Did you know that almost every one of us records voice messages daily? Especially for Generation Z (people born between 1997 and 2012), audio messages have become an essential form of communication, and here is why: the best way to make sure people really understand what you are saying is to send them a simple voice message.
We at Audvice leverage the power of voice and bring it to the business world. But instead of sending loose voice messages to share information, our app enables you to share information and knowledge in perfectly structured audio playlists with colleagues, teams or the whole company. Our solution helps companies to move onboarding and training to fully structured audio playlists that are as personal as they are scalable. All the information recorded will be stored in your company's own audio library.
How Gen Z is shaping the future of work
According to the OECD, Gen Z will make up 27% of the workforce in OECD countries by 2025, and in the past years, they have also become the most diverse generation on the planet. As generations are changing, so is the world of work, and with Gen Z dominating the workforce, organizations need to acquire a different mindset. If you want to attract and retain the brightest and best-fit talent as an employer, you need to incorporate their needs and wishes into your organizational culture, structure, and strategy.
So let’s talk about some of the expectations Gen Z’s have when it comes to their workplace environment:
Diversity
Gen Z’s want to work in a diverse environment, not only in terms of gender and race, but also in terms of identity and orientation. We are looking at a generation of people with diverse interests, strengths, and areas of knowledge, and they want that reflected in their workplace. That means, as an employer, you need to carefully consider your employer brand and represent and showcase your diversity. And diverse teams are not only crucial for attracting Gen Z talent, but as an analysis by McKinsey has shown, companies with more diverse teams also outperform less diverse teams when it comes to profitability.
Flexibility
Remote work has become a norm for many companies due to the global pandemic, but Gen Z’s actually enjoy the possibility of remote work and being independent. They like being able to work from wherever they want, especially when they are still studying. That doesn’t mean they want to be “forced” to always have to work from home, but they want their employer to guarantee flexible work hours and places.
Career Growth
The Glint 2021 Employee Well-being Report states that opportunities to learn and grow are the most vital driver of excellent work culture. Gen Z’s are natural synthesizers who want to explore, experience, and collaborate. Given their entrepreneurial focus, they want to constantly grow and develop, both professionally and personally, which calls for new learning & development approaches. Given the speed and the frequency Gen Z’s want to learn and gain knowledge, organizations need to develop on-demand, scalable, and highly personalized training methods. After all, if your target group is becoming more diverse and individualistic, you won’t succeed if you address them as a broad, general mass.
Purpose
Generation Z values salary less than any other generation. This report by Deloitte states that if given the choice of accepting a better-paying but tedious job versus work that was more interesting but didn’t pay as well, Gen Z was evenly split over the choice. This is because they see their job as something that defines them, not simply a means to earn their bread and butter. That also means companies must pay special attention to their mission, vision, and values. If you are not able to evoke a greater sense of purpose and belonging in Gen Z’s, you won’t be able to attract them as an employer.
Innovation and Technology
Gen Z’s are the most tech-savvy generation and are used to facilitating almost every aspect of their daily lives with the help of technology. That means they expect the same from their workplace. As they know how much technology facilitates their everyday life, they want their employers to implement technology that simplifies their workflows and increases productivity.
Let us introduce you to a technology that fills this generation's needs and meets all the expectations we just talked about:
Gen Z and the power of voice
We already talked about Gen Z and their daily habit of sending voice messages. This is mainly related to personal interactions with peers. However, this study by Michael W. Kraus, a professor at the University of Yale, has demonstrated that voice-only communication facilitates work-related exchanges as well.
In an experiment, he asked a group of people to solve a difficult work problem, first via video chat and then with their cameras turned off. As a result, he showed that participants could detect emotions better if they only listened to a person's voice because we focus more on the nuances we hear in the way speakers express themselves.
Audvice, the collaboration tool to attract and retain top Gen Z talent
Audvice is the perfect tool to facilitate knowledge sharing in remote or hybrid work settings. In order to record, listen to, or share a playlist, your employees can be anywhere, and they can listen on the go while commuting, walking their dog, or walking around their Uni campus. Listening to audio playlists gives them flexibility because they can listen anywhere at any time, decreasing their dependence on a screen or desk.
With Audvice, you can also train & develop your employees most efficiently. We wrote an extra blog post about how Audvice benefits your training strategy; listen or read by clicking here. But to sum it all up, audvice allows you to easily capture, streamline and turn your employees’ knowledge into close-to-reality content that is as scalable as it is personal, with playlists. In addition, it supports the fast-paced, on-demand, and employee-centric learning approach.
Attracting and retaining top talent becomes easier by giving your brand a voice: that’s another benefit audvice provides for you as an employer. With playlists, you can showcase your company culture more authentically and ensure that talent can identify with your beliefs and goals even before they apply for a job. And not only does recruitment become way more personal and purposeful, but you also get to onboard Gen Z’s according to their needs. For example, suppose you record and share onboarding materials in the form of playlists rather than as page-long documents: your new employees get access to personalized materials recorded by those who know best and have internal company knowledge to share.
Fortune500 companies use audvice to onboard, train and update their employees more efficiently. Across all generations but particularly among Gen Z we got outstanding feedback from our users, among other things, that audvice positively impacted their communication skills, professional development and sense of belonging to the company. Get started for free today if you want to experience the app yourself.