Gen Z around the World: What's Universal and What Isn't: Dr. Corey Seemiller

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Gen Z is coming into their jobs and they might be underemployed to some extent. But they're really, more concerned about finding a good fit because that value really matters to them. They also see that if you stay with an organization for a long time, you can be rewarded for that, rather than moving and moving.

 Dr. Katherine Jeffery: When Corey Seemiller set out to study Gen Z, she planned to look at young Americans after the pandemic. She ended up with data from 81 countries and more than 30,000 people.

What she found raises a question worth sitting with: How much of a generation is shaped by the world they share, and how much by the place they happen to live?

Welcome to GenShift, the podcast where we talk about generational intelligence and what it actually looks like in real life. I'm Dr. Katherine Jeffrey, generational strategist and host of the GenShift podcast. Today I have Dr. Corey Seemiller with me to talk about Gen Z around the world.

Now, Dr. Seemiller is a researcher and writer who's spent more than a decade studying Gen Z, and she's one of the most cited voices working on this generation today.

Now, according to my computer, you and I crossed paths, almost 15 years ago. I was teaching leadership development at a university, and you came out with this big, thick book on, Student Leadership Competencies Guidebook, and I was so excited.

 We were starting to think about, how do we turn leadership into something that's measurable, you know? and that students are leaving with these competencies and can feel equipped for the future. And then also companies who are hiring them can say, "Hey," they've learned this along the way."

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: And then I put your name into my computer search, and I have notes that came up. I must've been at conference. It says University of Arizona, December 2nd, 2013. And I have all kinds of notes on you talking about the concept of badges and how we were using that. Do you wanna talk about the badges really quick? Are we still using those?

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah, actually a number of schools used them. I don't work a lot with a lot of new schools on the badging more recently, but it's definitely part of the mentality of Gen Z is being able to see the small milestones and get a token to say- Yeah

"Hey, I've done this." And so the concept of badging isn't obsolete by any stretch. But I don't do as much with the badging program as I used to in the earlier days. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah, I was just so excited about all this stuff, so I've been your fan for a very long time, so I'm very excited to have you on the podcast.

And so what else besides, what we just shared, would you like people to know about you and your work? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: I think what's really fun, and I really enjoy talking about this with you in particular because you know my work with the student leadership competencies, and a lot of times when I talk about generations or Gen Z in particular, it's in this vacuum of like these are students here.

But my interest in them really was born out of understanding them in a leadership development context. Like what can we do to better understand our students of today to help them be the leaders of tomorrow kind of thing. And so the work really goes together that I do because a lot of the competencies really reflect who Gen Z is, and who Gen Z is really reflects a lot of the competencies.

And so I think that's really a key thing is that, while they seem a little discreet from each other, they're really not. And what's fun about it is, in my current position I'm a, a professor at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and one of the cool parts of it is that I teach in the undergraduate leadership program, the master's in leadership program, and I also teach in the master's in higher ed program because it blends all my interests, right?

It's like who are the students today, and student leaders, and people going off into the workforce. I really enjoy that. And more recently, one of the studies we launched, and we're in the process of writing this up right now, is a study on understanding love and compassion across generations and how different generations perceive love, perceive relationships, what do they do when they're going through grief, those kind of things.

And it really speaks to the mental health needs of particularly young people if we look at Generation Z, and how we best help them cope in stressful, grief-ridden situations. So it's like all coming full circle is trying to figure out the balance of the whole kind of student, and now the whole kind of Gen Z kind of worker in the workplace.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: That is gonna be fascinating. When do you think that study will be completed? What are you projecting? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: We collected all the data already. Okay. We've analyzed it, and now we're in the process of writing it up and trying to get it published. So I would anticipate soon hopefully.

We have some really neat stuff. We broadened a couple years ago into understanding multiple generations in context with each other as opposed to just looking at Gen Z, particularly because Gen Z, many of them are now in the workforce and working across generations. So it was important to be able to see how those dynamics would play out.

And then we also started to see, okay, wait a minute, it's not just about productivity of a worker. It's also this idea that these are whole people coming into these situations in very turbulent times, particularly, post-COVID and AI generation. Economic instability political extremism on whatever you wanna call it.

It's a very unstable environment for them, and how are they coping with those relationships that are really important to them, and how are they able to thrive through those? 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah, and I think even parents will be fascinated by that 'cause they're like, "How do I connect with my child and let them know that I'm in this with them and I care about them?"

