Elizabeth Faber

▶0:00HostWelcome to the Built by People Podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining us today. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

▶0:44GuestDave, thank you. And I'm very excited to be on this podcast today. My career journey is one of many careers within the same organization. So I joined Deloitte over 30 years ago as a fresh MBA grad. And was a practitioner in the US consulting practice serving a variety of sectors and service lines for 10 years before moving to Shanghai, where I was in our China consulting practice doing the same thing, primarily market entry and market expansion strategies for MNCs coming to China, and then moved to Singapore where I lived the next 15 years in a variety of roles as chief of staff for CEOs and talent and development roles, which eventually became the foundation for my taking the Asia-Pacific People and Purpose leadership role. I was in the Asia-Pacific executive for 5 years and then had a great opportunity to be considered for the global People and Purpose leader for Deloitte, which I assumed 2 years ago. And since then, I have moved back to the US. So over 30 years with the firm, first 10 in the US, 20 in Asia, and now I'm back in the US as the global chief a People and Purpose Officer. I have 2 children, 2 daughters. They were both born in China and a husband who has been married to me for longer than I've been with Deloitte.

▶2:10HostGreat introduction, Elizabeth. Thank you for that. Can you share the story behind the Gen Z survey your team conducted and what motivated you to explore this important topic?

▶2:21GuestThank you, Dave. We're very proud of the global Gen Z and Millennial survey. It's in its 14th year, and we started this survey in 2012 to help our clients respond to the expectations of the then millennials who were really challenging workplace norms back then, particularly around hybrid work and remote working. This is long before the days of the pandemic. And so our clients were really eager to unpack more on how to set workplace policies, how to make decisions that would attract and retain millennials. We added 6 years later the Gen Zs to the survey, and they also have a different vocal set of demands for their employers around what they expect from their workplaces. And we have now been running the entire survey for 14 years. This year we have over 23,000 respondents across to 44 countries. And in addition to expanding the actual cohorts who we survey, we also expand the topics we cover. So we're not traditionally just focused on workplace matters, but broader societal implications.

▶3:38HostElizabeth, can you walk us through a specific challenge you faced when gathering insights for the survey and how you overcame it to ensure meaningful results?

▶3:47GuestSo each year we, take both a quantitative and qualitative review of the data. So of course there is the actual survey tool that allows us to collect the soundings from over 23,000 people, but we also conduct additional interviews, qualitative interviews with a selected number of the respondents to make sure we fully understand the results of the survey itself. We work with a vendor to help us in the survey administration and really carefully think through the questions we ask each year, which questions are trending and which questions are new. You can imagine in the beginning of the survey we weren't asking questions around GenAI, but now that's obviously something that we're asking questions about. And we also make sure, Dave, that we have a broad range of voices coming into the survey results. So we take care to capture views from Gen Zs and millennials in leadership roles and executive positions, or those who are participating in the gig economy, those who are seeking employment. We look at education backgrounds and make sure that we have a broad range of respondents who have pursued or are pursuing higher education, those who've gone vocational routes. So we really do try to make sure we have a diverse set of views when putting together the survey each year.

▶5:11HostElizabeth, based on the survey findings, can you describe a surprising insight about Gen Z in the workplace and how HR leaders might apply this knowledge?

▶5:20GuestDave, one data point that is striking this year is the challenging notion of ambition that Gen Zs in particular have. And one of the headlines from this year's report is that only 6% of those surveyed aspire to leadership roles within their organization. That really points to not so much ambition, but their definition of success and understanding that success includes not just roles, but learning development opportunities and focus on mental wellbeing, on work-life balance. These are factors that are important to them beyond simply climbing the corporate ladder. So what do organizations need to do? How do we adapt as HR and talent leaders and business leaders across organizations? We need to help resolve the perceived trade-offs that Gen Zs have with leadership roles versus personal fulfillment and understand that we can't have them both. You can attain leadership roles and still have a work-life balance and still invest in learning and development. Still have purpose-led leadership roles. In fact, that's essential for Gen Zs and millennials. So there is really an approach that not one size fits all when thinking about leadership ambitions of Gen Zs and millennials.

▶6:45HostElizabeth, can you tell me about a time when research data fundamentally changed your approach to HR strategy and what tangible outcomes resulted from that shift?

▶6:55GuestDave, Deloitte uses the results of this survey with our clients and also internally to help inform our own HR our talent strategies. We estimate that about 3/4 of the workforce by 2030 will be Gen Z and millennial generations. And similarly, within Deloitte, about 80% of our workforce are Gen Zs and millennials. So the survey results do matter to our talent strategies as an organization. 3 examples I can give you are around mental health, learning, and purpose. You'll see in the survey results how important Gen Zs and millennials find mental health. They have high levels of stress and are concerned around their own mental health and that of their families and colleagues. So they want organizations to support them in their mental health priorities. And so we at Deloitte and other leading organizations need to make sure that access to the resources to support their mental health is readily available and that we have all of the resources needed. For them. Secondly, around learning. Learning and development is one of the highest priorities that Gen Zs and millennials have. And we think of learning and development across a wide range of capabilities, be it technical. And one of the most obvious examples lately is around investment in Gen AI capabilities of our people, but also leadership capabilities, soft skills, if you will, of empathy and time management, and leading diverse teams. These are important skills for Gen Zs and millennials, and certainly something that Deloitte focuses on. And then finally, purpose. Purpose influences job satisfaction of Gen Zs and millennials. 9 out of 10 consider purpose to be foundational to how they think about their employers. It's very important to them. And so it's important for organizations to be clear about their purpose and help Gen Zs and millennials align with their purpose and see how delivery of their day-to-day work helps to fulfill the purpose of the organization. So those are 3 examples, Dave, around mental health and wellbeing, learning, and particularly around Gen AI and purpose.

▶9:11HostElizabeth, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

▶9:15GuestDave, I would share with this community the importance of achieving this trifecta that Gen Zs and millennials aspire to, to achieve their own happiness of money, meaning, and wellbeing. So money is of course important because without that, they aren't really able to fully enjoy the rest of what organizations can offer, but so is purpose and meaning, and so is wellbeing. So Gen Zs and millennials find purpose very important to how they think about their work, as well as organizations that prioritize their mental health and wellbeing. Underneath all of this is a continued commitment in learning and development of Gen Zs and millennials and really investing in their technical skills, their leadership capabilities, and time with leaders, providing managers and leaders who provide mentorship opportunities and apprenticeship learning to Gen Zs and millennials so they can continue to advance in their careers. Organizations that invest in money, meaning, and wellbeing and learning and development of their employees will not just attract and retain more Gen Zs and millennials, but other generations as well.

▶10:25HostElizabeth, thank you so much for joining us today on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you involved.

▶10:31GuestThank you, Dave. My pleasure.