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What Motivates Generation Z at Work? Insights into Motivation Drivers of

Business Students in Slovakia

Conference Paper · April 2018

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 Innovation Management and Education Excellence through Vision 2020

What Motivates Generation Z at Work?

Insights into Motivation Drivers of Business Students in Slovakia
Zuzana Kirchmayer, Faculty of Management, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia,
zuzana.kirchmayer@fm.uniba.sk
Jana Fratričová, Faculty of Management, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia,
jana.fratricova@fm.uniba.sk

Abstract

Generation Z, born to a globally connected world, is slowly but surely entering their first jobs with their
own set of expectations, preferences, and perceptions of the world of work. Similarly to previous
generations, members of Generation Z are expected to share some unique characteristics that might bring
noticeable changes to organizations in the future. Our study aims to identify and explore the perceptions
of Generation Z members regarding the factors of their future work motivation. Using the narrative data
collection method of empathy-based stories (MEBS) on a sample of 235 business students we collected
665 unique items that were further analyzed, coded, grouped into a set of 25 factors, and finally organized
according to their relationship to three dominant themes (employee, job, and organization) into 5 clusters
presenting different intersections of these themes. According to our results, enjoying one´s work, quality
of relationship with co-workers, and achieving one´s goals seem to be the most prevalent motivational
factors in the eyes of Generation Z. On the other hand, the factors of work load, work-life balance,
organization of working time, and job security were far from being given importance. The factors
generated in our research can be used for questionnaire construction in further quantitative research on
motivational preferences of Generation Z.

Keywords: Generation Z, motivation, work-related preferences, MEBS, Slovakia.

Introduction

Every time a new generation enters the workforce it attracts a lot of attention among both academics and
practitioners aiming to understand the new group (Gelbart and Komninos 2012). A “generation” is “an
identifiable group that shares birth years, age, location and significant life events at critical developmental
stages” (Kupperschmidt 2000: 66). Members of the same generational cohort are presumed to adopt
similar mindsets as a result of shared unique cultural, political, and economic experiences (Parry and
Urwin 2011; McCrindle 2014) which leads to different beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and values of each
generation (Xander et al 2012). As these differences also concern work and work environment (Lyons
and Kuron, 2014), every time a new generation enters the workforce, managers tend to struggle to
understand the new group (Gelbart and Komninos 2012) for understanding their unique motives, attitudes
and personality profiles is crucial for attracting and retaining talented workforce.

Currently, there are three prevailing generations in the workplace – Baby Boomers, Generation X, and
Generation Y (Tapscott, 2009); however, Generation Z has already started to enter both colleges and their
first jobs. There is a fair change that this generation, which is considered to be approximately 2 billion big
(McCrindle 2014) will change the world of work noticeably in the upcoming years.

The study presented in this article aims to identify and explore the perceptions of Generation Z members
regarding the factors of their future work motivation. As this generation is only starting to enter the labor
market, there is a lack of research on their work preferences. We aimed to shed some light on their unique

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perception of work motivation, and to form a basis for future research on Generation Z´s motivation at
work.

1 Generation Z entering the workplace

Generation Z characteristics. Generation Z, also referred to as Generation C (connected,

communicating, content-centric, computerized, community-oriented, clicking) (Friedriech et al. 2010)
born between 1995 and 2009 (McCrindle 2014) or 2010 (Seemiller and Grace 2016; Koulopoulos and
Keldsen 2016) is the first generation that came into a globally connected world (Cilliers 2017) where
technology was easily accessible to young people (Turner 2015). During their childhood or early
adulthood, they have experienced unique stimuli such as uncertain economic times with the Global
Financial Crisis followed by economic and social renewal, periods of terrorism and climate change,
growing diversity, spread of worldwide known brands, acceleration of communication in social media,
mobile and smart technologies (McCrindle 2014). They are “globally focused” (McCrindle 2014) as they
are the first generation experiencing globalization and culturally diverse times early in their lives together
with having connection to others from different cultures, backgrounds, and circumstances via social
media. They expect diversity and are concerned with equality (McCrindle 2014; Schwabel 2014; Lanier
2017).

