Why climb a ladder when you can hop around with a feeling of greater freedom and whimsy? At least that appears to be the Gen Z mindset, picking career lily pads over the slow climb straight up. As joyous as it sounds, this is not an easy decision to make, and neither is it made lightly. Historically, patiently climbing up the corporate ladder was seen as the only way to approach a career, making steady progress rung by rung into a position of management and leadership to fully showcase success in employment.
Now Gen Z’s career strategy looks a little different. The lily pad career approach has Gen Zers looking to widen the scope of their careers rather than compete and ascend to a singular common point that others expect them to reach. Understanding this alternate approach may be necessary in order to employ Gen Z workers and ensure retention.
Gen Z is volunteering to hop across the career lily pad rather than climb the ladder of corporate success, but it’s not a decision borne of laziness. (Image: Freepik)
Placing the Right Pieces on the Path of the Gen Z Career Lily Pad Strategy
Leadership and management roles were once placed on the career map by default, not because of the role itself, but the promotions, pay, and added advantages that came with successfully leveling up a career. Gen Z workers, pragmatic, self-assured, and willful as they are, no longer appear to see such career growth as a worthwhile endeavor.
Most Gen Z workers aren’t looking to dismantle the corporate ladder, but they aren’t too keen on traversing down this path just to meet societal expectations of what their careers should look like. This doesn’t mean that Gen Z workers want to stagnate in their careers or remain where they are, either. A growth mindset still continues to be relevant to the conversation, but the path there looks different. A Glassdoor report found that 68% of Gen Zers would still accept a management role if it were offered to them, provided it came with a pay or title improvement. This doesn’t sound like too much of a shift from the past, but Millennial workers and those who came before them saw the management role as a goal in itself. Now, such positions appear more relevant exclusively for the benefits they offer.
Management Roles Have Lost Their Hold Over the Workforce
In the past, getting promoted from performing a role to managing others who perform it was a sign of career growth all on its own. This is why moving up the ladder felt like a worthwhile endeavor to many, offering workers an opportunity to lead rather than be led. This particular aspect of growth is what is missing from Gen Z’s career lily pad strategy. Most appear content to remain where they are, expanding on their tasks and impact in similar roles rather than moving up the hierarchy.
The appeal of managerial roles has also dimmed in the light of the burnout many face, with limited resources at their disposal to perform their roles. Frontline workers are often promoted to manager positions with little preparation, causing them to struggle with the role and their subordinates to struggle with their leadership. With organizations regularly speaking of “flattening the hierarchy” and laying off managers in the process, it is no wonder that the position has lost its appeal.
Job Hopping With a Purpose: It Isn’t About Laziness or Boredom
This lily pad career strategy has also been linked with Gen Zers’ “office frogging,” a more enjoyable way of saying job hopping, moving from opportunity to opportunity at a faster rate than one might expect. Such job-hopping tendencies have been vilified in the past as a way for workers to avoid taking accountability for their careers and shifting between opportunities at the slightest hint of boredom, but that is not the primary cause of this lily pad career trend.
Despite assumptions, Gen Z workers continue to remain ambitious and committed to growth in their careers, even if the definition of success is different. A non-linear career path affords workers greater freedom in building the experiences they want to fuel their careers, especially in the modern world, where new career paths continue to emerge every day. Employee retention and career planning within the workplace have taken a backseat, and promotions and internal ascensions are not guaranteed.
Layoffs Add to the Confusion In Career Choices
With layoffs dominating the conversation today, the sheen of employee loyalty towards employers has dulled, as it is evident that employers aren’t being picky with who they let go. As a result, the corporate ladder is already on shaky grounds, and ascending it may not offer the stability that many are looking for.
With job insecurity on the rise thanks to AI, expanding a career horizontally in pursuit of growth appears to offer a great sense of continuity, purpose, and promise of success for many. Leapfrogging from lily pad to lily pad also offers greater stability, rather than holding on to a single job long term and hoping for growth.
The Gen Z Career Strategy: Understanding Their Non-Linear Career Path Could Be Key to Retention
There is a continued lack of understanding with regard to Gen Z, not just with their lily pad career approach, but their thinking and behavior as well. This has many employers choosing to turn to AI and close off entry-level roles for these younger workers, but this is a short-term strategy at best. With Gen Zers set to make up a significant portion of the working population over the next five years, businesses that fail to engage with them will find themselves at a disadvantage as older workers age out of the workforce, leaving no one to replace them.
Instead of butting heads with the Gen Z workers, employers and their HR teams could be better served by understanding their approach. If the promise of a promotion to manager isn’t enough to retain Gen Z employees, some benefits or offerings will convince them to build a career at an organization. If Gen Zers are driven by signs of career growth such as skill development, training, improved pay and benefits, access to better opportunities, and other such advantages, providing workers with these solutions could solve the problem of retention.
The Gen Z career lily pad trend isn’t one born of malice or ignorance but is a mere result of the times we currently operate in. Even with the job-hopping tendencies, most workers are keen to carve out a career path that shows actual growth in their area of interest. Understanding and serving this need could help organizations develop better workers, most of whom will understand the value of working for an organization that gives back.
What do you think of Gen Z choosing to hop from one career lily pad to another rather than ascending the ladder? Share your thoughts with us in the comments. Subscribe to The HR Digest for more insights on workplace trends, layoffs, and what to expect with the advent of AI.
