’s largest staffing providers, recently released results of a global survey on Gen Z — those born between 1994 and 2010. The generation currently ranges from approximately 5 to 20 years of age and currently are in high school or have recently entered college or the workforce.

Results from Randstad’s recent study of generational workplace preferences include:

Talk with them:

• Both Gen Y’s and Gen Z’s like technology, but when it comes to communicating with managers and co-workers, old-fashioned talking in person wins hands down: Gen Z 53 percent and Gen Y 51 percent.
• E-mailing is preferred by a smaller group: Gen Z 19 percent and Gen Y 16 percent.
• Instant messaging rates third, being selected by 10 percent of Gen Z’s and 13 percent of Gen Y’s.

Hands-on work and good co-workers help boost their high performance:

• To enable their best performance, 75 percent of both Gen Z and Gen Y place highest priority on the type of work they do, and both show a strong preference for hands-on projects.
• Seventy-two percent of Gen Z and 70 percent of Gen Y say their co-workers affect their performance, and they like co-workers who are willing to work as hard as they do.
• Forty-five percent Gen Z members think personalizing their workspace and listening to music/wearing headphones can help them work better, while Gen Y employees are more influenced by the location of their job site and the size of the work space.

What hinders their workplace success?

• Stress: Both generations name stress as the No. 1 obstacle likely to impede their work performance. Fifty-four percent of Gen Z members express concern with stress compared to 41 percent of Gen Y members.
• Forty-eight percent of Gen Z members are also concerned about not getting along with their team/manager or a bad job fit or distractions (45 percent each). Gen Y thinks money (35 percent) and not getting along with their team/manager (34 percent) can impact their

For more survey results, click here.

The survey was fielded in the US, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey and the UK between April 9 and April 24, 2014. For this survey, 1,005 respondents aged 16–20 (Gen Z) were asked about their thoughts on their future employment and workplace environment, while 1,016 respondents aged 21–32 (Gen Y) were asked about their thoughts on their current employment and workplace environment. For each country, at least 200 respondents were surveyed with a minimum of 100 within each age group.

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