Having used technology from the youngest age, members of Genration Z are seen as “digital integrators”
(McCrindle 2014), or “digital natives” (Friedriech et al. 2010; Sidorcuka and Chesnovicka 2017) for
being technically fluent, highly connected, and seamlessly integrating technology into almost all areas of
their lives. They are visually engaged, opting to watch for a video summarizing an issue rather than read
an article on the subject (McCrindle 2014). Although technology is intimately woven into their lives and
many of their social interactions take place on the Internet (Friedrich et al. 2010), when it comes to
communication with managers, they prefer honest in-person communication (Schwabel 2014). Moreover,
they are more concerned with privacy and safety then slightly older Generation Y, and drawn to more
private social networks (Lanier 2017; Roblek et al. 2018).

McCrindle (2014) characterizes Generation Z as the most materially endowed, technological saturated,
globally connected, and formally educated generation our world has ever seen. Further, they are
characterized as realists, materialists, and pragmatics (Freidrich et al. 2010; Lanier 2017). They are
expected to become more educated than any of the previous generations have ever been, with preference
for learner adaptive, engagement focused, and interactive learning environments (McCrindle 2014).
Though often described as multitaskers in popular practitioner literature, recent research indicates that
compared to Generation Y, Generation Z members are less inclined to agree they like multitasking, as
well as less likely to intend to work in a fast-pace environment (Schwabel 2014).

Generation Z research areas. Up to the present, existing research on Generation Z has focused mainly
on these areas: (1) unique factors associated with Generation Z that actually made the emerging
generation different from the previous ones (Friedrich 2010; McCrindle 2014; FTI Consulting 2014); (2)
digital fluency of Generation Z members, patterns in their use of smart technologies, social network
platforms, etc. (Roblek et al. 2018); (3) their purchasing preferences and consumption behavior (Nagy
2017; Özkan and Solmaz 2017, Meret et al. 2018); (4) how the Generation Z characteristics would affect
the educational process and the altered role of teachers (Seemiller and Grace 2016; Cilliers 2017); and
finally (5) the business aspect i.e. how Generation Z might affect the employment practices and human
resources (HR) management in organizations (Schwabel 2014; Bencsik et al. 2016; Kubátová, J. 2016;
Nieżurawska et al. 2016; Kirchmayer and Fratričová 2017, Meret et al. 2018).

Work preferences of Generation Z. In 2014, the first worldwide study on the workplace preferences of
Generation Z (ages 16 to 20 at that time) was presented. According to the study, the three most important

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work motivators for Generation Z are opportunities for advancement, more money, and meaningful work
(Schwabel 2014). Two years later, Kubátová (2016) replicated Schwabel´s study in the Czech republic
and came to similar results - respondents in her research mentioned the same motivators, just in a
different order of importance (more money, meaningful work, and opportunities for advancement).
Kirchmayer and Fratričová´s (2017) research on career preferences of Generation Z university students in
Slovakia showed that in search for a future employer, nature of job and work-life balance were the most
important factors. Also, Generation Z expected their jobs to yield internal satisfaction and considered
reward (together with work-life-balance) a strong factor of both job retention and work satisfaction.

Another research was conducted by Meret et al. (2018) on a sample of high school students mainly from
Italy and some East European countries. According to their results, when choosing a job, the most
important factors for Generation Z students were possibilities for learning and development, trust, and job
security. As far as trust within workplace is concerned, Lazanyi and Bilan (2017) researched it in
Hungary and came to a conclusion that the workplace behavior of Generation Z employees differed from
that of older generations, and that respect and trust towards superiors had to be earned through
professional excellence.

And finally, the results of Sidorcuka and Chesnovicka´s (2017) research on perception of existing
methods of attraction and retention of employees in Latvia indicate that Generation Z employees are not
looking for life-long employment, put forward their specific values, expect their employer to meet their
needs in terms of flexible working hour and flexible jobs where their individuality can be applied, are
attracted by company reputation, innovation, speed of change, platform for education and promotional
advancement, and specific fringe benefits.

The results of these studies seem to correspond to a certain level. However, they mostly resulted from
questionnaire surveys where respondents were given a set of factors to assess. Although the results
present an important contribution to understanding Generation Z´s perception of existing work-related
attitudes, they might not reveal the unique motivators and preferences of the generation.

