Category Archives: GenZ

Career Confessions from Gen Z: Bathrooms matter to a great Employee Experience!

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In my opinion, there are few places that are worse than a public restroom. There have been very few times in my life where I’ve been happy to use a restroom in a public area. I strongly dislike any bathroom that is not a private restroom or one that is in my home.

I have 2 main reasons for my strong distaste for public bathrooms: cleanliness and privacy. I can thank my Mom for my concerns about germs, and 9 times out of 10 a public restroom will be dirtier than my nice and tidy bathroom at home. My main problem with using public bathrooms is privacy. Even if I just went in to fix my hair, I don’t want anyone looking and judging me for doing it!

Although I really would prefer if I could just use my bathroom at home 24/7, that is not realistic especially when I’m working every day. I’m going to at least have to pee a few times. So, if I have to use a different bathroom than my own, I want it to be as nice as possible.

The bathrooms at Quicken Loans(where I’m doing my summer internship! Hey, guys!) check almost all of my boxes. They are extremely cleanly and I see cleaning staff work on the bathrooms a few times a day. But, the best part is the almost completely private stalls that they have! The walls in between the stalls and the doors go all the way from the ceiling to the floor. It’s my dream honestly.

No one wants to poop at work, and if they have to, it might as well be in almost complete privacy.

In addition to the cleanliness and the private stalls, the restrooms on my floor have baskets of toiletries; toothbrushes, stain sticks, lotion, hairspray, basically anything you could need to make you comfortable and fix any problems you may have. It’s so comforting to know that if I ever spill something on my clothes or have bad breath, I have a quick fix just a few steps away.

If you want to make sure your employees are comfortable and doing their best work, the bathroom is a good place to put some luxury into. Most people don’t enjoy using the restroom but we all have to do it. So why not make it a more enjoyable experience for your employees!

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Career Confessions of Gen-Z: Diversity of Experience Is Truly Valuable

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Growing up, I was not exposed to the most diverse community. I love my little Michigan town, but it’s pretty white. My parents tried to help me experience diversity growing up; they let me go to Japan for an exchange program in 8th grade and let me go off to college in New York. It wasn’t until these experiences that I was truly exposed to communities that were vastly different than my own.

Recently, I got the chance to attend a Diversity and Inclusion Event at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit through my internship at Quicken Loans. While there, I watched 2 different panels of QL employees speaking on the importance of diversity and inclusion within QL and the workplace.

One thing that really stuck with me from this event was when one of the panelists said: “We don’t hire people to check off boxes”. All of the panelists discussed how the diversity of experience was essential for diversity and inclusion to thrive. This really caused a shift in mindset for me.

Growing up, I thought that being diverse was simply the inclusion of people from all different backgrounds and communities. While that is a huge part of diversity, being of a diverse background is only one part of having diverse experiences.

I get that I’m not a minority. I’m a white male that is from a middle-class family in the MidWest. We’re a dime a dozen out here. But this helped me see that just because I’m not of a minority ethnicity or gender or some other quality doesn’t mean that I’m not diverse. Creating a background of diverse experiences is how someone like me can become more inclusive.

I believe that it is essential that we instill these values and this knowledge of diversity in Gen-Z. We are in a world that is more diverse than ever before. We need to create an environment where going out and having diverse experiences is celebrated and isn’t feared. It is vital that our educators and leaders are instilling a celebration and appreciation of diversity in their students and employees.

I’ve always known that diversity is important. But now I understand why. Bringing people together of different backgrounds and with different experiences is where you get s*** done and you get it done well. And that’s pretty freaking cool.

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Career Confessions from Gen Z: How Painful is Your Onboarding?

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One of the most painfully awkward experiences of my life was my college orientation. I remember being so excited to go; this is the start of a whole new journey where you’re supposed to meet all of your lifelong friends and become a whole new person! I failed to remember that forcing a group of 17 and 18-year-olds to try and become friends in an 8-hour time span probably won’t work that well. Not only did I have to suffer through one college orientation, I had to do ANOTHER one when I decided to transfer to my current school. College orientations are absolutely necessary but absolutely agonizing.

