Developing generation Z employees: a two-stage mediation model

Purpose: The entry of generation Z employees into workforce poses new challenges for managers in designing learning and development interventions as they are better informed and well-equipped to access the available information. This paper investigates how training comprehensiveness serves their unique developmental needs. Design/methodology/approach: Employees responded to the online survey on training comprehensiveness, person-job fit, and task significance while the data on task performance was collected from their supervisors. In total, 215 complete and valid responses were received....  [+] Show more

Purpose: The entry of generation Z employees into workforce poses new challenges for managers in designing learning and development interventions as they are better informed and well-equipped to access the available information. This paper investigates how training comprehensiveness serves their unique developmental needs. Design/methodology/approach: Employees responded to the online survey on training comprehensiveness, person-job fit, and task significance while the data on task performance was collected from their supervisors. In total, 215 complete and valid responses were received. Gender, age, education level and industry type were used as control variables and the statistical analysis was performed using SPSS and RStudio.

Findings: Findings indicate that generation Z employees aim for person-job fit as a proximal outcome and task performance as distal outcome of training. Also, task-significance mediates the relationship between person-job fit and task performance. Apart from the indirect path which involves mediation of person-job fit and task significance, the direct impact of training on task performance is also noticed. Interestingly, the older colleagues do not display such behavior. Originality/value: This is the first empirical study that investigates the developmental needs of generation Z employees and integrates the elements of task design and training needs together. With their better skills to access increasing job opportunities, generation Z employees use training to meet the job demands. Thus, person-job fit, and task significance are found to be better performance drivers than training for generation Z, but training adds to their performance through person-job fit as well.

Published abstract.