2 Research Design and Methodology

Our primary aim was to explore the factors of work motivation among Generation Z business students in
Slovakia. The arrangement of this study is based on the work of Kultalahti and Viitala who examined the
perceptions of Generation Y concerning what makes work motivating (Kultalahti and Viitala 2014). It is
our understanding underlined by a number of academic studies (e.g. De Hauw and De Vos 2010, Hays
2013; Kultalahti and Viitala 2015; Dziewanowska et al. 2016) that the motivational patterns of
Generation Y (or Millenials) at work have been profoundly described including the mechanisms through
which these patterns operate. As a result, we moved on to focus on empirical research exploring work
motivation among Generation Z.

The substance of our research lies at the intersection of two of the three research areas on Generation Z as
outlined in the introduction of this paper i.e. description of unique factors characterizing Generation Z
and the employment of research findings into HR practice. Essentially, we wanted to identify unique
motivation drivers that Generation Z associates with their future work. We assume that a deeper
understanding of factors that drive work motivation of Generation Z can be highly beneficial for
employers by enabling insights into the needs and preferences of the generation shortly emerging at the
workplace.

Our main research question was: What are the factors which Generation Z students consider motivating at
work?

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In our research, we adopted the data collection method of empathy-based stories (MEBS) which is
sometimes referred to as passive role-playing (Kultalahti and Viitala 2014) and we performed data
collection among management students at Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Management.
MEBS, generally attributed to Eskola (1998) is based on role-playing and is typically used in sociology.
According to Kultalahti and Viitala (2014), “at least two background stories are provided in MEBS and
respondents are asked to interpret, explain or complete them. In the stories, one factor is varied in order to
be able to make comparisons.” In data collection that stretched throughout the winter term of 2017/2018,
we followed MEBS as a method of narrative data collection and provided students with both framework
stories, one positive and one negative (i.e. stories of high and low engagement). In this paper, we only
present the results of the positive story. The exact wording of the positive story was used as based on
Kultalahti and Viitala’s 2014 paper; the story was translated to Slovak language, and the name Sami was
changed to Samuel, which is a prevalent Slovak male name.

Positive story: Imagine that one day Samuel comes home from work. He feels truly motivated and he has
a lot of energy to work. It is nice to go to work in the morning and Samuel is always looking forward to
the next working day. Why does Samuel feel this motivated and so enthusiastic?

While aware that Generation Z grew up with technology at their hands, we insisted that data collection
was performed on paper. We wanted to make sure to arrange for conditions of data collection as much
alike for all respondents as possible. Providing extra time after seminars for respondents who wanted to
participate, we tried to eliminate disturbances and impact of situational factors that possibly go with
electronic data collection. Both stories were printed on one sheet, leaving enough space for respondents to
express their understanding of why the suggested situation was happening.

The data sample includes 235 Generation Z members who completed interpretations of both positive and
negative stories. As for the positive stories (which are only dealt with in this paper), most respondents’
narratives included actual reasons they felt could bring about Samuel’s feelings. On average, a respondent
provided 3 different reasons to explain Samuel’s current state of motivation. All collected items have
been listed for further analysis, generating a list of 722 items in total.

Items which were recorded by a single respondent but were equal in content or representing the same
theme have only been coded once, thus excluding 57 items from the list. Most typically, the items which
were recorded twice by a single person and thus excluded were related to the theme of “work enjoyment”.
Finally, after excluding duplicated items, the total sample accounted for 665 items. Using content
analysis, we have coded all of these items into a set of 25 unique factors, each of them comprising items
that were equal or similar in terms of their meaning. The list of factors and their general descriptors can
be found in Table 2 in the results section of this paper.

Following the first level of coding and composition of factors, we proceeded to the process of grouping
the 25 factors into clusters based on the nature of each factor on the list. In the pattern of factors
following content analysis, we have identified three main themes, namely the employee (jobholder), the
job with all features attached to it, and finally the organization as the immediate environment in which
both the job and the jobholder operate. Working on these themes and their intersections, five factor
clusters were identified (Fig. 1).