Since I detest college orientations, I am not looking forward to the lifetime of onboarding processes that I will have to endure. The average person will hold 12-15 jobs in their lifetime, and Gen-Z’ers will definitely raise that number significantly. I’m already on my 5th job and I’m 19! While I may need to accept the fact that I have many onboardings ahead of me, here is what I suggest to make them as painless as possible for everyone involved:

  1. Short and Sweet: The general rule for all onboardings should be the shorter, the better. Just because you have a full day set aside, doesn’t mean you need to use the whole thing! Many people hold the same resentment to onboardings and orientation as me and will immediately forget approximately 97% of the information given at these sessions. So, instead of spending more time droning on, have your employees get started and let them figure things out as they come!
  2. Specificity is key: I get that there’s a lot of general information that needs to be relayed to your employees, but the more specific you can be with every person’s individual needs, the better. Not only is it more efficient because it is straight to the point, but it will force your onboardie’s to pay attention because the information directly applies to them!
  3. Food, food, and more food: If you are going to make your new employees sit through a full day of onboarding, there better be food. And not just some crappy sandwich platter. Food is essential in keeping your new employees awake and alert. Also, coffee, soda, or other refreshments should be widely available as well.
  4. Cut Out the Fluff: While preparing onboarding procedures, do your best to cut out all non-essential information. We don’t need an hour presentation on your company’s culture. Let us live and learn by experiencing it ourselves!

The goal of an onboarding process should be to make everything as clear as possible to your newbies. You don’t need to get us excited about working or pump us up: odds are that us Gen-Zer’s are already excited because it’s our first real job! I just started my internship this week and I didn’t need the constant pump-up music and overdone cheering and applause (for literally everyone and everything); I’m already excited to start! So, stuff us with junk food, coffee, and essential information and then send us on our way to get started!

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

What Happened to America’s After-Work Pub Culture?

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I’m returning from London today and there was something I noticed on my trip that we don’t really have in America. In fact, in the past year, I’ve visited Australia, South Africa, and now the UK, and in each visit to these countries I’ve noticed they have a very strong after-work pub culture.

When I talk to my grandparents it seemed like at one time in America we also had this after-work pub culture. We would go to work, do our job, and afterward we would meet our workmates and friends from, old and new, for a drink or two before heading home.

I love the after-work pub culture!

It’s not really about drinking, although a lot of that happens, it about true connection. The one thing you instantly realize about the pub culture is that no, absolutely no one, is looking at their phone! It’s so strange because you realize how much we are on our phones in America when you see this!

It’s adults, sharing a pint, having conversations. Laughing. Hugging. Just sharing their daily frustrations and joys. Then they head home and finish their day.

Somewhere in our history we stopped heading to the pub after work and started heading directly home. Why?

Part of the pub culture is a city culture as well. When you don’t get into a car, by yourself, but you walk to the train, or bus, or ferry, or to where you live directly, you put yourself in a position to stop along the way for a drink with a friend, or to meet up with some friends. As we moved out of our cities, we moved away from the after-work pub culture.

We became addicted to busy. Around the world parents have their kids play sports and do activities, but, in America, we’ve become completely insane in over-scheduling our kids. It’s not enough to have them play little league on the weekend or take piano lessons, they have to be on travel teams, or prepare for concerts, etc.

We stopped having real relationships and we started having social relationships. I’ve found other countries place a higher importance on having a real face to face interactions to consider someone a friend. They want to break bread and share a drink and really get to know the person that is you. For many Americans, we’ve grown uncomfortable with real relationships!

I think there is a balance. I’m not sure I want my Dad or Mom showing up a 7 pm each night because they’ve been at the pub, but I think it’s okay if they do this a day or two a week. I think it’s healthy for adults to have adult relationships.

I like the concept of the neighborhood pub where you can go and you know the staff and the patrons. I think an after-work pub culture acts sort of like adult therapy in so many cases. I’m wondering if the Millennials and GenZ will turn the tide and re-create the after-work pub culture in America, as we see more and more young people move back into our cities? I hope so!

Hit me in the comments on your thoughts about an after-work pub culture. Are you for it or against it, and why?

Career Confessions from Gen-Z: Go Spend Some Time Abroad!

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Your favorite Gen-Z blogger has returned to the States! After a tumultuous day of traveling (I won’t bore you with the details), I returned on Tuesday night from my 6 week study abroad trip to Spain. My trip to Spain was the best timesof my life filled with so many cool new experiences all over the country, including a lot of new foods, shopping, and SO MUCH GELATO.