We see the world so differently.

So first of all, for the sake of the podcast, what generation are you? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Oh, I'm Gen X. Yeah. I'm the most Gen X. I drink out of a garden hose. I let myself in. I've been doing laundry since age four. I am so Gen X that it's not even funny. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Excellent. I also find it interesting we both found ourselves in this generational space through teaching leadership, right?

Yeah. 'Cause I was an expert teaching millennials were in college at the time, and I remember going. "

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: The way they think about leadership and, like- Yep ... what's effective is so different than the way I do," right? So that's how I- Yep ... started really pulling off the layers of the onion.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yes. Exactly. That was for me too. I was like, "Wow, they're really different." And then by the time I got to Gen Z, there was something different about them. I finally got used to millennials. It was so interesting. I will tell you this one story.

I was with our leadership program many years ago. We had shifted from kind of the Gen X that came after me, and so I was practicing as a professional, and I still had some very young Gen Xers coming through. Yeah. And we had a four-year leadership program, and you got a certificate of completion when you finished the four-year program.

We had millennials come into the program, and they were like, " I don't understand. I wanna be recognized at every stage, so I want a certificate after every year of the program." And it was like, " I don't understand. That doesn't make sense to me." It made a lot of sense to them, and so we switched it.

So every year there was like a ceremony, and they- ... got a certificate. And it was like, okay, that's just a procedural thing that Millennials want. And then Gen Z came along, and we had to shift again. And so I think the moral of the story is just being attuned to who your audience is and what they need.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. Yes, and not making them bad, right? Millennials were the trophy generation, and whenever I'm in a room and we talk about that, the Boomers all start laughing like, "Yeah, they always want trophies." And the Millennials are like, " No, you gave us those trophies."

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Exactly. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: "You're the reason-" Yep ... "we want this recognition."

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yep, exactly. Yeah, Millennials did not give themselves trophies at age five. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Exactly. They, Yes. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: And, that's the thing. The thing about generations that's really important to understand is first of all, it's not a blame game.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: And the second thing is every generation, has some themes to them that are, not as, flattering maybe as some others. Of course. And that's okay. Yeah. But we know these things.

Like a double-edged sword. Like as much as Gen X, I love my perseverance and my resilience and my, go-get-'em attitude.

I also know that if I'm not careful, I can run people over. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: And so even the things that can be good- also have another side to them. And so I think what's important is to have a really broad understanding of where our predispositions might be based on when and how we grew up.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yes, I love that. And every generation is kinda like, we're gonna be different. "We're gonna be different than our parents." Yeah. But so then we swing the pendulum, but then there's unintended consequences of swinging that pendulum, right? We think we're making the best move forward, but then other things come as a result.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Exactly. It's interesting, particularly with Gen Z, a lot of people ask me about, "Oh, what about this cancel culture?" And Gen Z, they'll just quit at the first sign of getting hard, and walk away. I think the rest of us need to kinda thank some of them for that, because what they've done is they've drawn attention to workplace toxicity, lack of mental health support, sticking with something that you're undervalued and under-resourced because you have to pay some dues. I don't disagree.

You do have to work your way. Yeah. I get it. But in this economy, most people can't have one job and pay their bills, and so you can't ask for someone to devote all of their time, get there before the boss arrives, and leave after the boss leaves, and all that for pennies on the dollar.

They just cannot survive. And so it's drawing attention to the fact that we have a systemic problem in the way we structure employment and our pay scales and all of those things. And so Gen Z is just saying, "I'm not putting up with that." And as a Gen Xer, I look at them and say, "Gosh, I wish I would've done that when I was younger."

Don't you? I wish I would've said, "I'm not gonna be treated this way," and leave a job that felt toxic. But instead, there's an aura of resentment. "Why do you get to do that and I didn't get to do that?" 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Exactly. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: The reality is we could've done that. We just didn't. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yep.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: I 100% agree with you. So true. I think they're teaching us so much, and it's making a lot of us say "I didn't have those boundaries, and I should have," or, "I wish I had."

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Exactly.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: All right, I wanna do a quick lightning round with you. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: All right.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So just one or two word answers for this.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: All right. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: One word for Gen Z right now.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Turbulent society. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: The stereotype about Gen Z that's flat out wrong. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: That they're lazy and they quit when things get hard. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Definitely. The stereotype that's mostly true.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: That they're entrepreneurial and resourceful. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Love that. What's shaped this generation the most?