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Fig 1. A brief model of factor clusters

3 Research Results

Having generated the list of unique factors possibly accounting for Samuel’s positive motivation, we
were able to calculate item frequency for individual factors as depicted in Table 1 below (for the
complete list of the factors, see also Table 2). The most prevalent item provided by 64.7% of respondents
to clarify Samuel’s work motivation and enthusiasm in the entire dataset was the theme of Samuel
enjoying his work (22.9% of all items). This factor comprises a whole range of items expressing feelings
of having good time at work, enjoying oneself and doing what one likes to do.

Second down the list, 36.6% of respondents (12.9% of items) mentioned Samuel’s co-
workers/colleagues/peers as a potential source of his enthusiasm. The Slovak word used in the original
transcripts was “kolektív” which semantically includes peers including those outside one’s immediate
working team. Accordingly, the idea that Samuel enjoys the qualities of his peers can easily be interpreted
in broader context as the quality of work climate.

The third major theme was reward, included in the stories of 34.5% of respondents, and accounted for
12.2% of all items. Mostly, it was seen in terms of financial reward – typically base salary or total cash
with no reference to benefits (25.1% of respondents; 8.9% of items). Next, 6.8% of Generation Z
members (2.4% of all items) saw the reason of Samuel´s motivation in “being adequately rewarded for
his performance”, or “having a job, in which he is valued and rewarded accordingly”, i.e. accenting both
emotional and material feedback regarding their performance and mentioning variable pay. Finally, total
package including employee benefits was mentioned in 2.6% stories (i.e. 0.9% of items).

Achievement was another major factor listed by 33.6% of respondents (11.9% of items). All items
suggesting that Samuel perhaps feels good after he has achieved any sort of work-related goal were coded
under the achievement factor. A typical narrative in this case included a description of Samuel solving a
major problem, completing a project or simply accomplishing a task. In order to distinguish between
regular performance achievement and career advancements (especially upward career moves) all
narratives speaking of promotion have been excluded from this factor and coded under career
advancement. Interestingly, promotion, which has been mentioned by 11.9% of respondents (in 4.2% of
collected items) as an underlying reason for Samuel’s enthusiasm seems to be a much less prevalent
theme than achievement of a major performance in one’s current job.

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Both having a job that enables Samuel to grow and develop, as well as, recognition was mentioned by
11.5% of respondents (4.1% of items). Next, the quality of the workplace in general i.e. an enjoyable
working environment has been appreciated by 10% of respondents in 3.6% of items, followed by having a
good leader (9% of stories; 3.3% of items); and having a work of interest (9% of stories; 3% of items).

Some respondents also believed that the reason for Samuel´s work motivation is not tied to work itself or
the organization he is part of, but rather to the fact, that he is in a good mood and having a good day in
general (7.2% of respondents; 2.6% of items), or to the level of his private happiness (6.8% of
respondents; 2.4% of all items). Suggestions that Samuel´s work has an impact, as he is doing something
that really matters, were mentioned in 6% of stories (2.1% of all items).

As for the least prevalent factors (<3% of items), the list is rather prominent, confirming a wide range of
factors occurring within the original set of items. Surprisingly, the factors of work load, work-life
balance and organization of working time were far from the most often quoted reasons of Samuels’s
motivation, each accounting for less than 1% of items. In fact, the widely discussed theme of work-life
balance has only been brought about by a single respondent in this study. Also, the factor of job security
seems to be none of an issue when speaking of factors crucial for motivation (0.3% of total items).

Table 1: Most prevalent positive (motivating) factors emerging from the respondents´ stories

Factors Nominal % %
item of items of respondents
prevalence (N=665) (N=235)
Enjoys work 152 22.9% 64.7%
Co-workers 86 12.9% 36.6%
Reward 81 12.2% 34.5%
Achievement 79 11.9% 33.6%
Career advancement 28 4.2% 11.9%
Personal development 27 4.1% 11.5%
Recognition 27 4.1% 11.5%
Workplace 24 3.6% 10.2%
Leadership 22 3.3% 9.4%
Work of interest 20 3.0% 8.5%
Good day 17 2.6% 7.2%
Private happiness 16 2.4% 6.8%
Impact 14 2.1% 6.0%
Remaining factors total (including
<1.5% <4.3%
freedom at work, work load, work-life 72
each item each item
balance, flexible working time, etc.)