Ever since I started college, I knew that studying abroad was something that I definitely wanted to do. I didn’t necessarily know where I wanted to go, but I knew that I needed to go. Gotta travel while you’re young! Everyone always says that studying abroad will give you a whole new perspective to how you see the world, and I always thought that they were just being a little dramatic. Now, I have to agree with them and I have a new outlook.

Here in the United States, we tend to isolate ourselves. I’m not trying to make a political commentary, I understand it; the US is huge and we’re pretty far from the vast majority of other countries in the world. But by doing this, we are casting a portrayal of uncertainty to other cultures. We tend to know very little about other places and their people, especially if we have no personal attachment to that place.

By going abroad and communicating with people from a different culture, I was able to see that they’re not all that different from us. I was able to connect with these people that live thousands of miles away from me and form a bond with them. They may live their lives so differently (I mean, who likes eating dinner at 10), but we’re all out here just trying to live our lives as best as we can.

This trip has taught me that it is absolutely essential to expose yourself to different cultures, especially at a young age. Traveling is expensive and it can seem impossible for some people to spend time abroad, but I believe that exposing yourself to new cultures can teach you so much more than many classes can. It is rare that you will only ever interact with people from your culture, especially in the melting pot that is the USA. By having experience communicating and connecting with others from around the world, it will be easier to work with and relate to these people that you may interact with in your jobs, school, or wherever else.

I have learned so many lessons from Spain, but most importantly I have gained an appreciation for the world. There is so much amazing stuff out there that we don’t get to see and we may never get to see! It’s important that we encourage everyone to go out and have cool experiences all over the world. By fostering a global appreciation of other cultures, we could solve a ton of problems. So, @myparents, please start taking me on you vacations!

Also, I will be starting my first internship and full time job on Monday! If you have any advice for me or things that you’d like to hear about in upcoming blog posts, leave a comment!

Career Confessions from Gen-Z: My Dad is the Greatest!

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I bet you didn’t expect a post from me on a Monday! Well here I am, with an extra post just to celebrate the creator of the Tim Sackett Project, the “foremost expert on workplace hugging”, HR microcelebrity, or otherwise known was my father. Many of you know my Dad from his witty blog posts or his presentations at HR conferences. While my Dad may be a fantastic writer and public speaker, he has a lot of cool, sometimes very strange, and special qualities/talents that I thought I would share!

  1. No one can make a better Valentine’s Day box. My brothers and I would have the coolest boxes every year growing up
  2. He is an expert griller and lawn mower#justdadthings
  3. He is really good at deciphering baseball signs and play calling signals from other teams’ coaches
  4. He can coach just about any sport and will make sure every kid not only improves, but has a super fun time
  5. He is one of the single most caring people in the world. He will go to the end of the Earth to help any person that he cares about
  6. He is really good at finding cool shoes, jackets etc, sending them to me, and then buying them for himself
  7. He can yell louder than most people at the referees at MSU basketball/football games
  8. He can give real and helpful advice for any situation. I wouldn’t have been able to make some extremely hard decisions these past years if it weren’t for his support
  9. He is able to come up with a wildly inappropriate joke/slogan/title for any possible situation
  10. He is the most hard working person in the world. You think you’re hustling, but my Dad is probably hustling harder!
  11. He can find a nickname for any single person
  12. He is an expert dog walker and can speak dog talk like no other
  13. He can find his way anywhere. I swear he has a GPS system in his brain. You could drop him in the middle of any city, and he’d find his way
  14. He is able to find the light and positivity in any situation. There are very few days where I haven’t seen my Dad smiling and laughing
  15. He is the most loving person I know. He loves a lot and unconditionally

As many of you know, my Dad is the greatest. He can write, run a successful business, make a pretty great family (in my opinion), basically he can do it all! There is nothing that I could do to ever repay him for all that he’s done for me, but I thought that I would just make his try and display amazingness for others to appreciate. Happy Father’s Day Dad! I love you so much.

-Cam

Career Confessions from Gen Z: If You’re Being Talked About, No Matter What, It’s Probably Good!?

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A hot topic on social media this week has been IHOP’s recent announcement of a temporary name change to IHOb, or International House of Burgers, in an attempt to increase sales for lunch and dinner. While I don’t particularly know of anyone that really loves IHOP, many of my peers have taken to social media, especially Twitter, to voice their opposition to IHOP’s decision. Many people are saying that it was a dumb branding move and IHOP should stick to pancakes, or that if IHOP wanted to make a change to its menu, it should’ve done something else.

