According to the Financial Times , millennials are big news and with good reason, as they make up an exclusive club of 1.8 billion people. This is about a quarter of the world’s population.

By 2020, millennials (born from 1981-1996) will make up 35 per cent of the global workforce, however they are about to be overtaken by Gen Z (born from the mid-90s until 2015), who will comprise 32 per cent of the global population of 7.7 billion in 2019, ahead of millennials.

To give some idea of the numbers in the US alone, there are 65 million Gen Z people and by 2020 Gen Z will account for 40 per cent of all consumers.

This spells a huge demographic change to the working world and our economies, and employers and businesses alike must find ways to cope or adjust.

Perhaps confusingly, both Generation Y and Generation Z can be called ‘Millennials’ with the primary difference between the two being technology, especially the developments in technology that have happened over the years and how they use it.

Generation Y grew up on personal computers, cellphones, and video game systems, while Gen Z has grown up on tablets, smartphones, and apps. Yet, the common ground between both generations is that both have been changing communication and identity.

Millennials grew up with electronics and in an increasingly online and socially networked world. As the most ethnically diverse generation, they tend to be tolerant of difference. Having been brought up with the mantra ‘follow your dreams’ and being told often that they were ‘special’, millennials tend to be confident.

They are seen as more optimistic about the future than other generations — despite the fact that they are the first generation since the Silent Generation, those born between 1927 and 1946 who were brought up to be seen and not heard. There have however been reports that the result of Millennials’ optimism means they are entering into adulthood with unrealistic expectations, which sometimes leads to disillusion.

Many early Millennials went through post-secondary education only to find themselves employed in unrelated fields or underemployed, and they tend to change jobs more frequently than previous generations. Their expectations may have resulted from the very encouraging, involved and almost ever-present group of parents that became known as ‘helicopter parents’ — watching and hovering over their every move.

Conversely, Gen Z is the generation that never had to deal with the dial-up internet or brick-sized mobile phones. They have grown up with the knowledge that they can speak to anyone around the world at a moment’s notice and, through assorted social media networks, that’s what they’ve been doing for their entire lives.

For this generation, electronics that were a luxury to their parents and older siblings have always been a must-have for living in the modern world. This facility with technology has sometimes between used to describe the entire generation — they are the ‘neo-digital natives’.

Gen Z is the first generation that finds the extraordinary technological advances of the last part of the 20th century and into this 21st century to be just a normal part of life.

Undoubtedly, they will see the same huge changes in technology in their adult lives as baby boomers, Gen X, and millennials have done in theirs — but with their early experiences, Gen Z may well be better able to adapt and cope.

The second key question that separates Gen Z from the others is whether or not they remember the stormy news headlines while they grew up — especially around the financial crisis and its aftermath. Many were born during or just before the 2007 financial crisis and resulting recession. For the unlucky members of this generation, their earliest memories might well include repossessed homes, family members losing their jobs, and other signs of massive international financial upheaval.

Contrast this with boomers and earlier millennials, who were both born in times of prosperity and typically did not have to face economic downturns and their consequences until they were well into their teens. It’s no wonder that Gen Z has a reputation for frugality and caution in comparison with the generations that came before them. These new adults are responsible savers, not rash spenders.

To be tolerant of differences has always been the default position of Gen Z — while their politics vary and can tend towards the economically conservative, they think that being socially liberal goes without saying. They can be often shocked that anyone could think otherwise. Partly this is motivated by the fact that Gen Z are themselves a very diverse generation; they are the generation whose parents travelled more widely because of cheap flights and met people via the internet. As a result, there are now more multi-racial young people and often they hold more than one nationality than those who came before.

As shown by the number of politicians caught out by unwise social media comments, blog posts and Facebook discussions, earlier generations have frequently been embarrassed by bad management of their digital privacy. This isn’t such a danger for Gen Z, who’ve grown up with a keen understanding of the line between public and private with online settings, and who guard their privacy carefully as a result. It’s one of the reasons that Gen Z now has little interest in Facebook, preferring social media where they can more easily keep their interactions restricted to their closest friends, or present a carefully edited image when they do post for a wider audience, such as on Instagram.

That’s not to say that Gen Z are privacy-conscious at the expense of all else. They have, after all, grown up in a world where it is usual for their favourite brands to gather extensive data on them in order to tailor marketing communications to their specific wants.

