Younger employees are ready to innovate, but employers will need to find technology that lets their creativity run wild, right out of the box.
In one of my earliest memories, I remember my dad fiddling with the TV and asking me to help him figure out how it worked. Even though I was a young kid at the time, I was already the go-to tech expert in my family. I knew I wanted to be a software engineer when I grew up. Tech came naturally to me.
Gen Z wants tech that empowers creativity
gettyMy story isn’t unique. A lot of us Gen Zers were scrolling and swiping before we could walk. We grew up in a digital world with on-demand services and social media.
As the older members of our generation join the workforce, we are learning that our expectations regarding work are different from those of previous generations. The way we think about enterprise applications and other workplace technology is different as well. I polled my peers (most of whom do not work in the tech industry) to better understand what Gen Z expects from workplace digital tools. Here’s what I found.
The freedom to create
Some people paint or draw to express their creativity. My medium of choice is technology.
We want to let our creativity run wild, right out of the box.
In my experience, Gen Z values technology that allows us to bring our most innovative and authentic selves to work. I think my friend LaQuan put it best when he texted me: “I expect workplace technology to help employees complete tasks in an efficient and effective manner without limiting our creativity.”
Technology is our canvas. And we don’t want to waste time figuring out how to use a piece of hardware or software.
Even before the pandemic forced us into remote classrooms, Gen Zers prefered self-directed and autonomous learning. Thinking about an app like Instagram, I didn’t have to pore over a manual to figure out how to use it; I picked it up and started creating.
We want to let our creativity run wild, right out of the box. What that means in practice is that when I’m using a piece of enterprise software, I don’t want to be conscious of the fact that it’s software. I want it to feel like an extension of my own creativity. Even though Gen Z is tech-fluent, we want to quickly move between tasks and execute projects without wasting time.
Mind the aesthetics
When I was growing up, Apple cornered the market on smartphones and set the bar for product and experience design. Gen Zers see no reason why our enterprise tech should be less aesthetically pleasing than commercial apps and software. It’s not enough for tech to work well. My generation wants it to work beautifully too.
This came up a lot when I polled my peers. My friend Grace, a fashion designer, said, “The design of workplace technology is important. From one of my psych classes, we learned visual/aesthetic appeal goes a long way when it comes to increasing people's desire to work with certain programs and do so efficiently.”
My friend Emmy is entering her last year of college, and she ranked design as one of her top priorities, alongside having access to the “latest and greatest hardware and software” in terms of assessing potential employers’ technology tools.
This makes sense to me. Visuals are important to Gen Z. We’re a generation that consumes a lot of information on video platforms like TikTok and YouTube. If a visually appealing UI increases the chances that someone will use a commercial app, shouldn’t the same principle apply to enterprise tech?
Versatility is everything
I’m proud to say Gen Z is a curious, knowledge-hungry generation. Having experienced a pandemic, a global recession, and the climate crisis, we’ve become resilient as well. And I think that’s why we expect our tools and software to have the same versatility and adaptability as we do.
In fact, versatility came up repeatedly in my conversations with my peers.
Many of them ranked versatility and multifunctionality as top priorities for enterprise software. My friend and fellow software engineer Johnny said, “Workplace tech should strive to be as universal as possible. We must be able to customize our user experience and integrate a tool into our existing workflows.” In other words, Gen Z expects enterprise software to adapt to our lives, not the other way around.
Many Gen Z early-in-career employees entered into a remote and flexible workforce. And we prefer it that way. We’re on the hunt for jobs that allow us to take our work with us on that journey. That’s why it’s so important for enterprise software to follow us from our laptop to our phone, from the office to the beach, without missing a beat.
Changing the world
After growing up as my family’s resident tech expert, I have in fact become a software engineer. Now I’m just one of the millions of Gen Zers entering the workforce in the next decade or so.
We may be young, but my generation has already experienced its fair share of upheaval. I think that’s why we’re so determined to change things for the better. As much as we love playing games on our phones and tablets, technology is very high-stakes for us. We want tech that empowers us rather than constrains us. If a business is willing to give us the tools we need, then we’re willing to help it change the world.