On closer inspection, data insight has portrayed a certain pattern among individual factors that enabled us
to group similar factors into clusters based on their underlying characteristics. Eventually, further
elaboration on clusters enabled us to identify five different clusters as shown in Table 2 and Figure 2. To
start with, the cluster of work-person fit deals with the compatibility of the employee with the nature of
the job, thus largely affecting employee motivation. Factors comprised in this cluster, especially the
factor of work enjoyment, were most prevalent in original narratives provided by respondents. Secondly,
the work-related cluster embraces factors attached to the job such as reward, workplace, work
organization, career options or personal development. Factors related to achievement or performance
evaluation are gathered in the achievement cluster, while the cluster of relationships at work deals with
all kinds of peer-relations and leadership. The fifth cluster (out of work) comprises a whole range of

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factors that do not relate to work, such as state of private life or other external factors outside work. All
the remaining factors were classified as “other”.

Table 2: Factors and clusters of motivation

Factors and clusters of A brief factor (cluster) % prevalence Number of items

motivation descriptor (N=665)
Work – person fit
29.5% 196
Cluster factors breakdown:
Enjoys work I love what I do
Work of interest My job is my hobby
I feel that I have an important
Impact
contribution
Dream job I do what I have always wanted to do
Work motivates It’s my job itself what drives me
My job leaves me enough space to do
Work – life balance
my hobbies or be with my family
Work – related cluster
24.5% 163
Cluster factors breakdown:
I have a good compensation package, I
Reward
feel rewarded for what I do
Personal development My job enables me to grow
Workplace I have a pleasant workplace
I can be creative and organize work
Freedom at work
myself
Work load I have just enough work to do
Lack of stress I don’t feel stress and pressure at work
I am flexible in terms of my working
Work time
hours
My organization has a culture which I
Organizational culture
like
Job security I am not afraid of losing my job
Organization My organization is a good employer
Achievement cluster
20.2% 134
Cluster factors breakdown:

Achievement I have achieved my objective(s)

Career advancement I have been promoted

My manager has acknowledged my

Recognition
work
Relationships at work cluster
16.2% 108
Cluster factors breakdown:

Co-workers I have a good team/peers/co-workers

Leadership I have a good boss

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Factors and clusters of A brief factor (cluster) % prevalence Number of items

motivation descriptor (N=665)
Out of work factors cluster
7.4% 49
Cluster factors breakdown:
Good day I am in a good mood
16,3% Good day
Private happiness I feel happy in my private life 34,7% Private happiness
16,3%
Positive outlook
Positive outlook I feel optimistic
Happiness
32,7%
Happiness I live a happy life

Other factors 2.2% 15

Note: To characterize individual factors in this table, we used the first-person nominative so to briefly
describe the factor from the respondents’ point of view.

2.2%

7.4%
Work-person fit
29.5% Work-related
16.2%
Achievement
Relationships at work

20.5% Out of work

24.5% Other

Fig 2. Percentage of factor clusters for positive work motivation

4 Discussion

Our study aimed to identify and list motivation drivers that Generation Z associates with their future
work, and thus generate items for further studies regarding work-related decisions and motivation of
Generation Z. According to our study, Generation Z members attribute work motivation to a wide range
of job-related, organization-related, and employee-related factors, originating both in and out of the work
reality. Though majority of the factors has already been mentioned in research regarding previous
generations (e.g. Dries et al. 2008; De Hauw and De Vos 2010; Hays 2013; Kultalahti and Viitala 2014;
Kultalahti and Viitala 2015; Dziewanowska et al. 2016), the frequency of their occurrence as well as the
explanations given by our respondents indicate some unique patterns that are worth further investigation.

