The Truth About

BoF Fashion Employee Survey 2019

Gen-Z and BoF surveyed nearly 3,500

professionals working in more
than 70 countries to identify the

Millennial Fashion issues that are defining the fashion

workplace of the future. First up,

Employees
how to engage and retain Gen-Z
and Millennial talent as workplace
culture rapidly shifts.

By Robin Mellery-Pratt and Sophie Soar

businessoffashion.com November 2019

BoF Fashion Employee Survey 2019
The Truth About Gen-Z and Millennial Fashion Employees
“Anything from climate change, class or diversity issues,
race, internal culture problems — if those things are
not addressed properly and there’s a lack of interest or
progress, Gen-Z will simply not work there.”
businessoffashion.com
LONDON, United Kingdom — By 2020,
individuals born after 1980 will represent
the majority of the global workforce,
according to data compiled by PwC.
Already, a number of fashion companies
have created initiatives around topics
ranging from social and ecological causes
to diversity campaigns to better align
themselves with the values of Millennial
and Gen-Z consumers, who together make
up the largest consumer cohort. Now,
a similar shift is perceptible in how
some of the fashion industry’s leading
companies are developing their employer
branding strategies.
“Millennial and Gen-Z [employees] will
walk if they don’t feel like they’re being
respected,” says Molly Logan, co-founder
of Irregular Labs, a Gen-Z and gender
think tank. Indeed, Deloitte reported
last year that more than 90 percent of
Millennials expected to stay in a job for
fewer than 3 years, compared to the 37
percent of Gen-X leaders who said they
are contemplating leaving their current
role to advance their careers, the Harvard
Business Review reported this year.
But the task of choosing how to effectively
engage with an increasingly demanding
and less loyal workforce is highly
complex. “Anything from climate change,
class or diversity issues, race, internal
culture problems — if those things are not
addressed properly and there’s a lack of
interest or progress, Gen-Z will simply not
work there,” Jonah Stillman, co-author
of Gen-Z @ Work: How the Next
Generation Is Transforming the
Workplace, tells BoF.
In order to decipher this evolving
relationship between fashion companies
and their employees, BoF surveyed nearly
3,500 professionals working in more than
70 countries to identify the issues that
will define the fashion workplace of the
future, informed by industry-specific data
which aims to guide employers and HR
teams on where to focus.
In the first of a three-part BoF Careers
white paper series, we leverage this
proprietary data from a global community
of diverse industry professionals, as well
as input from HR experts and innovators,
to provide constructive guidance and
advice on how to engage with Gen-Z and
Millennial employees during a time of
rapid shifts in culture and values.
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Engagement
Re-Skill Your Managers, From Bosses to Coaches
Today, keeping employees engaged and
happy at work requires more time and
a greater variety of skills than in previous
decades. As businesses become better able
to measure employee engagement, many
companies have invested in strategies like
cultural initiatives, workplace renovation
and flexible working arrangements.
But these initiatives cannot work
without multi-faceted managers.
Indeed, recruiting and training effective
and empathetic managers capable of
shouldering the emotional burden of
a more pressured workforce is
fundamental to employee engagement.
Global digital connectivity and always-
on culture, along with the rapid pace of
technological advancement dictating
near constant upskilling, result in highly
stressed employees. According to a survey
by Deloitte, 84 percent of Millennials have
experienced burnout symptoms.
However, the training managers receive
and the systems in place to support them
Exhibit 1
Gen-Zs are significantly happier with their
managers’ coaching than older employees.
Percent
Agree
13 16
23
43
64
41
GEN-Z MILLENNIAL
Source: BoF Fashion Employee Survey 2019
businessoffashion.com
“have seen little change in decades,”
writes James Harter, chief scientist of
workplace management and well-being
for Gallup’s workplace management
practice, in the Harvard Business Review.
“Shifting how your company trains and
supports managers, and repositioning
them as coaches, is essential for helping
managers to change culture,” he
continues. Coaching and developing takes
far more time than issuing diktats from
a comfortably removed vantage point.
Coach-style management is essential
to evolving your company’s culture to
align with the changing workforce “that
no longer wants, nor responds to, the
traditional ‘command and control,’
top-down boss,” according to Harter.
Actively addressing these issues through
better consultancy and the creation of
further support for managers is crucial.
However, managers that have real
facetime with the workforce have been
consistently overlooked. Indeed, only
Disagree Neither Agree Nor Disagree
16
53
31
GEN-X
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Engagement

