The Globe & Mail Feature: Gen Z Women at Work – Engaging the Next Generation

Victoria Sicilia shares insights at the Globe & Mail's Women in Leadership Conferences on how to engage Gen Z Women at Work.

How do we engage Gen Z women at work?

The Globe and Mail Events recently led a Women in Leadership: Driving diversity in Canadian business conference featuring panels and sessions discussing how we can cultivate, support and drive diversity in business. Victoria Sicilia, Director, Consultation and Engagement, Corporate Affairs at Environics Research joined Linda Dang, CEO, Sukoshi Mart and Maruya Postelnyak, Staff Reporter at the Globe and Mail, to share insights on how we can engage Gen Z women at work and how to empower the next generation.

Here are some of the key takeaways.

Work with young women towards their goals and give them milestones along the way

It’s important to make young women feel that they are working towards something; they do not want to feel aimless. Don’t assume they will sit and wait for the praise and promotion you might provide them in a few years’ time: make it known that you believe in them, that you are building goals with them, and let them work towards those goals are they grow in their role at the company.

Understand that purpose and meaning-making outside of work is incredibly important

Whether it’s philanthropic or the common Gen Z side hustle, young people are often involved in businesses and efforts outside of their work. This often isn’t just about money; more importantly, it’s because Gen Z women want to fulfil a sense of purpose both within and outside of work. Companies should have this in mind as they think about how they bring employees together: by putting effort towards things like community giving and meaningful micro-philanthropic efforts, for example, companies will show young women that their values are aligned. The result of this will be Gen Z who believe their work reflects what’s most important to them – and this will likely keep them around.

Demonstrate creativity in how women grow within your company

Often, we hear that young people cannot be promoted due to limitations created by individuals in roles that require retirement for any upward growth of newer employees. This perspective requires a shift in thinking. Often Gen Z are working above and beyond their job description, filling gaps and finding demands in the marketplace the company didn’t know existed. Creating roles that actually tailor to some of the new growing demands Gen Z naturally meet is a great way to allow for their movement within the company. Demonstrate openness and creativity by considering the creation of new roles to meet these needs.

Young women want to know that they’re working towards a goal. Gone are the days where young women will sit at their desks and just hope and dream of the day that a promotion might come. What happens now is that young women will work in a role 1-3 years and leave before you could have done anything with them. And often there are senior leadership conversations happening around these high potential employees, but they leave because they didn’t know they were high potential employees.

Victoria Sicilia

Director, Consultation and Engagement, Corporate Affairs at Environics Research

Women in Leadership

Panel with Victoria Sicilia

What do Gen Z value?

Through our Workplace Culture research, we’ve seen Gen Z and especially younger women strongly value acceptance and belonging, purpose and fulfillment, flexibility and adaptability. All of these values reflect a need for organizations to provide an open, flexible work environment that allows staff to adjust their work to changing conditions, do meaningful work, and pursue growth in a way makes sense for them personally.

While many organizations are doing well on the acceptance and belonging front, there are gaps on the other two. If companies want to retain early career women, they need to do a better job at providing to those.

Want to learn more about Gen Z?

Download our Gen Z Report