In line with previous research our results indicate, that having a meaningful job one really enjoys is a vital
factor for Generation Z´s motivation. Being assessed as crucial in many studies on Generation Z
(Schwabel 2014; Kubátová 2016; Kirchmayer and Fratričová 2017), and actually being mentioned by 152
out of 235 respondents of our study, it has to be researched more in deep in the future. It is important to
reveal what associations Generation Z members have with this statement and thus reveal what it actually

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means for members of Generation Z to “have a meaningful job” or “do what they love”. Understanding
what exactly makes a job meaningful and enjoyable for Generation Z is important also for understanding
their possible future career patterns. Potentially, a number of attributes can contribute to the feeling of
enjoying one’s work. At this stage we are unable to tell whether work joy for Gen Z is powered by
personal growth, an effective use of their natural competencies and talents or something else. A thorough
second-level research is clearly needed to reveal further relations between the work motivation factors
identified in this study.

It is also interesting that job security was mentioned only minimally by our respondents (2 out of 235),
unlike in the study by Meret et al. (2018), where it ranked among the most important factors when
choosing a job. It seems that job security might not be a prevalent motivational factor for Generation Z
after all. This result might be related to Generation´s Z lack of enthusiasm about long-term or life-long
employment (Schwabel 2014; Sidorcuka and Chesnovicka 2017), but it might also indicate, that for
Generation Z, the work life can easily turn into an incessant chase for a job they will love, without feeling
inclined to stay once the current job stops to yield internal satisfaction.

On the other hand, what Generation Z does seek is financial security. In our previous study on a different
sample of Generation Z members (Kirchmayer and Fratričová, 2017), reward was identified as one of the
most important factors of both retention and job satisfaction. The results of this study suggest that
Generation Z members tend to consider mainly base salary when describing motivational reward package.
Variable pay was mentioned to a much smaller extent, and it was mostly linked to the need to be seen and
acknowledged for one´s work. Surprisingly, benefits were left out by a majority of our respondents.

Work-life balance and flexibility seem to be an important issue in studies where this item was listed in a
questionnaire (e.g. Sidorcuka and Chesnovicka 2017; Kirchmayer and Fratričová 2017), however, in our
research it was not mentioned by respondents at all; 24 respondents indicated it is important to have a
“pleasant workplace” and 9 respondents mentioned the need to organize work themselves, but none of
these narratives was explicitly linked to time or space flexibility. In this regard, our findings are not
unique, Meret et al. (2018) have come to a similar conclusion that young people seem to give less
importance to these factors ever. However, this result should be interpreted very carefully as it may result
from students´ limited experience with work reality; they might not be able to imagine that once entering
the work reality, it will affect the amount of their free time and thus do not see the need for flexible
working conditions yet. Only time will tell whether these preferences will remain the same after more
generation Z members enter their full-time jobs.

Conclusion

Our main goal was to explore the perceptions of Generation Z regarding the factors of their future work
motivation. Our research aims to identify and understand the motivational patterns of Generation Z rather
than quantify the effect of established motivation variables on the generation. Thus, instead of relying on
standard data collection procedures, we preferred to adopt a method that is largely unconventional both in
terms of field-relatedness (MEBS has rarely been used in management research so far) as well as regional
practice (to our best knowledge, MEBS has not yet been used in qualitative research in management in
the region of Central Europe). The potential of a qualitative empirical survey into Generation Z work
motivation, as perceived by the authors, is a chance to produce a set of truly unique factors that might be
behind the scene, on the minds and in the hearts of Generation Z thus affecting their motivations.

Although MEBS results (or at least the positive part of the stories which is dealt with here) have not
indicated any new breakthrough motivation variables, a considerable discrepancy has been revealed in
terms of the importance of these variables and the emphasis or importance that is placed on them. Results

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of our study indicate that factors that are traditionally emphasized in relation to work motivation of
Generation Z such as work-life balance, importance of flexible working time actually seem to sit at the
bottom of the list. Much more time and energy will have to be invested in the future to validate or reject
these findings.

Obviously, this study also has a number of limitations that need to be mentioned. First of all, while
passive role-playing (MEBS) has generated plentiful ideals and material for future research, we need to
keep in mind that respondents were essentially writing about the feelings of an imaginative stranger. A
major limitation here is the fact that perhaps the projection of one’s beliefs and motives on to that
imaginary stranger is not perfect. Another restraint is the data sample: while we managed to work with
235 respondents, the sample is still very small to make any sort of generalization. Further validation is
clearly needed to support our conclusions from this study.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Patrícia Šiková for valuable assistance with data collection.

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