Embracing Gen Z in our firm

As an elder millennial, I sit somewhere between boomers and Gen Z. For the most part, it’s a rather privileged position, having benefited from the type of boomer parents who told us we could do whatever we put our mind to.

Editor’s note: Check out “Gen Z perspectives and my path to Dark Horse” by Zachary Stoner for a unique POV from a Gen Z.

Who is the Gen Z?

I started my career in public accounting in 2009, at the expense of a few who were hired a year before my starting class in the Big Four and laid off so that our job offers didn’t have to be rescinded. I was able to buy a house and pursue the American Dream. However, I wasn’t happy or fulfilled in my work. In fact I was borderline depressed, but I didn’t face the challenges that many newly minted grads (yes, those Gen Zers) are confronted with. They face an overwhelming amount of student loan debt, unaffordable housing, a truncated college experience as a result of the pandemic, political turmoil, and a system that’s been designed to extract their labor and tax dollars to enrich the elder generations.

What’s more is that the millennial generation was a guinea pig to the pitfalls of social media and other technologies that created social isolation and an overall abnormal adolescence.

If you pause to consider the environment Gen Z has grown up in, it’s highly unsurprising that they have different values, behaviors, and wants than previous generations. So if you’re approaching them with judgment or disdain, you’ve lost the script. There is no point in lamenting what you think should be versus what is. You can’t change this generation, but you can harness its unique strengths.

What firms can do

Because this generation feels a diminished locus of control in their lives outside of work due to not being able to build a life in the same ways their parents did, they crave purpose, autonomy, and growth in their career in ways previous generations haven’t. This, alone, should make you optimistic about Gen Z in the workforce because many of them are looking for a work home they can be fully engaged in and bring their best self, too, versus clocking a 9-to-5 and living for the weekend.

Smart employers, including tax and accounting firms, are building their companies around a mission, a shared purpose, and a sense of belonging. It’s not just a Gen Z thing; it’s a human thing. Who among us doesn’t want to have clarity of purpose, pride in performance, autonomy and agency (and the trust that comes along with it), alongside a community of people working to leave the world a better place than they found it? The people who value none of the aforementioned are not people you want working at your firm.

If you’re saying to yourself, “That’s great for certain types of firms, but my business is different,”  I argue that you can build purpose into any company; it just needs to be authentic or it will fall flat on its face.

Consider your options

Maybe the mission is to provide dependable employment with good pay to those who society often casts aside? Maybe it’s about providing a locally owned service to your community instead of getting it from a nationally owned syndicate where the profits aren’t reinvested into the local economy. Maybe you pride yourself on providing a niche no one in your local area or region provides. The point is that if you’re passionate about your business (hello, you are an entrepreneur!), you can translate that same passion into a meaningful mission that lives within your team.

Smart employers are also building aligned incentive structures that get employees to think and act like owners. It’s not just about the softer side of the business; it’s also about the Benjamins. After all, purpose and mission, alone, don’t pay the bills. The smartest of employers embed aligned incentive structures into the fabric of their business in support of the mission. Maybe your firm can compete against larger local, regional, and even national firms because it’s comprised of employee-owners who are incentivized to provide superior service at competitive prices. They  are creatively solving problems vs. just blindly following a checklist from headquarters.

When you’re thinking about creating a workplace that attracts and retains Gen Z (and Gen Alpha at some point), you’re thinking beyond just the end-client your business serves. You’re thinking about how to best take care of your people so that they can best take care of your clients. If every level of an organization is focused on serving the people they lead, I can assure you that clients will feel this in a way that spurs word-of-mouth growth.

If you’ve read this article and thought to yourself, “This is common sense; the best organizations in the world are run by servant leaders where incentives are aligned,” then maybe it’s time to consider what Gen Z really wants is a return to the fundamentals of what makes a great business. This is something  a lot of us in elder generations have lost sight of in the name of procuring and protecting our piece of the American Dream.

Editor’s note: Dark Horse, have been featured in several white papers, including:

• Transform your firm’s tax workflow: 5+ proven strategies to eliminate low-value tasks
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