Gym times and free coffee: How employers lure “Generation Z”.

Some employers describe the under 25-year-olds as the “generation after work”. Others try to respond to the ideas of the next generation. He values ​​enough free time and flexible working hours.

“We have the upper hand,” says Ture Renner. “There is a major shortage of skilled workers in Germany, and of course we take advantage of that.” By “we” the sociology student means “Generation Z”, i.e. everyone who is under 25 like him. He is 23 years old, sitting next to him is 21-year-old Cindy Jeske, who is studying media studies. She works for a company as a working student.

“I can now go to Sweden for two weeks and just work from there,” she says. She likes such offers, but she also thinks they are right from the point of view of the company. It’s about “that we don’t overstrain ourselves” and in the end about the junior staff staying with the employer.

“Generation Z” sets the rules

At the employment agency in Stuttgart, Hadije Zeka confirms that Cindy is not that wrong. “This generation has a lot of power,” she says. “She’s changing the rules of the game.” Society has to come to terms with it. “There is no other generation now.”

Here they now offer advice specifically for members of Generation Z. It takes more sensitivity and more patience if you want to get young people excited about a job offer. Later on in the job, feedback is important where “the criticism doesn’t hurt too much,” otherwise it won’t be accepted.

From the home office to the gym

The “Advantest” company in Böblingen has already adapted to the ideas of the next generation. At the supplier company for the semiconductor industry, most of the employees work on computers. You can organize your working hours freely and, if you wish, work from your home office or reduce the weekly working hours. “It is important that we achieve the goals that we have set ourselves,” explains Personnel Manager Marcel Gieß.

Employees like the 23-year-old electrical engineer Kevin Freimayer benefit from this. He usually starts in the morning in the home office, at 10 a.m. he goes to the gym for two hours. “I can go to the gym in the morning when it’s less busy,” he says, describing the advantage the model has for him. “I can train much more efficiently because I don’t have to wait long for my equipment.”

At “Advantest” they laid out some other bait for the boys. Those who come to the office from their home office will find attractive lounges and free coffee. For those who do it by bike, there are up to two tax-privileged bikes from the “Job-Rad” program. And if you have an electric car, you can charge it at charging stations in the company car park.

Sociology student Ture Renner agrees that employers who want employees to make their way from their home office to the office should create such or similar incentives. “Employers should subsidize travel tickets or provide company cars,” he is convinced. After graduation he wants to work four days a week, one or two of them from home.

Great difficulties in crafts and gastronomy

But home office is not possible in every job – not even with “Advantest”. About a third of the workforce works in production and is therefore on-site. And of course there are sectors that cannot offer working from home at all: craft businesses such as the roofing company Blummer in Bietigheim. Company manager Hendrik Ambrus reports that on average three out of four trainees drop out.

The attitude to work is also no longer the same as it was years ago. “It used to be normal to ask: ‘What’s still work to do?'” he recalls of his own apprenticeship. “Then the yard was swept. Nowadays it’s like, ‘that’s not my job’. So someone else has to do it.” Sick reports are also more common, preferably via WhatsApp message.

The overriding question is: Who does all the work when there are fewer and fewer workers and fewer and fewer people wanting to work? A concern that concerns Bastian Atzger from the SME and Economic Union of the CDU. Will there be more incentives in the future, including financial ones? “Of course we can say that we are now paying double, triple, quadruple the salary,” says Atzger. “Only who can earn that accordingly?”

That is why some entrepreneurs are now taking a different approach. Thomas Barnhardt, for example – he runs the “Feldberger Hof” hotel on the Feldberg in the Black Forest. There are simply not enough applications in the catering industry, he complains. In the end, the hotelier saw no other way out than to bring trainees from Indonesia. They are also better motivated. “The employees from abroad always ask: ‘What can I do better?'”, reports Barnhardt. “The Germans say: ‘Boss, what can you do better?'”