Re-Skill Your Managers, From Bosses to Coaches

37 percent of employees across all age

Jonah Stillman forecasts an
impending Gen-Z and Millennial
showdown
Jonah Stillman is co-author of Gen Z
@ Work: How the Next Generation Is
Transforming the Workplace, which he
wrote with his father, David Stillman. The
father-son duo also founded GenZGuru,
a boutique management consulting firm
that helps companies adapt to their Gen-Z
workforce. Stillman, a Gen-Z himself, is
also a keynote speaker on the topic and
has featured in the likes of Fast Company,
Forbes and The New York Times.
When Millennials entered the workforce,
they were immediately labelled as entitled
and self-centred because they started
pushing back against their superiors. We
predict that the same accusations will
fall on Gen-Z’s, who are more focused on
individual achievement, so will likely be
labelled as not team players and self-
centred. With Millennials, who are more
focused on collaboration, in managerial
positions, we forecast a pretty large
workplace collision between the cohorts.
brackets agree that their own manager
encourages their development. Managers
need to be supported if they are to support
others effectively.
Notably, there is a substantial difference
in opinion across generational cohorts.
The portion of employees that agree with
the statement that their “manager is an
effective coach who can assist in their
development” stands at 31 and 41 percent
respectively for the Gen-X and Millennial
cohorts. But Gen-Z’s experience with
their managers is far more positive: 64
percent agree with the same statement.
While this could arguably be due to
similar outlooks amongst the Millennial
and Gen-Z cohorts on what is expected
from a manager, it might also speak to the
more collaborative nature of Millennials’
approach to managerial roles.
However, Stillman argues this
complimentary dynamic between the
generations may only be temporary,
preceding a clash between Millennial
and Gen-Z working styles, as the latter
cohort’s characteristic independent
drive collides with the collaborative
Millennial mindset.
“The majority of [Gen-Z] is so new to
[their] careers, there’s so much excitement
around [their] jobs, that the issues have
not yet emerged. But when you take a very
collaborative generation like Millennials,
who are now in manager positions, and
you put Gen-Zs in early stage positions,
who are more focused on competitiveness,
there’s absolutely going to be a clash in the
future,” says Stillman.

Millennials’ core values are collaboration

and teamwork. Statistically, if you put
Millennials in the room together and you
give them an assignment, they will identify
each other’s strengths and weaknesses
faster than any other cohort of people,
before working together. Gen-Z are more
focused on individual achievement and
their own success. When you have a very
collaborative generation in managerial
positions and early stage positions
filled with employees more focused on
competitiveness, there’s absolutely going
to be a clash.

businessoffashion.com 4
Engagement

Update Your Working Style and Learning Strategies

While fashion is an industry that working arrangements. For

prides itself on youth-driven creativity,
freelancer-filled offices and trendy
company cultures, our survey
respondents expressed dissatisfaction
with the steps fashion companies have
made in evolving how they work.
According to BoF’s Survey, Gen-Z
and Millennial employees both
place an emphasis on flexible work
arrangements, yet fashion companies
seem to be lagging behind. Forty-three
percent of Millennials either disagree or
strongly disagree that their employers
are committed to offering flexible
Exhibit 2
Salary, benefits and company culture are the leading factors for retention.
Proportion of Gen-Z and Millennial responses indicating their two most important factors
in deciding to stay at an employer.
Percent
Salary and Benefits
Company Culture
Flexible Working
Arrangements
Industry Prestige
Global Mobility
Public Stance
on Societal and
Ecological Issues
10 20 30 40
Gen-Z, 33 percent disagreed or
strongly disagreed.
“A lot of companies recruit on cultural
messages that they don’t really practice.
For example, they’ll talk a lot about
flexibility, that you can work remotely
on any given day, and all manner of
different things. In the past, a lot of
employees have let them slide. Gen-Z
hold companies to higher standards
when it comes to company culture,”
says Stillman.
Employers should also be aware of
the differences in learning preferences
amongst generational cohorts. As
true digital natives, independent
learning resources better suit the
Gen-Z demographic versus older
generations who typically prefer more
direct, personal methods of learning.
Millennials prefer to be coached in-
person, with just 29 percent stating
a preference for self-directed learning
through online courses. This jumps
to 43 percent amongst Gen-Zs who
prefer a fully self-directed and
independent learning approach,
according to LinkedIn.
Stillman believes Gen Z’s preference
for independent learning identifies
a more competitive cohort that expects
career progression to be linked to
aptitude rather than tenure. “We like
cultures that are promotion-based on
performance. If I’m kicking ass at my job
in six months, promote me already;
if I’m doing what I need to do to get to
the next stop, promote me. That’s what
a lot of companies are starting to do.
When there’s opportunity for growth
and advancement on a timeline, it
doesn’t have to be super-fast, but if it’s
laid out in front of us in a way that seems
fair, we are absolutely willing to stay in
a company,” he continues.
Globally, however, retention rates are
decreasing, with the US alone seeing
employee voluntary turnover exceed
27 percent last year — an 88 percent
increase since 2010, according to the
Work Institute Retention Report 2019.