While I may not have a fond view of IHOP (who wants to go to a chain breakfast place anyway??), I still think IHOP did something right here: millions of people are now talking about them. I mean here I am writing a damn blog post about them! It’s interesting as someone who is studying advertising to see something like this happen first hand. This really solidifies the notion that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

One thing that I have noticed about my generation is that we love to talk about things we hate. This may be true of everyone, but I’ve noticed it a lot amongst my peers. Rather than talk about things that we enjoy, Gen-Zer’s LOVE to go on and on about things they despise. For example, there was a video from Dr. Phil that got popular last year where a teenage girl, named Danielle Bregoli, got angry with the audience and said: “catch me outside, how bout dat”.

This video blew up and has created a career for this 15-year-old as a rapper (apparently) and an internet personality. Many people have voiced their negative opinions about this girl, but she always seems to stay relevant and does something that keeps her name in the conversation. Although many people voice their negative feelings towards her, they’re still talking about her!

This post has been as a result of me figuring out something: to be popular among young people, you don’t have to be well-liked.

I don’t know if IHOP’s sales are going to increase from this marketing campaign, but their name is in the conversation. If that was IHOP’s goal, they achieved it! I have found that more often than not, something that is disliked is going to be mentioned online before something that is well liked. Although I hate this, it’s just a matter of life! People love complaining!

So if you want to become popular amongst the youth, maybe hire a girl to throw a fit on national TV or change your name to something stupid. Just do anything that we will love to hate.

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Career Confession of Gen Z: Flexible Work Hours Are Key to Recruiting Gen Z

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You may notice that I mention my Mom in a lot of my posts because I have the best Mom in the world. It’s just a fact. She has an agreement with my Dad that he’s not allowed to talk about her in his posts without permission, but I don’t have that agreement so, sorry Mom!

One thing that my Mom has always been super big on is sleep. Ever since my brothers and I were little, she made sure we got more than the recommended amount and now I can’t survive without 7-8 hours of sleep a night!

One thing that I have noticed during my time abroad here in Spain and during my time in Japan (I was in an exchange program in middle school) is that sleep is not as important here.  My 6-year-old host sister gets about 8 hours of sleep every night where I would get 11-12 when I was her age. My host parents maybe get 4 or 5. There is just a different culture around sleep in other countries.

Another thing that has stuck out to me is the late start times in Spain. The streets are usually dead before 9 a.m. and most shops don’t open until 10 or 11. People go out to bars and clubs at 1 or 2 and stay out until 4 or 5 and then, get up for work the next day!

Something that I enjoy about college is that you get to make your schedule around what times fit best for your own personal preferences. For me, I learn best in the mid-morning to mid-afternoon, but many of my friends learn best at night.

This is another thing where I don’t know which system is better. I don’t know if America’s “early bird gets the worm” is necessarily better than Spain’s later start times, but I do know that every person is different. Something that is really important to me is sleep and I know that in my 20s, I don’t want to have to go to bed at 9 or 10 pm in order to get the amount of sleep I need because my job starts super early in the morning.

This brings up something that I know I will look for in a job when I get out along with many of my fellow Gen-Z’ers: flexible start and end times.

I think it’s important to allow your employees to work at the times that are best for them. I have seen flex time discussed as a benefit for people with families but it also benefits those people that don’t work best in a traditional “9-5” setting. Maybe 11-7 works best for those night owls. I know that there is no part of me that will ever want to work a 7-3 like some people do. (Editor Dad note: Don’t you love how Cam believes ‘working’ 8 hours is 9-5, and now 8-5 with an hour lunch!)

Right before I wrote this post, I called my Mom to talk about how many hours of sleep we got as kids. When I told her what I was writing about, the first thing she said is “well Dad has his meetings first thing in the morning, so he can’t always let people do that”. I get it. I get that it doesn’t work for every company and every situation, but I think that flexibility is important to implement in as many ways as possible.

Let your employees get enough sleep and do their best work by allowing them some flexibility to sleep and work at the times that are best for them. So, if you want your Gen-Z employees to be competent the day after the Super Bowl or the Game of Thrones finale, it’s a good idea to let them sleep in a little bit. 

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Career Confessions of Gen Z: What Would ‘Siesta’ Look Like in America?

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One of the hardest things for me to get used to during my time abroad is the different schedule. The meals in Spain (and in many other countries) are later, generally, lunch is eaten around 2 and dinner is eaten around 9 or 10. These late eating times are killing me, and I am constantly hungry all morning and late afternoon.