The difference is that unlike older generations, Gen Z does not view this as an invasion of privacy, but instead an expected marketing technique of any company wanting to provide a good customer experience. It’s not a contradiction; it’s just that Gen Z expect to keep their communications private, but not their customer preferences. In fact, they will avoid brands that do not offer them a sufficiently personalised experience.

Gen Z has grown up in a world that has not always made them feel financially secure, and they’ve taken that on board in their plans for their future careers. While the millennial generation were encouraged to dream big and aim to find fulfilment and wealth in creative and exciting careers, Gen Z is more realistic.

They dream of becoming entrepreneurs, building up their own businesses, and never needing to answer to a boss. With all the resources of the internet at their disposal, they know that running your own business can be very hard work but they’re ready for it, because they see it as a route to the financial security that they prioritise. And their goals are optimistic, but not impossible: they don’t plan on becoming billionaires before they’re 30, but they do dream of inventing an app that lets them graduate without debt.

Gen Z have also grown up with the knowledge that they aren’t likely to have it so good, and they’ve made their plans to fit this. That’s not just reflected in their entrepreneurial streak, but also in their inclination to prioritise working towards a well-paid career over chasing a dream.

The line between childhood and adulthood has moved a great deal over the past hundred years. The concept of being a ‘teenager’ is something separate and different from a child or an adult. The line between childhood and adulthood is just as unclear for Gen Z as it was for their 1950s predecessors, but in a different way. Gen Z won’t leave education until they’re at least 18, and a large majority of them will go on to university after that.

And as Gen Z have grown up in a world that feels unsafe, they’re unlikely to have enjoyed the freedom to roam by themselves that earlier generations took for granted; they’re also much less likely to own a car or know how to drive one. But in the other direction, Gen Z’s growing awareness of the internet and their privacy means that even as very young teenagers, they’re starting to think about what they’re saying and how they’re saying it, and even working towards establishing a personal brand online. The rise of the ‘online influencer’ is especially powerful to Gen Z.

So what do Gen Z and Millennials expect from the workplace? They expect:

• Career progression and mobility

• Employers that care for them and are part of a wellness ecosystem

• Gen Z are looking for positive values, relaxed and productive atmosphere, commitment to excellence, open and honest communication, cooperation, support, and empowerment, sense of humour, compassion, respect, and understanding and flexibility.

Brands and businesses need to move fast to be ready to serve Gen Z when this group reaches consumer dominance in the early 2020s. But employers also need to take the time to understand this group: they have an ultra-short attention span but are hungry for authentic experiences and content; they are sceptical of financial institutions, yet want to save and be financially independent; they are immersed in social media, but also want to have a positive impact in the real world.

The time to engage Gen Z is now. But only those companies that genuinely grasp gen Z’s particular behaviours, values and priorities are likely to meet with success.

So, the question remains, how do you attract millennials to your business, especially as employers or as a brand? Here are nine ways from ACCA’s 2017 research into Generation Next to do just this:

1. Revisit career paths

2. Redesign learning and career support paradigms

3. Engage the older generation in knowledge share

4. Allow new ways of working with technology

5. Rethink succession planning

6. Harness generation next’s digital savvy

7. Think divers global talent pools

8. Manage expectations, have career conversations

9. Rethink engagement

It’s not possible to say which of these is the most important; we, however, need to be able to flex each of these and then apply them where and when necessary. The most important thing is to be authentic in your approach.

Alongside these, to attract Gen Z companies must emphasise corporate social responsibility (CSR). This tends to mean a shift in priorities in terms of developing and promoting a CSR strategy. Recognising that this is very important, companies such as IBM, Google, Johnson & Johnson, and Netflix have already focused proactively on their CSR programmes. Google, for example, allows its workers to devote up to 20 hours of work time to volunteer efforts each year, and awards US$50 grants to non-profit organisations for every five hours that a Googler spends volunteering for a particular organisation.

So how do you keep these generations engaged?

• Keep them in the loop Bring them in on the larger business goals and plans

• Ask for their unique input

• Involve them in the decision-making process

• Coach, don’t manage

• Provide feedback

• Create regular training programmes

• Assure them that there is room for growth

• Be transparent

Again, this list is not exhaustive and we need to flex these appropriately.

There are indeed several possibilities involved in engaging with a new, young workforce who might think very differently from older generations. But these are the people who are already the consumers of today, with aspirations to be the leaders of the future, and hopes of shaping tomorrow’s economies.

Excerpt from Leo Lee’s presentation at the 37th Annual Caribbean Conference of Accountants held last week in Jamaica. Leo Lee is the immediate past president of ACCA.