For anyone reading this who is in the business of ensuring workplaces are safe, I have good news: Millennials and their younger peers in Generation Z are gaining reputations for intrinsically valuing workplace safety. As organizational leaders, we need to catch this headwind and use it to propel workplace safety programs forward. But how can we do that when these same groups of younger workers struggle with engagement and constantly change jobs?
Let’s Start With a Quick Refresher
Also called members of Generation Y, millennials were born between 1981 and 1996. Many millennials entered the workforce shortly before or during the Great Recession, and they crave meaning, work-life balance and community from their employer, along with a paycheck. They make up more than one-third of the U.S. workforce, with an estimated 56 million millennials holding jobs.
Gen Z employees, on the other hand, are individuals born after 1996. They just started entering the U.S. workforce in large numbers during 2014.
Pew researchers in 2018 described Gen Zers as “on track to be the most diverse, best-educated generation yet.” And, maybe most importantly, they are digital natives who never knew a world without cellphones.
Gen Z employees are acutely aware of mental health, and many turned 16-26 during the global coronavirus pandemic. They have spent their late-teen and early-adult years plagued by remote learning, quarantines and less independence than their millennial colleagues.
Negative Stereotyping Undermines Efforts to Work Safely
As a millennial, I have grown more than used to hearing older people’s disdainful opinions of allegedly entitled, idealistic, tech-savvy but lacking in life skills “kids these days” who have a weird affinity for avocados. I have literally seen seasoned managers and lifelong company employees scratch their heads while wondering how to interact with younger colleagues, apparently forgetting that the elephant (i.e., the consultant) in the room is, herself, a millennial.
There is no shortage of less-than-flattering stereotypes, and falling back on the tropes does little besides sowing division and alienating people on both sides of the generation gap. Everyone has the most to gain from treating each other with empathy and respect. Keeping this in mind, focusing on the strengths of millennial and Gen Z employees will make it easier to see what can be done to develop the next generation of workplace safety leaders.
What Is Actually Different for Younger Workers
Experience on the job makes a difference when it comes to working safely. In fact, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show injury rates for short-tenure workers are about 50 percent higher than the rates for workers with more time on the job. Now, anyone who has recently started a job will have a short tenure. But Gen Z employees will, almost by definition, be in their first jobs.
In a Pew Research Center report published on Nov. 15, 2018, Richard Fry and Kim Parker explained:
Roughly one-in-five 15- to 17-year-olds in 2018 (19 percent) report having worked at all during the prior calendar year, compared with 30 percent of millennial 15- to 17-year-olds in 2002. Almost half of early baby boomers (48 percent) in the same age group worked in 1968. Among 18- to 21-year-olds today, 58 percent were employed during the prior calendar year. At the same age prior generations were much more likely to have been employed. Among millennial 18- to 21-year-olds in 2002, 72 percent reported working in the prior year. Among Boomer 18- to 21-year-olds in 1968, 80 percent worked in the prior calendar year.
Compounding their overall inexperience, Gen Zers are less likely to work full-time then were members of previous generations.
Millennial and Gen Z workers do share one short-tenure problem: People in both groups are likely to change jobs frequently. In How Millennials Want to Work and Live, Gallup reported 60 percent of millennials were open to taking a new job and 21 percent had done so within the past year. Those data came out before the Great Resignation started in 2021, and well before a record 4.54 million U.S. workers resigned or retired during April 2022.
Since job-hopping looks likely to continue, organizations need to adjust their approaches to reducing injury risks for short-tenure employees. Workplace safety will also improve when employers create and maintain cultures that make people want to stay.
5 Ways to Engage Millennials and Gen Zers in Safety
Significant challenges and opportunities confront employers. The ones that miss the opportunities are likely to struggle for years to come. Conversely, conquering the challenges will improve an employer’s footing and attract the best talent.
Give Younger Workers a Voice
Start improving workplace safety by meeting the challenge of engaging younger employees. In an article titled “Millennials: The Job-Hopping Generation,” Gallup wrote, “Only 29 percent of millennials are engaged at work, meaning only about three in 10 are emotionally and behaviorally connected to their job and company.”
Gen Zers look as likely to fail to engage. As Michael Stone explained in lengthy profile published in Forbes on May 18, 2021, these youngest workers are members of the most stressed out generation and are looking for stability and trust in an unstable world. Many Gen Zers had their earliest job experiences during the pandemic and as political tensions reached a boiling point. Entering a digital, rather than physical, workplace only created additional uncertainties and induced greater stress.
These challenges have motivated Gen Zers to become activists who look for organizations worthy of their trust and where they can take a strong stance on the issues that matter to them. They expect others to do the same.
Contrary to popular belief, both millennial and Gen Z employees care deeply about their work and want it to be meaningful. They may not hesitate to leave unapologetically when they find a job to be mundane or void of purpose. In fact, younger workers are often willing to sacrifice income and benefits for opportunities they find compelling.
Employers that wish to engage millennials and Gen Zers need to show them how they can make a difference in their present roles. No jobs are glamorous every minute of each day—an observation that especially applies to ensuring workplace safety. Despite this, taking small steps in the right direction as individuals keeps us all on the path to greatness. This approach has steadily improved working conditions for generations of Americans as healthy workplaces evolved.