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Big Zs, it was the economic recession of 2008, 2009. For little Zs, it was COVID.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: You mentioned turbulent society, and I had one Gen Zer in a session one day.

He explained it as you all keep setting goal posts for us. Here's your mark, here's where you're headed, and then the goalpost moves." 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: And then it moves again, yeah. And they don't know where to land. They don't know what path to get on. They don't know what's actually gonna take them where they want to go, or even if where they want to go is gonna exist 10 years from now.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: That's the big one, right? So many of them are in majors as first-year students that might not even have jobs associated with them by the time they graduate. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, what do you do with that? It's so real, and there's skepticism. And then I hear, with all the AI buzz they're afraid they're not gonna be able to think. 'Cause it's human nature, right? AI makes this- Mm-hmm ...... easier, so I'm gonna do it, right? And then they're like, "So I do it, but then I can't actually think as well,"

Dr. Corey Seemiller: And that's a really interesting point about AI because there is a misconception that all Gen Zers are, this laziness, that they're gonna get on AI and write all their papers and stuff.

And while I've seen people use AI- ... and write their papers, they're not all Gen Zers doing it by any stretch. But there's a lot of Gen Zers that are highly concerned that not only are they not going to be able to critically think because they're gonna be tempted by AI, but that AI is going to replace their learning of how to critically think.

So instead of learning how to do something, they're gonna be told, "Hey, go use AI to do it." Instead of developing a PowerPoint presentation and being creative, use AI to develop it for you, and they're not gonna learn the skills of kind of creativity, critical thinking, problem solving because they're going to be bypassed and sent to use AI.

So they're not just opting to use AI, but they're gonna be sent to use it, and they're afraid that we're just gonna stop, teaching these kinds of things. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So when something isn't working with Gen Z, the explanation usually points somewhere local. It's the industry, it's the region, it's how we actually hired them.

But you ran the same study in 81 countries at one time. Is that correct? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah. We actually had 32 original countries participating and this was a really cool process. So it started because we were contacted by a graduate student in Spain. She actually said, have that survey that you did in your study that you used for Generations Z Goes to College, your book?

We wanna use that same survey and translate it into Spanish and give it to our college students, and then find out what they think." 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: And we're like, "That's a really cool idea. Yeah, we could do a comparative study." We had done a study like this with some folks in Brazil a couple years earlier, we're like, "Yeah, let's do this."

So the next week, I got an email from someone that was from a school in Australia and said, "Hey, we were thinking about doing a Gen Z study. Would you mind sharing that survey with us?" And I thought, "That is really weird. I guess we could do a comparative study with Spain, Australia, and the US," ' cause we were about to launch the study again 'cause it was post the height of COVID.

And we thought this is interesting. Maybe we do this and ask our Brazil partners who did the study with us a few years earlier if they wanna do it. We could do a four-prong study." They were on board. So we're like, " What if we just started getting people from other countries?" So we looked up all of these different people who were authoring basically the cutting-edge articles on Gen Z and doing the research on Gen Z in various countries, and literally sent them emails out of the blue.

Yeah. "Hey, here's who I am. Do you wanna do this study with us?" Most every single one said yes, and a lot of them said, "Hey, and I know somebody in this country, and I know somebody in that country." Next thing you know, we have 32 countries represented and we have research teams that are local to them.

We're not sending our people out. They are right there, researchers from those regions, and we sent the survey to all of them. We said, "We want you to translate this in your language, and we want you to translate this culturally." So things like monetary currency, political party names, those things.

We kept the essence of all the questions the same. Even some countries had more than one survey. It might've been Israel that had Arabic and English and maybe even Hebrew. I can't even remember, but there were so many that were so distinct it was cool.

Anyways, it became very culturally relevant. We disseminated it and we had, tens of thousands of responses.

But when we looked, it had gone viral, and we had representation from 81 countries. So when we did our comparison for our book, Gen Z Around the World, we only used the 32 that we had m- massive research from... 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Oh, okay ... 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Because of the fact that we had an adequate number of generalizable data points.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Those researchers who were on the ground there. They were sending it out to their contacts at various colleges and universities and, school programs, organizations for youth. Anybody that they knew, they would get the data in there and then we, our deal with them... we would give them their data back, and then they could disseminate it to their partners in their countries, but they would have their data sets. So many of them have gone on to write their own articles in their own languages about their countries' or regions' data sets.

