Gen-Z: We can ‘app-ify’ our work

The changing face of New Zealand’s workforce means young Kiwis may have five careers during their lifetime, reports Susan Edmunds.

MARLANE Harmer admits she has caught the welding bug.

The 24-year-old Hawkes Bay woman is doing a mechanical engineering apprenticeship at Ravensdown in Napier, with big goals of becoming a qualified underwater welder in a few years’ time – a role so specialised that it is hard to find anyone in New Zealand who can even offer the training required.

But while she knows what she wants to do with her career now, that has not always been the case.

Out of school at 16, Harmer took cleaning jobs, forestry gigs and did work experience in IT. She was working as a bartender when she met the Ravensdown staff who would finally help her get her role there, after she was turned down by a number of other engineering companies.

‘‘You’ve got to go through the motions to find out what you want to do,’’ she says. ‘‘I didn’t know until later on, when I got the itch for welding.’’

That is quite different to her parents’ experience – her father has had a lifelong career at the local meatworks and her mother also worked there for many years before switching to accounting. ‘‘He stayed there for the money,’’ Harmer says. ‘‘He probably doesn’t love his job. But I’m trying to do something where I’m making money at the same time but going there and enjoying my work. The money is less important.’’

It is estimated that Generation Z – or millennials – such as Harmer, will have 17 employers across five careers in their lifetimes, and what they are looking for in their work is changing.

Jane Kennelly, of Frog Recruitment, said a big shift was happening. ‘‘Once upon a time an employer would say they want people for three to five years at least but those days have gone.’’

She said the workforce was now much more mobile and people who were used to ‘‘appifying’’ their personal lives with instant gratification and constant stimulation wanted to be able to run their work lives in a similar way. ‘‘The employer has a challenge to keep them engaged,’’ she said. ‘‘Generation Z themselves need to teach organisations how to manage their dynamic relationships. But if they are open to learning, they’re away laughing.’’

Data from recruitment site Seek shows the average time New Zealanders of all ages expect to spend in their role is 9.2 years.

But it found the average New Zealander had already had five jobs in their adult lives and had spent between three and four years in each of them.

Those aged up to 24 had only spent an average seven to 12 months in their roles while those aged 25 to 34 had spent between two and three years. Older people had been in their jobs up to seven years.

Skills shortages may give young people more opportunities to move around if they have transferable skills: it is estimated that 64,000 new people will be needed in building and construction by 2020, as well as 40,000 people in manufacturing