How to engage Gen Z with your internal communications

Goodbye Boomers. Nice to know you Gen X. Millennials? You’re so MySpace. Gen Z are entering the workplace and they know what they want and how they wish to be treated by their employers.

The question here is: how can today’s employers successfully embrace and engage the next generation of employees?

For starters, you need an internal communications strategy that speaks their language. Without completely alienating the other generations in your workforce.

What do we know about Gen Z?

Before attempting to engage any audience, we want to know where they are, what gets them excited and how they want to be communicated with.

And with Gen Z set to make-up 32 per cent of the global population by 2019 there’s a pressing need for internal communicators to get under their skin - quickly.

Traditional methods are unlikely to cut-it.  

So you need to be able to tailor your content – and the way it’s delivered - accordingly.

Gen Z is:

Tech savvy. They use multiple devices at multiple times.

Flexible. They want on-demand access to information and technology

Passionate about where they work. Creating great content (that they’re more likely to share) will make Gen-Zers more passionate brand advocates.

3 ways to engage with Gen Z

Educate with Video

Gen Z love learning via video. So much so that 66% of Gen Zers use YouTube to get ‘How-to’ information.

Books and classroom learning may have worked in the past. But video is the way forward when thinking about training and providing internal information to the next generation.

If you’re announcing a new company initiative, or simply where your annual company party will be held, think about how you can leverage video content to do so.

Split your message

Different generations consume information in different ways. Gen Z, roughly born between 1996 and 2010, have grown up in a digital world. They know nothing else.

That doesn’t mean to say you should ignore other segments of your workforce.

Instead, focus on creating content that has cross-appeal or split content to cater towards different audiences.

For example, an email can be turned into a video, or even a short, sharp WhatsApp message to a company group.

If you believe certain studies, the average attention span of a Gen-Zer is just eight seconds. That’s four seconds less than a Millennial…

So make it snappy!

Get connected

We embrace a host of technology communication platforms outside the workplace (WhatsApp, SnapChat to name two) yet email and Powerpoint still dominate our lives in the office.

A study by Goldman Sachs found that half of Gen Zers are online for 10 hours a day or more.

Make sure you’re communicating in real-time by embracing instant messaging services such as Slack, Yammer and Workforce.

Looking to build an internal comms strategy that talks to Gen Z? Email me at

william.geldart@bps-world.com to get the conversation started.