Although I can’t stand the eating schedule, one of my favorite things about Spain so far is the siesta time. If you’ve never heard of it, there is a built-in time after lunch for everyone to rest or take a little nap before they head back to work or do their other afternoon activities. Everyone heads home from work or school, eats a huge meal, and then takes a quick, little nap.

A big cultural difference between Spain and America centers around the schedules and hours that people work. The average American from age 25-54 works about 40 hours a week, while the average Spaniard works about 38.5 hours a week. Although there isn’t a huge difference in this amount, the hours of the day worked is really different. In America, you hear about the “9-5” or as my Dad likes to tell me “now everyone works 8-5”. In Spain, people go to work around 9, come home from about 2-4:30/5 and return to work for another 2 or 3 hours.

In Spain, this break in the middle of the day allows families to spend quality time together in the middle of the day. There were many years of my life where my whole family would maybe have one meal together a week, and my parents made it a priority to eat together as much as possible. There are many important benefits of spending time together as a family, such as building self-esteem and relieving stress.

In a society where depression rates among teens are at an all-time high, I think that a schedule with built-in family time (and nap time!) is a pretty freaking great idea. Every year that I’ve gotten older, I see my family less and less and that sucks! People around my age in Spain get to see their entire family every day!

Now, we can blame my lack of family time on the fact that I live in a different city but I lived at home for the majority of my life and there were many days where I got to see my Dad for maybe 10 minutes. My Dad is pretty great and I want to see him for more than 10 minutes a day! (Editor/Dad note: FYI – I did not add this line!) 

I’m not saying that I think this type of schedule would work in America. This schedule works in Spain because of the culture here, and I don’t believe that this would work well in America, but we can learn a lesson here. In my opinion, sacrificing a little bit of work time to spend time with your family can have some really great benefits. And who doesn’t love a little afternoon nap?!

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Career Confessions of Gen Z: Is Punctuality a Generational Thing?

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Hola todos! I am currently studying abroad in Granada, Spain for 6 weeks and I thought it would be a cool opportunity to focus on some things that I notice are either different or interesting about Spain/Europe! If you have any ideas for things that you want me to talk about, please leave a comment and let me know!

Something that I learned from a very young age and value very highly is punctuality. My parents (especially my Father) have instilled a need to be aggressively early for almost everything. My Dad likes to get to our sporting events (especially baseball tournaments) before they have even started setting up, and this need to be early has been passed down to me. My high school choir teacher always used to say “to be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, and to be late is to be left behind”. I would like to say that I try to follow this rule within my everyday life.

One thing that I’ve learned from my time in Spain is that many people arrive on what I like to call “Spanish time”, where everyone arrives/everything starts about 10 minutes after the stated time. I was warned about this upon arrival and I knew that this was going to be a struggle for me. I am the type of person that is always 10 minutes early for class and now you’re saying that I’m actually 20 minutes early! If there’s one thing I hate more than being late, it’s wasting time.

While talking with my host family and some local advisors of my program, I found out that “Spanish time” doesn’t apply to everything. People here show up on time for appointments or other important engagements, but for social gatherings, it is completely okay to arrive a little late. No one gets a little pissy if you show up 10 minutes late to your dinner plans because no one cares! (also they are probably 10 minutes late too).

I tend to get very annoyed with tardiness, and while I’ve been here, I deal with it every day. Rather than live my life in constant annoyance, I’ve tried to shift my mindset. I still value my punctuality very highly and arrive early to all of my classes, trips, or other important events, but I am trying to accept the tardiness of my peers in social settings.

As I’m looking to starting my first “real” job once I return from Spain, I am curious to see how punctuality in the workplace is maybe different in the US than in Spain. I don’t plan on arriving late to work, but I hope that if something happens (like Downtown Detroit traffic), that I won’t be ostracized for my tardiness.

My time has shown me that maybe it’s okay to adopt some of this mentality into our lives. In America, we tend to drive ourselves into the ground by being so busy, but we should allow a little bit of tardiness in non-serious situations. While I don’t think I’m going to start being late to everything, I am trying to adopt this attitude of valuing punctuality in important circumstances, but allowing for some lateness in a social setting. Let’s all be on time for our next doctor’s appointment, but relax a little bit next time your friend is 5 minutes late to dinner.

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.