So we have global data that includes 81 countries, and we have the actual comparative data for 32. And we wrote a pretty cool book called Gen Z Around the World. That compares all of these responses in various measures, like everything from motivation and learning to things like social change and, social engagement.

So really cool study. Thankful to have so many amazing partners. I got to travel to various places to be able to present data. We had a summit in Austria where some of our European partners met, and we talked about some cool stuff that ended up coalescing into our final chapter of the book.

Many of our researchers were authors. It's an edited book, so they took different pieces of it and it was really just a fun project. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: That sounds amazing, and to make it so global. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah, and it just happened. It just snowballed into something and, it was really cool.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Gen Z isn't just a three-year age span what ages did this cover? Was it mostly college students? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah. We used the birth dates of 1995 through 2010. Those were the ones established pretty early on. The market research from Sparks & Honey set those.

But the part about it, though, is we were able to disaggregate by what we call big Zs and little Zs, which was something we did in our first study, where we were looking at just the big Zs at that point 'cause they were the older ones that had come into college.

So when we broke it down, the big Zs and little Zs, it's just you split the generation right in half. And so we didn't know if there was gonna be a real difference, but it was interesting because COVID fell right between them. So it was like our pre-COVID college students and our kind of COVID and post-COVID college students.

We found that separation helped us quite a bit.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: When you started this research, what were you expecting?

I know as a researcher you're supposed to be wide open, but was there anything you were kinda thinking we might see a lot of this"? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Honestly, we thought at the time that we were gonna have a lot of differences between, various countries, particularly because the cultures were so different.

So we had Botswana. We have Singapore. Yeah. Then we turn around, we have Belgium. 

We have Brazil. So you're in the US, and so we're like, "Okay we're obviously going to have differences because culture matters." And culture does matter, and there were some little blips of things.

Sure. But originally when we set out, we were gonna show the differences. We soon discovered once we got the data back that there weren't a lot of differences at all.

It was very interesting how that all played out, where a lot of them were scoring the same on scales, and just, it was uncanny about what was going on.

Really the big differences were things that were pretty obvious students and participants from Europe in particular were much more likely to use WhatsApp than people in the United States. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's not surprising. We knew that, right?

Yep. Yeah. But on the other measures it was like, wow, I couldn't believe that, they're thinking about learning the same way, they're thinking about motivation the same way, they're thinking about social engagement the same way. Politically, a lot of them the same way.

The things that were a little bit different were their social concerns because some of those were really different in various places. For instance there were very few, if any countries aside from one, that indicated that a big social concern was war, but guess what country put war?

Russia. And this was shortly before Ukraine and all of that stuff was going on, so context really matters. But we found so many of the sort of philosophical and conceptual measures were coming back the same that we ended up writing a book about how there's much more of a Gen Z prototype than we could ever have conceptualized.

And then we began to break it down and think of course. That makes sense. With globalization, we're watching the same TV shows, we're on the same social media, we're, grappling with some of the same global issues, things like politics and COVID. So some of these things are very similar.

Why wouldn't the reaction or the influence of them be similar? 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: I talk about that all the time, like Gen Z, they show up much more similarly around the world, right? And because of all those factors that you listed. They have access to it, and it's constant. As Gen Xers, we might have known what was going on in our community or some major world event, but they're getting constant notifications about everything that's happening everywhere, and they can jump, on an app and talk to somebody in Kenya or Belgium.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah, we had maybe a pen pal, right? Yeah. And you'd write a letter and and wait for a week or two or three or a month for something to come back. These people are connected with people all over the world. Yeah. And it's not surprising given the technology, but it also, we have to understand that the proliferation of socialization happens because of this.

They talk to each other. I thought it was really interesting when it was in 2020 when we were having a lot of the Black Lives Matters movements in the United States. There were a lot of countries around the world that were having movements in solidarity that had very low numbers of Black people.

They might have had some other forms of, systemic oppression of other groups of people, but they were marching in solidarity of Black people in the United States because they felt this kind of cohesive nature to do it together, and that is part of what this kind of Gen Z connection is all over the world.

It's this element of solidarity.

If you remember Greta, Thunberg and the idea of, like, all these environmental things, right? Kids were following her from all over the world and doing walkouts of their schools in every corner of the world in these coordinated ways, where you could post on social media and say, "Tuesday at 9:00 AM we're all gonna walk out." And it was like the ability to do that is just so different for this generation than it was for ours. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah, we had no concept of that. I talk about how, Gen X is really the last generation to have really a shared culture, 'cause we all watched The Muppet Show on Sunday or Dukes of Hazzard.