Source: BoF Fashion Employee Survey 2019

businessoffashion.com 5
Retention

Don’t Rely on Value-Based Narratives

Exhibit 3 Ninety-two percent of the Millennial and

Gen-Z respondents to BoF’s survey agree
A desire to create a positive environmental impact with the statement that businesses have
conflicts with Gen-Z and Millennial workplace priorities. a responsibility to address environmental
and societal issues; 73 percent of

4%
indicated public positions on
societal and ecological issues as
a priority when compared against
factors such as salary, flexible
working hours and mobility
Millennial and Gen-Z respondents say
that creating positive impact is critical
to their long-term commitment to
an employer.
Aware of this shifting sentiment, fashion
companies are taking stances on
a variety of issues — from gender and
racial inequality and sustainable business
practices to societal responsibility and
demands for transparency — in the
hopes of building consumer loyalty and
increasing employee retention rates.

73%
believe creating a positive
environmental impact through
their work is critical to
their long-term commitment
to their employer

Source: BoF Fashion Employee Survey 2019

businessoffashion.com 6
Retention

Don’t Rely on Value-Based Narratives

Public examples of influential companies

abandoning corporate neutrality and
maintaining healthy sales, such as
Gucci’s support of gun control and Levi’s
ties to the LGBTQIA+ community, have
inspired hundreds of other brands to
make commitments that align them with
the evolving consumer and employee
sentiment found more commonly in the
younger generations.
However, the ultimate impact of this
messaging from a purely retention rate
perspective is not borne out in our survey
data. Only 4 percent of respondents
have indicated creating positive impact as
Molly Logan recounts one Gen-Z’s
a top two priority when compared against
working style
factors such as salary, flexible working
hours and mobility as a reason to remain
Molly Logan is the co-founder of Irregular
at their current employer.
Labs, a Gen-Z-owned and run think tank
and studio. The platform works with a global
network of Gen-Zs to connect them to
professional clients, and it publishes the
Irregular Report, which highlights traits of
the youngest demographic in the workforce,
written by that generational cohort. Exhibit 4

Expectations on environmental responsibilities by

employers starkly contrast reality.
I spoke with one 18-year-old girl who is
Percent
heavily involved in the Model UN. She
told me, “We are going to have to train
Millennials and Gen-Xers to learn how to
work with us. I know initially I’m going to
have to fit into their system, but eventually,
we’re going to be running everything so we
have to start training them — although they
shouldn’t know we’re training them.”
I believe businesses
have a responsibility
She went on to explain that the Millennials
to address societal and
92
setting projects at the UN always wanted
environmental issues
groups of students to work collaboratively,
but Gen-Z simply don’t work that way.
“What do you do?” I asked. To which she
replied, “We break into a group and make
them think we are [working together]. But
amongst ourselves, we execute different
tasks independently, before stitching I agree my employer is
it back together and presenting it to effective at incorporating

the Millennials.” environmentally 40

friendly practices into
the business
I thought it was so Gen-Z, so tactical,
refusing to waste their time arguing
with the Millennials, who in this young
woman’s opinion, “only want to collaborate
25 50 75 100
to avoid accountability.”

Source: BoF Fashion Employee Survey 2019

businessoffashion.com 7
Retention
Provide Transparency Around Fair Pay for Fair Work
Exhibit 5
Far fewer Gen-Zs and Millennial employees believe they are paid
a fair wage compared with Gen-X.
Percent
Agree
15
46
36
MILLENNIAL AND GEN-Z
Source: BoF Fashion Employee Survey 2019
If Logan’s prediction that Gen-Z are
willing to “walk if they are not respected”
proves correct, fashion companies have
cause for alarm. The data reveals that 48
percent of surveyed Millennials do not
agree they are paid a fair wage for the
work they contribute to their employer’s
business, while 42 percent of Gen-Zs hold
the same opinion. (Just 29 percent of
Gen-X fashion professionals, those born
between 1965 and 1980, believe they are
not paid fairly.)
Meanwhile, demands for greater
transparency are growing, and
according to BoF’s survey, that now
includes information once considered
highly confidential, such as salary data.
In fashion, 80 percent of Millennial and
Gen-Z employees view transparency
around their peers’ and leaders’ salaries
as increasingly important. Sentiment
is much higher in younger generational
cohorts. Only 49 percent of Baby Boomer
and 70 percent of Gen-X professionals
surveyed held the same opinion on
pay transparency.
Cover Image Credit: Getty Images
businessoffashion.com
Disagree Neither Agree Nor Disagree
16
29
55
GEN-X
Indeed, should respondents discover
they are paid less than their peers, 65
percent of Gen-Z and 60 percent of
Millennials stated they would take action
by engaging management, especially if
they perceive this is due to race, gender,
sexual orientation or disability. A third
of respondents — 28 percent of Gen-Z, 35
percent of Millennials and 29 percent of
Gen-X — say they would look for a new job
with the intention of leaving.
While the task of recalibrating pay scales
to reflect these sentiments is highly
complex and will require significant
internal stakeholder management,
fashion companies that begin the arduous
work now will likely benefit from positive
employee sentiment and engagement,
as well as stronger retention rates in the
long run.
“Gen-Z don’t expect it all to be perfect,”
says Logan. “Companies don’t have
to be as terrified as I think they are
about getting it right, [but] they have to
start moving towards connecting all of
these issues.”
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