Reaching and engaging with ‘lazy, entitled’ Gen-Z

Employers are urged to see the potential of the so-called Gen-Z and their unconventional ideas, instead of dismissing them as lazy and unreliable. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: Youngsters belonging to “Generation Z”, also known as “post-millennials” and “digital natives”, often get a bad rep from those who believe they will destroy or kill off traditional markets and businesses.

Like the millennial generation before them, they are mostly dismissed as lazy, unreliable, entitled and easily distracted.

But Edward Boey, who founded his own IT company, believes otherwise.

Because they were born in the midst of technological advancements, he says the Gen-Z, as they are called, are a wellspring of unconventional ideas.

He told FMT employers should be open to collaboration with such youth, and allow them to try new things in their organisations.

He gave the example of a Gen-Z whom he said changed his company with her out-of-the-box ideas.

“Her ideas changed how we developed our website and made it much faster,” he said.

But despite their energy and novel ideas, he said, many Gen-Z lack confidence, especially those who were not academically inclined at school.

Edward Boey, adviser at Ascendance.

Boey is an adviser at Ascendance, a social enterprise run by teenagers who conduct workshops and programmes for youth. The youngest is 16 while the oldest is 22.

One of their programmes, called AceItEasy, aimed to help schoolchildren in mid to low performing classes improve in their studies as well as self-confidence. It also encouraged them to find their passion and explore their talents.

It ran nationwide last year at more than 20 institutions in partnership with the education ministry.

The students in the programme recorded outstanding results, with five out of nine participating schools noting improvements in discipline and character.

Based on this model, Boey said peer-to-peer mentorship appeared to be an effective way of addressing low academic performance and confidence levels.

Heerra Ravindran.

He proposed that the current methods of teaching be tweaked with input from the Gen-Z themselves.

He said these youth, who were mostly born after the mid-1990s, preferred hands-on engagement when it came to classroom learning.

Heerra Ravindran, 19, was one of the founders of Ascendance. She received a full scholarship at an international school and went on to become and international singer/songwriter.

She is now the chief operating officer of the enterprise.

She said based on her work with the Gen-Z, they appeared to have a common problem: regardless of their background, they felt misunderstood and many feared they would never find their purpose in life.

She said they needed to take the initiative to stay engaged and find ways to supplement traditional methods of learning.

“A lot of them, when they study, take creative notes or pretend the events taught in History classes are motives in their heads.

“They need to find creative ways to work with the current system.”

In terms of employability, she said, many of them lacked experience and exposure and thus had “false perceptions” about jobs and the reality of working life.

“Good mentorship at the workplace really helps,” she said, adding that employers should allow them the space to make mistakes.

Harsha Ravindran.

Heerra’s sister, 16-year-old Harsha Ravindran, is chief marketing officer of Ascendance. She was only 13 when the social enterprise took off.

Through her work at Ascendance, she now speaks at international conferences like TEDx and the Asian Institute of Finance.

She acknowledged the general perception of the Gen-Z being lazy, unreliable and easily distracted, but said these should not be the only things that define the group.

“We are not just that,” she said, adding that with the right engagement, they could overcome these stereotypes.

She herself is unable to sit in a classroom for long, and says experiential or hands-on learning is a more effective way of teaching her generation.

She urged employers to start working with the Gen-Z instead of “hypothetically” discussing their issues without input from the teenagers themselves.

“I was invited to speak at a conference about engaging, retaining and adapting to the Gen-Z, but I was the only Gen-Z there,” she recalled.

She too agreed that self-confidence is an issue among her peers.

She attributed this to the scrutiny given to teenagers and children in general.

“All of them fear making mistakes. Everyone wants to be number one, nobody wants to fail.” -FMT