You know what I mean? We went to school. Yep. We talked about the same shows, 'cause that was our only option. And younger generations, they can just tap into anything, and they can relate. Yep. They can also find places of belonging in an easier way because you can get online and find somebody who shares your interests, right, and shares your passions.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yep. Exactly.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: You've probably seen it before. A Gen Z employee suggests new software, but their Boomer manager shuts it down with, "No, we've always done it this way." Or maybe you've watched a Traditionalist roll their eyes when a Millennial colleague asks about working remotely. These moments create unproductive tension, leading to frustration, dissatisfaction, and stress.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Workplaces don't have to be divided. That's why I created the GenShift e-learning course. With over 20 years studying generational differences, I've built over 40 lessons to help bridge the gap in life, leadership, and work. Enroll today and get 10% off with promo code PODGENSHIFT.

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What did you expect to be universal that actually did turn out to be local instead? What were some of those things? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: We actually didn't expect anything to be universal, to be honest with you. We had no expectations. We thought it was gonna be so different. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Like I said, really the one area that there were differences in were their social concerns. They clustered into three main areas, and that was consistent across countries and regions. So things around the environment, things around poverty, money, financial insecurity, and then the third one was social justice or human rights.

So they all clustered, for the most part, in those areas, the big ones for all the countries, but they were slightly different depending on what was going on at the time, and so it could be something with environmentalism, it could be factory farming in one country, whereas another country could be things around lack of biodiversity, but they still all related back to environmentalism.

And those held constant, but when you start looking at the individual things, like I said earlier, those became more nuanced. Now, the thing that probably had a little bit more of a difference to them, that was not regional or country-based, was actually gender.

That we found some interesting things around gender. We found men were more interested in their own personal freedom to make their own choices. Women were more concerned about global social justice issues, like sexism, homophobia, transgender, oppression, immigration, rights, and men were more like, I want a job, I wanna be paid, I want my own personal financial security. I wanna make my own decisions."

We follow along with the election cycle quite a bit and look at kinda what's trending, and you saw in 2020, Gen Z not solely, but solidly voted more liberal, right?

For more liberal candidates. By the time we hit 2024, we had done our study in 2021 and 2022, and we saw this dynamic, and we were already kind of alerting folks saying, "Hey, listen, particularly in the US, you may wanna pay attention to the fact that men are changing, and the message that's appealing to them is 'You need a job and I can get you one.'"

And that actually polled very well for them, and in 2024, it's not surprising that many Gen Z men swung right and ended up voting in the US election for the Republican candidate.

That has since mitigated many Gen Z men. We haven't studied it, but other people have.

But that was a real indicator to us, and so it was less about region and more about gender.

That was in the US, we could also see that in other countries similarly situated to the US. We also studied in the UK and Australia and things like that.

You could see a little bit of that, With some of those countries as well, some European countries. And as you've been able to also follow along their political trajectory in those countries where, they swung really right and then now they're coming back. You look at things like what's happened.

And so you're seeing that, a lot of that and, probably attributing some of that to young men who we saw that as a canary in the coal mine back in '21 and '22. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Fascinating. Now, as an employer, if I'm trying to figure out Gen Z and I'm just like, "I don't get these people.

I don't understand how to motivate them. I don't understand how to keep them. " What things came out of your study that would be helpful in a work situation? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: When you look at motivation, this is one thing we've studied over, and over in every single study we've done.

We've asked some type of question on motivation, sometimes even the same exact question, and we continue to get the same thing, which is they're motivated by making a difference for others. Now we know that generally the, human nature is, a lot of us are also motivated a little bit by money, by, promotion opportunities, right?

Financial security. That's just human need. But if you start to strip that away and you start looking at what are these things that really keep people it's this idea of making a difference for others. It's knowing that what they're doing matters, and being able to be congruent with the mission and the values of the organization.

If a Gen Zer is employed somewhere that makes a product that is bad, is harmful, they don't wanna work there. If they're working for an organization that has a process or a procedure that is unethical or unhealthy, they don't wanna be there. But also, a lot of them, especially those that come in at kind of an entry level and they're like a kind of a cog in the wheel, they might not get to see what the whole wheel looks like, and that's, disconcerting a little bit for them.

