The younger the worker, the more likely they will choose an employer that offers flexibility in work hours according to Jabra’s latest report Mind the Gap – How Gen Z is Disrupting the Workplace in 2024.
The research reveals that 26.58 per cent of millennial workers in Australia ranked flexibility in working hours each day as the single most important factor they consider when looking for a new job.
By comparison, 21.05 per cent of Australian Gen Z workers surveyed ranked working hours flexibility as their top consideration when looking for a new role, as did 19.51 per cent of Gen X workers and 18.46 per cent of Boomers.
Conversely, Australian Gen Z workers were the most likely to rank flexibility of workplace location as their top consideration when looking for a new job, with 35.53 per cent putting it in the top spot, while 31.65 per cent of Millennials surveyed said it was their number one priority. At the same time, 28.05 per cent of Gen X workers and 26.15 per cent of Boomers said it was their top consideration.
Work-life balance is also a priority particularly among millenials, with 34.18 per cent revealing that keeping a work-life balance is among their primary measures of success at work, compared to 26.32 per cent for Gen Z workers.
The report highlights how critical flexibility is for employers in attracting and retaining talent as a shallow labour pool still plagues the Australian job market. However, it also pointed out the challenges that come with flexibility such as managing distributed teams, keeping people engaged and preventing employees from feeling isolated from the rest of their teams.
Technology is playing a growing role in solving the aforementioned challenges, especially given the improvement of technologies that offer calls, instant messaging, and email services. For instance, 22.78 per cent of millennials said having calls was the most important factor to their feeling of connection, while 40.51 per cent said instant messaging conversations were most important.
There are, of course, technology challenges being faced as well – 21.31 per cent of millennials shared that the quality of their audio technology was their biggest productivity barrier in online meetings, as did 18.46 per cent of Gen Z workers.
“Recent studies suggest that Gen Z and Millennials currently make up approximately 38 per cent of the global workforce — a percentage that will only rise in the coming years,” Michael Downey, Marketing and Communications Director in ANZ at Jabra, said. “This is why business leaders must learn to understand the shift in worker mindset, attitudes, and values to unlock their full, collaborative potential, while also ensuring their collaboration technology is meeting the needs of the workers coming through the pipeline. Otherwise, they may miss out on tomorrow’s talent.”
