New Publication in 'Monitoring of Public Opinion' Journal
The article from Natalia Soloveva, Young Research Fellow at CYS, in co-authorship with researcher Alina Petrova is published in journal 'Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes'. In their work authors study the employers’ perceptions of the behavioral and value-based characteristics of Generation Z employees.
In article 'The Otherness of Generation Z in the Workplace: Behavioral and Value Traits Through the Eyes of Employers' researchers Natalia Soloveva, Young Research Fellow at the Centre, and Alina Petrova analyse how company managers articulate “otherness” of their young employees. The objects of study are interviews with employers across various employment sectors. As the authors note their intention was to uncover whether there is more to the "otherness" besides the critique and how do emploers interpret their experiences fo interacting with Zoomers.
The empirical basis of the article includes 20 in-depth interviews with employers from the manufacturing, socio-cultural, service, and high-tech sectors of Saint Petersburg’s economy. The materials were collected by the Centre for Youth Studies as part of a project carried out within the framework of the Fundamental Research Program at HSE University in 2024. The analysis was conducted using thematic coding. Findings show that employers most frequently express Gen Z’s otherness through accounts of workplace challenges: emotional sensitivity, weak professional socialization, disruption of workplace hierarchies, and insufficient responsibility in task execution.
The research highlights that there is no clear consesus on whether the specifics of how Zoomers work are deeply negative or positive. They simply register the changes on labor market and in social reality as a whole. At the same time, employers themselves, mostly Millennials due to the specifics of the sample, note that Zoomers are indeed changing the rules of the game in the labor market. Moreover, they notice the demand for greater care and mentoring from their side, and they highly value this. They want to become guides for Gen Z in their new reality as working people. However, here we also see that employers sometimes find themselves overburdened by such a requirement, which leads to certain conflicts and a blurring of boundaries — something that needs further consideration. This is a rather touching moment that demonstrates that both the older and younger generations want to interact with each other in the workplace rather than stigmatize one another how bloggers and media do.
Today we live in a slightly different times than when Millenials were entering the workforce. The contemporary labor market to a much lesser extent promising for people who are engaged in monotonous tasks as in the near future all monotonous tasks will be performed by artificial intelligence. Therefore it's no surprise that Zoomers want to do something creative and develop their own projects.
After entering the labor arket Zoomers already want to take charge, hold high positions and earn large salaries. Employers believe this is due to their immaturity, while we can talk about this being driven by the demands of the modern world, by the cult of success that is spreading in a the context of finansial crisis and in a neoliberal reality. Gen Z'ers are trying to adapt to this and find opportunities in the labor market that will provide them with the life they want, and not just survival. Of course, the labor market cannot always deliver this, espessially at the start of one's career. Here we see a profound contradiction between the image of a young sucessful person who earns a lot of money, takes vacations two times a year in warm countries, owns an appartment and a car, and who a young person can really be like in an ordinary job.
They put themselves first not because they are an "egotistical" generation. The reality is just of they don't put themselves first, then no one else will do it for them. Neoliberal capitalist society is rather blind to individuality even though proclaiming that individuality is the thing it values most. The employers we spoke to understand this. They note all these changes and say, that today the image of a particular profession is not the same as it was in their youth.
The work is written in Russian and is availible for reading.
for citation: Soloveva, N. S., & Petrova, A. D. (2026). The Otherness of Generation Z in the Workplace: Behavioral and Value Traits Through the Eyes of Employers. Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes, (2), 24–45.
