Elevating Leadership Part 4: Working together to build Gen Z's soft skills and nurture potential

Welcome to NoBa Connect: Insights - an insider into the workplace evolution for investors, sector experts, business leaders and those interested in shaping the workplace for happy workers.

Bi-weekly, we delve into the trends, challenges, and opportunities that fuel worker-first solutions.

In this edition:

• A breakdown of the leadership skills development gap that Gen Z faces
• NoBa's latest updates on our journey to creating a world with no barriers to worker happiness.
• Our recommendations for your summer reading

Generation Z are expected to make up 25%+ of the workforce by 2025. The COVID pandemic has dramatically altered the landscape they're stepping into. These shifts present unique challenges in developing Gen Z’s soft skills. The where and how of skills transfer has changed with remote and hybrid work fragmenting working patterns across the economy.

The "skills gap" hindering Gen Z's full contribution to the workforce is exacerbated by limited face-to-face interactions. We believe that traditional methods of skill acquisition – observing senior leaders – has been disrupted and there's not enough focus on nurturing the potential of the next generation of leaders and managers.

CHIEF recently surveyed that 4 in 10 senior leaders don’t think Gen Z are ready for the workforce and struggle to learn the unwritten rules of the office.

Raconteur recently shared a breakdown of the soft skill deficiencies in recent graduates, particularly in areas like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. But that’s likely an oversimplification with skills like resilience and empathy experiencing accelerated development during lockdown. Addressing the post-pandemic soft skills gap requires urgent action, ensuring more training, coaching and support for Gen Z especially outside of a line management context.

Moreover, the lack of in-person networking opportunities and reduced visibility in remote settings could potentially slow Gen Z's career progression, impacting the future leadership pipeline across industries. HRDConnect shared in April their analyses that Gen Z gravitate towards receiving mentorship, rapid career progression and social interaction. Successful leaders will focus on these outcomes and be flexible on how to get there.

Only 1% of over 500 business leaders surveyed by EY say that their companies are fully remote, according to its third annual Future of Work Index. Hybrid has seemingly won out – so now what?

To address these challenges we believe organisations must take bold, decisive action.

Leaders must impress their preferences and reasoning on their teams and affirm the setup they believe will unlock the most opportunity and skills for them. Here's how:

• Reimagine Onboarding: Create immersive experiences that instills company culture and values, setting the foundation for skill acquisition and leadership development from day one.
• Implement Structured Coaching and Mentoring: Establish formal reverse and peer-to-peer mentoring and coaching programs, pairing Gen Z employees with seasoned staff for mutual learning.
• Leverage Technology: Invest in collaboration tools and learning platforms that resonate with Gen Z's digital expectations.
• Prioritise In-Person Connection: For all the flexibility of remote, it has exacerbated employee loneliness and is prone to worker blindness. Post-COVID, in-person connection has proven essential to operating efficiency. Regular offsites are essential in catalysing teams and establishing shared momentum.
• Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning: Encourage Gen Z employees to take ownership of their development, providing resources and opportunities for them to continually enhance their leadership skills.

The organisations that successfully nurture Gen Z's leadership potential in this new landscape will gain significant competitive advantage.

For leaders, integrating Gen Z into the workforce demands more than accommodation—it requires a rethink of leadership development. Investing in technologies and programs that facilitate skill development is essential for future-proofing operations and retaining talent. It’s key for leaders to set out where and when they want soft skill acquisition to take place, else it will fall by the wayside.

We believe leaders should adopt a multi-dimensional approach combining mentoring and coaching to support Gen Z to accelerate their soft skill development and prepare them for an unknown future.

The standout companies of the next decade will be those that build brand with Gen Z audiences, bridge soft skills gaps by providing meaningful development opportunities and ensure a robust leadership structure to prioritise building soft skills in the leaders of the future. Some solutions we are seeing on this path are Voco whose platform facilitates invaluable peer-to-peer coaching to supercharge career development and WorkTripp, a platform to facilitate regular offsites to save leaders time and money when offsite planning.

Those who nurture Gen Z's potential and help them learn more, earn more and lead, as well as just manage, will win the talent war and build long term employer brand. Employer brands that will have the longevity to attract and adapt to Gen Alpha (born 2010-present). LinkedIn's internal research finds that strong employer brands spend 43% less on a cost per hire basis. But beyond saving money and securing quality talent pipelines, one thing is for sure, coaching Gen Z in key leadership and soft skills is at the heart of how companies will win in the post-pandemic world.

💼 Portfolio News

• Blend shared some top tips on onboarding next generation deskless workers.
• Betterspace broke down the importance of personalisation in employee wellbeing.
• Pirkx's Stella Smith was back on the BBC Today Programme!
• Are you GROSS'ing this summer? Read on to hear how Trickle focus on continuous improvement and Get Rid Of Stupid Stuff!

📖 NoBa Recommends

👂 We're listening to HBR Ideacast's: Why Managers Play Favourites and How To Change

Listen to break down relationship building at work and how managers build ingroups and outgroups — and when those divisions fester, it can destroy team culture and performance.

📺 We're watching 20VC's Nilan Peiris: What Growth Hacks Worked and What Did Not

Watch to hear the growth tactics Nilan used (and what didn't work) in scaling Wise to 1M users, win at performance marketing and hear what defines top 1% product marketing.

📖 We're reading Richard Susskind's The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts

Read to understand Richard's proposal for six new models for producing and distributing expertise in society and why he predicts the decline of today's professions and describes the people and systems that will replace them.

🧠 and re-reading The Resolution Foundation's Ending Stagnation Economy 2030 Report

Read to get into the detail of the new social contract, how the UK can end stagnation, rebuild beyond the UK's obvious hardships and lead towards prosperity.

🗞️ NoBa News:

• September Pitch Day: We are preparing for our next Pitch Day on 19th September with our trusted advisors. If you are a founder or know one who should be pitching to us, we are accepting applications to our Pitch Day here.
• Read Vanesa’s mini summer series spotlighting and celebrating many remarkable women in the network – starting with Catherine Baudino
• Our next Women’s Breakfast in soon approaching – if you’d love a spot at the table please do get in touch.
• Your Summer reading: Check back on the previous editions of our Elevating Leadership Series below as we also look forward to next time: Part 5 - the impact of AI on leaders.
• Part 1: Does Leadership Matter?
• Part 2: A New Hybrid Context
• Part 3: Fractional Working: Revolutionising the workplace

Until next time, Many thanks!

from the NoBa Team 🧡

Kevin Fuller Vanesa Pazos