Because it's like, I wanna know what my part is doing. How is it manifesting into something that's helping other people? And so employers knowing that, thinking about how do you help the employee see the whole lifespan of what's going on? How do you include them? So some things could be, like, having them rotate to different roles in the office.

Or in the job where they take on different roles and they can see all the different components. A rotational thing. How could you have them see the end product, right? Could they be there at launch day? Could you even make a video that shows every little step of the way of something that they're doing and talk about the importance of why that piece matters?

What is the outcome? A lot of times people work and they have no idea what the outcome even is. They put together, something and then they never see it come to fruition. So these are things that really matter. They want to be able to see that what they do makes a positive impact for other people.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Now, from your experience, do you feel like that concept matters more to Gen Z than it did to prior generations? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah, absolutely. What's interesting about it is that concept of making a difference for others continues to show up on various measurements that we do, we look at. It's come up on motivation, it's come up on social concerns and social engagement.

It comes up on even learning. They wanna do experiential learning because they want that part and parcel to help others. It comes up over and over, so we know that it's not just this one measurement. But, you look at other generations and say, "What are your impetus for motivation?"

And you see actually as I mentioned before, while it's a human desire to have, opportunities for advancement or fair pay and things for everybody, right? For millennials, that was a huge thing. And that's context-based as well, to think about it. Many millennials graduated into a really sluggish economy.

They were overpromised what their bachelor's degree could do. And that's not anything misleading, it was that a bachelor's degree could do a whole lot, and it did a whole lot for Gen Xers, and so it was pushed and pushed. They took out exorbitant amounts of student loans, went into a really slow economy, were underemployed took jobs that paid a whole lot less than they probably could have if the economy wasn't as it was, and ended up having to play makeup.

And so were jumping from organization to organization, position to try to play catch-up to where they probably should've been at graduation. We saw them as kind of jumpers, and the motivation was, "Can I move up? Can I move up? Can I move up?" But people don't often understand why that was.

It wasn't just selfishly to do that, it was because they were already well below the mark when they started. Gen Z is not like that at all. They're coming into their jobs and they might be underemployed to some extent. But they're really, more concerned about finding a good fit because that value really matters to them because they also see that if you stay with an organization for a long time, you can be rewarded for that, rather than moving and moving.

And so really, the idea of these social influences are so profound, and it's once we start looking at them, we can have a better understanding of why people do the things they do. It would've been a hard sell to tell a millennial, "Yeah, I'm gonna pay you this very, very low wage that you can't live off of, but you're making a difference for other people."

That sits a little bit better with Gen Zers because the other force that Gen Zers have that is influencing them that wasn't as big for millennials is the gig economy. So a Gen Zer can work a full-time job or even a part-time job doing something that they feel really passionate about, and do something gig work on the side and make up for it, where millennials could've, but it wasn't as nearly as prominent at the time.

And so they had to live off of what they made from that one job. So it's just the circumstances are just continuing to change so much that we have to kinda look at why are there themes across generations when generations are so diverse, right? Comprised of so many diverse people. Why are these such diverse groups of people acting in such similar ways?

And it's because the social influences are affecting everyone. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So if I just sit here and say they just need to get over it, and they need to do it the way we've always done it," how is that gonna go with a Gen Z employee? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah, they're gonna walk out. The Gen Z has sparked that in a lot of people. And so I don't even think it would just be Gen Z that would walk out. I think there's a lot of people that are like, "Listen, I don't wanna take it." Yeah. And that came a lot from COVID, right? 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yes. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: From COVID working conditions. Particularly post-COVID, where it was like a return to office mandate for, in many of their eyes, no good reason.

I know CEOs think they have a good reason, and maybe some of them did, and some jobs do need to be on site. But there was a backlash to that. So there were things that were happening that wasn't even Gen Z. So it's not even like they're gonna leave. I mean, there's this idea of quiet quitting, right?

Yes. Where you slow down your productivity just enough not to get fired, right? Yep. All sorts of responses that people are doing to say, "I don't want this environment. I don't like this environment." And so if we've always done it this way is not gonna work. There are some things historically that we should keep.

I don't think every time we have an issue, we should throw something out and create a new process. But at the same time- Not just holding onto things, but going back to things that weren't even that useful to begin with, it sometimes just doesn't make sense in the eyes of young people.