Empowering and encouraging younger workers to participate actively in safety meetings and to lead safety committees will convert them into advocates for improving safety. This “secret to success” is no secret at all.
Clearly, an employee who has the ability to identify problems and research solutions without fearing retaliation will be more likely than not to do those things. Going a step further, workers who take active roles in improving workplace safety will see the meaning in their work and communicate that meaning to others.
Understand Younger Workers’ Diminished Appetite for Risk
Managers and supervisors have probably noticed a generation gap when it comes to tolerating risk in the workplace. There is a good reason for this.
Baby boomers were 18-25 when OSHA formed in 1971. These older workers watched workplace safety evolve in real time. Their preemployment experiences also differed significantly from those for millennials and Gen Zers. Baby boomers are much more likely to have gone to war, worked for a family business and tinkered on cars. For many of older individuals, taking personal risks is expected and synonymous with independence.
Most millennials and Gen Zers were not brought up in environments as rough-and-tumble as those that produced baby boomers. Few younger workers ever went through an airport security checkpoint without taking off their shoes. A large number had to pass through metal detectors to enter school buildings. They always wore helmets when riding bikes, and they view everything from crowds to lists of ingredients on food packaging with a skeptical eye.
Millennials and Gen Zers also tend to be more than willing to do their own research. They may, for instance, Google a Safety Data Sheet, or SDS, before their boss can retrieve it from a filing cabinet or the organization’s intranet.
What’s more, younger workers take more of a personal role in protecting their own safety at work. They will proactively seek out policies and procedures because they have become accustomed to finding everything from how to bake a potato to how to get a job online. They expect there to be an outlined way to approach each task at work, and this can be a huge benefit for jobs requiring strict adherence to safety protocols.
Managers and supervisors need to understand younger workers’ predilection for safety. Asking a millennial or Gen Zer to perform a seemingly risky task without proper training and equipment can erode trust and make them consider new employment options.
Lead or Get Out of the Way
Training employees is a significant investment. When an employee stays for two years or less, that investment feels wasted. As a result, some organizations have targeted new employee training when cutting costs. Employers that play this game for too long inevitably see more workplace injuries and drops in productivity.
Younger employees will likely be very aware of the lack of support and figure they have no obligation to invest in an employer that will not invest in them. Plus, when it comes to workplace safety, failing to properly train employees is unethical and illegal.
The one positive note here is that millennial and Gen Z employees will seek out safety information on their own. I know this because my free YouTube videos on workplace safety have been viewed a total of almost 2 million times since the first one posted in February 2020.
Self-training can have many benefits, but it is rarely adequate for people who work in dangerous environments. The problems with self-training begin with uneven quality and inconsistent messaging.
Use Technology to Deliver a Cohesive Message
Whether workplace safety training is done in person or virtually, employers must deliver a uniform message. They must also establish a solid foundation of respect for and adherence to safety policies and procedures upon which more specific lessons can be built.
First, antiquated approaches to training are ineffective and costly in terms of not preventing expensive accidents. It is no longer acceptable to submit employees to hourlong, dry and dull PowerPoint presentations. Such training sessions never did resonate with the vast majority of workers. As attention spans rapidly shorten, an uninterrupted slideshow turns viewers into a roomful of zombies within five minutes.
Smart employers are moving to entertaining online videos for basic instruction. This leverages millennial and Gen Z workers’ comfort with technology and remote work by allowing them to complete training courses on their own schedule at their own pace. It also spares everyone the hassle gathering in the same room for an hour or longer when all the information can be presented in 35 minutes.
Additionally, no one should still be doing all their training in one sitting. A lesson on a complicated topic can be broken down into a series of two- or five-minute bite-sized sessions. Such “microbursts” and accompanying quizzes increase knowledge retention and ensure key facts are learned before new information is introduced.
Using a learning management system (LMS) enables an employer to deliver safety training videos and written material to any computer or mobile device with ease. An LMS also simplifies the tasks of assigning training courses and tracking completion.
In-person training can follow video-based training, and lessons can be individualized by role and employees. Such self-directed learning is cohesive, entertaining and effective in building skills.
Provide On-the-Job Training to Generate Camaraderie and Community
After they complete their training, employees need opportunities to test their skills in controlled environments where mistakes will not result in injuries, damage or financial losses. In addition to giving employees a sense of accomplishment and fostering mastery, allowing employees to practice helps them form connections with coworkers.
Millennial and Gen Z employees crave a sense of community. On-the-job training satisfies that desire. Employees learn to trust as they receive constructive feedback from knowledgeable peers and supervisors.
This only works, however, when the employees being trained can make mistakes and ask questions without suffering negative consequences. When that happens, younger and older members of the workforce reap rewards. One group learns as the other shares the valuable knowledge they gained through the years. The end result is the next generation of workers coming up to speed on workplace safety.
Score a Win-Win: Engage Through Meaning, Quality Learning and Community
Millennial and Gen Z employees are not a challenge to be overcome. Rather, they are a force that can create massive positive change when empowered to do so. Engaging younger workers and improving an employer’s safety culture requires establishing the meaning at the heart of each employee’s role, providing quality learning experiences and fostering the development of a supportive community.
01 June 2022
Category
HR News Article