Old placeholders no longer fit as Gen Z starts to enter the workforce

Everyone is moving up a step.

Hudson, a leading provider of specialised recruitment, talent management and RPO solutions in Asia Pacific, has released "The Great Generational Shift," a landmark report looking at the changing nature of workplaces and offering ways to address multi-generational challenges, based on an assessment of over 28,000 professionals across the globe.

According to a release from Hudson, the release of The Great Generational Shift report coincides with a window in which changing work dynamics is on the agenda for all generations.

With Generation Z now starting to enter the workforce and Baby Boomers beginning to retire, the old placeholders no longer fit.

Simon Moylan, Hudson Executive General Manager of Talent Management – Asia-Pacific said: “Generation Y is no longer the baby, Generation X no longer the middle child and Boomers no longer the parent. Everyone is moving up a step. The leadership implications will need to be reckoned with.”

Here's more from Hudson:

Hudson’s research provides data on the personality traits that drive Generation Y, Generation X and the Baby Boomers.

By understanding the traits, managers will gain a clearer idea of how the nature of leadership is changing and be better placed to comprehend, predict and manage the behaviour of people from the three groups.

Most importantly, the research provides organisations and individuals insight into who their future leaders and stakeholders will be.

“Members of Generation Y are arriving at positions of seniority, and are bringing a new management style,” Mr. Moylan said.

“Generation Y are masters of abstract and conceptual thinking. They are highly ambitious, socially confident and relational. However, The Great Generational Shift research also shows that they score much lower on traditional leadership traits.”

The Great Generational Shift involved 28,000 psychometric assessments which were undertaken using Hudson’s proprietary Business Attitudes Questionnaire. The assessments were made in 22 different languages. The survey included Baby Boomers (born in 1946-64), Generation X (born in 1965-79) and Generation Y (born in 1980-94).

The research looked at various personality traits including emotional stability, extroversion, openness, altruism, conscientiousness and professional factors.

The results were analysed at Hudson’s global R&D centre in Belgium and combined with insights from Hudson’s global Talent Management team.