What are we doing? We had this great system set up, and now all of a sudden we're going backwards and doing something else. This makes absolutely no sense. So here's the thing. So you say, "Okay, I can work from home, and I'll check my messages, whenever, and I'll, and I'll get back to you within 30 minutes, but there's no real work time, but I'll get all the projects done."

Is that more advantageous to an employer than someone who comes in from 8:00 to 5:00, and after 5:00 says, "I'm not answering my cell phone"? You can't have it both ways. You can't have them work 8:00 to 5:00 and then make them answer their phone all through the night for your project. So- Yeah

There's gotta be some boundaries set up, and I think, again, Gen Z is alerting everybody to that. But particularly I know Gen Xers are thinking, them saying, "Okay, good. I'm finally gonna tell my boss I wanna leave at 3:00 on Friday to go see my daughter's soccer game." 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: And it's spurring a question about the value of people and the value of organizations. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Absolutely. I remember the day when email could now be on your phone, and I was like, "I'll never put email on my phone." 

This was before even texting was huge. I wanted that boundary, and now of course, email's on everybody's phone. It's standard.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Exactly. That's the thing I tell my students, I'm like, "I have office hours," because the university requires me to post office hours. But if you have a question, you don't have to wait till office hours.

They're virtual office hours anyways. So I can make an appointment with you whenever. And my office hours are Monday and Wednesday. If you have a question on Thursday, you don't have to wait till Monday. Yeah. 'Cause the assignments are due Sunday night. Yeah. Just message me. I'll jump on a Zoom with you or I'll message you back.

And so is that better for my university that I have that? Yeah, absolutely. Is the required office hours obsolete? In my mind, yes, for people who respond like I do, but it's interesting.

I don't know, that model works better for me is just to respond to you when you message me, and creating my own set of boundaries, not at midnight, so I think it's interesting, and we have to really look and acknowledge the changing dynamic of work requires us to change our approach to work, right? We can't do old approaches for new dynamics and expect the outcome to be exactly the same, or people not to say, "This is too much.

I'm leaving." Not just Gen Z-ers, but anyone. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yep. I agree. One of our other episodes this season is someone who is developing kind of an AI model. So as a professor, if it's midnight but I wanna tap into your brain and I wanna ask you a question, your AI agent would respond to me. But it's working- Oh, wow ... off all of your material.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: That's fascinating. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. So you'll have to check out that episode too, 'cause he's been working hard on that. It is. It allows you to be available anytime, anywhere.

And you can even train it to answer the way that you would answer.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: That is fascinating. You know what else helps is the students read the syllabus. That- ... that was just amazing. It's so funny. But no, I'm just joking. Yes. I do the same thing. I make my syllabus so big and thick, and I'm like just do a little search and find, and you can find the answer to your question there."

So yeah. AI to go through it and be like, "Okay, on page four at the bottom.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: The link's-" That's right. Now AI can do it for them, like it's no big deal. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah, exactly. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Now, if a leader takes one thing from this episode today what would you say it should be? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: I think having generational compassion is really important.

There's no one generation that's better than another. There's not. Every generation has come of age during a time of all sorts of economic and societal kind of turbulence, good times, all sorts of things, that shape the way that they act. And the compassion is this idea of kind of understanding and taking a step back and saying, "Okay, whatever is happening here, this behavior, let's look at it from a generational standpoint," and say, "Are there things that could be influencing this?

Why are all my Gen Z employees leaving right at 5:00 instead of staying a few minutes later like we would expect them to stay?" Find out from them what's going on. They're rushing to their second jobs. They're exhausted 'cause they're up all night doing gig work. What is going on?

And we have to have compassion for that. It doesn't mean people aren't doing behaviors that are unacceptable, absolutely, and shouldn't be held accountable. That's not it. But the idea is there's usually a much deeper explanation for human behavior than just the surface level. And so if we take the time to understand, why Baby Boomer, CEOs want people back in the office, because they're hearkening back to a time of kind of this family feel that they've lost, right?

And, why is it that, Gen Z-ers leaving things could be tricky, is because they don't wanna be in a toxic environment. They're already balancing, their mental health is on a teeter-totter as it is. So have some compassion for the fact that people are going through a lot, and take the time to get to know them and work with them, and really try to see them as human beings and not just workers or just students and say, "How do we connect with them, and how do we help them thrive?"

And then do just that, right? It all stems from compassion. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: I love that. So having really a posture of compassion, and I always add curiosity, right? Which you touch on. Ask questions, try to understand. Exactly. Don't just assume. Don't let stereotypes take over your thoughts, and another thing I've found so valuable about Gen Z, or something I really appreciate, is they're pretty open. Like they want you to know them. They are. And if they feel safe with you, if they feel like you're someone that's on their side they'll tell you. Yep. Unless they're just afraid of you for some reason, but they're pretty open as a generation, and they wanna be understood, and they actually would like to understand you as well. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yes, absolutely. Sometimes in a particularly work environment where there's a power dynamic, they're not gonna be the one to go and talk to their boss and ask them all about themselves and get to know them.

They're waiting for the boss to do that, right? So take the lead with the Gen Z-ers in your world. Whether you're an employer, a supervisor, you're a teacher, you're a professor, you're a parent, whatever, take the lead. Ask the questions. It's very interesting. I will share this one thing with you.

You know who Gen Z-ers love hanging out with, is their friends' parents. It is uncanny. True. They go over and they hang out, and they'll be standing in the kitchen talking to their Gen Z friend, and then the parents will walk in, and they'll all be in a conversation for an hour. As a Gen Xer, I would've rather died.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yes.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Than have my friends talk to my parents. I had my parents drop me off a block away from everything I had to go to. I didn't want- 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Totally ... 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Everybody has parents. Of course a parent's gonna drop you off. Why was I so embarrassed? And, in looking back I kinda wish I was more like Gen Z, but.

But it's fascinating, right? Yeah. And so they love that. They're curious. They want to engage. They're craving engagement, so just engage with them. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: They wanna learn. They're voracious learners. So it's like, " Teach me," "I know you've made mistakes.

Teach me your mistakes so I don't make the same ones," right? Yes.

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Exactly. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Yeah. Okay, last kind of question. So one thing to stop assuming about Gen Z, and then one thing to start doing instead. 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Stop assuming that Gen Z doesn't wanna work hard.

Okay? They do. Sometimes when they don't put in their best effort, it's because they don't feel engaged or impassioned about whatever it is that they're doing. Find a way to help them connect to what they're doing. Shift it around. Remember, their motivation is making a difference for others.

They wanna make an impact. So shift it around. So stop assuming that they don't wanna work hard. They do, and a lot of them work tirelessly on things they care deeply about. Yeah. And so start doing is just connecting them better to maybe if they're in your workplace and they're doing a task and it's just not resonating with them, and you have the ability to kinda morph that task a little bit more to their style or switch it with somebody else who'd much rather do that task, there's ways to do that.

We don't have to be so set in stone with everything. I know sometimes there's not. There's a job that requires a specific duty and you have to do it, and it might just be a mis- kind of fit. But if there's a way to morph things around I think it would help empower Gen Z-ers to say, "I feel heard," but it also gives them an opportunity to really connect with what they're doing.

You'll find that you'll get a lot more out of them with that. You'll get creativity, you'll get productivity, and you'll probably get longevity out of them as well. 

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: So good. Okay, so where to find Corey. We'll put this in the show notes as well, like, where can we find you?

How can we learn more about this study? How can we even find the study that's about to come out? 

Dr. Corey Seemiller: Yeah, actually, you can find me in a couple different places. So on coreycmiller.com, that's my personal website. You can find, links to podcast recordings, interviews I've got a lot of really great news pieces.

I've been on NPR a bunch of times, and you can just listen to those little clips, you can read articles. You can read some of the journal articles that we've written. You have links to books and things on there. If you wanna know more about the actual studies, we have a nonprofit called Institute for Generational Research and Education. And Dr. Meghan Grace and I are the researchers for that. We don't run the organization, but we're the researchers for it, and so that organization is called Institute and then the number four Gens instituteforgens.org.

And that one has a link to every one of the studies we've done. It's not updated with the most recent study. Once we get a piece out about that, we'll have all that data up there. But it's got the global study on there, it's got all the other studies we've done, how we've done them, links to the research, all that.

Dr. Katherine Jeffery: Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you for the amazing work you've done across the past couple decades at least.

I appreciate how you've impacted my own work and my own thinking, and even made teaching leadership more enjoyable because, we were able to give them benchmarks and places to grow, too. As we know, that's very important for Millennials and Gen Z. So we appreciate you being on today, and if you all like this podcast, please follow us and leave a review. It helps other people find us, and Dr. C. Miller has some amazing work out there that can help a lot of us do things in a better way.