Spend much time online, and you’ll inevitably stumble across blogs and opinion pieces decrying Gen Z’s supposed standoffishness and lack of work ethic. Case in point, 74% of managers rated these employees more difficult to work with. But is Gen Z coaching really so difficult?
Of course, employees may not have to put up with human management for long. Given the apparent standoff between Gen Z and their managers, they might actually prefer to be coached by AI. Let’s separate fact from fiction so you can understand how to support younger employees more effectively.
Are Gen Z employees really so difficult to manage?
For many Millennial readers, seeing Gen Z described online as “difficult” or “entitled” triggers a familiar sense of déjà vu. The fact that intergenerational condescension is so easily recycled should be your first clue that it isn’t especially objective. Before we dive into AI-powered Gen Z coaching, let’s have a brief reality check.‑powered Gen Z coaching,
Criticizing younger generations is nothing new. It’s a tradition going back to Socrates and Aristotle. While there can be differences between age groups, the truth is rarely so damning.
In practice, this means Gen Z challenge poor management and injustice. Those labelled “difficult” are often the people improving workplace culture.
Why your managers fail at Gen Z coaching
To understand why your managers might struggle to manage Gen Z team members, let’s look at what these employees typically want from the workplace:
- 86% of Gen Z view purpose as key to job satisfaction and wellbeing.
- Gen Z and Millennial employees report higher job satisfaction with work-life balance.
- The top reasons for Gen Z choosing an employer were work-life balance (25%), L&D opportunities (21%), salary (19%), workplace culture (19%), and flexibility (19%).
- Their top reasons for leaving an employer were unsatisfactory pay (26%), lack of advancement (16%), burnout (14%), poor mental health (14%), and lack of fulfillment (13%).
It’s less that Gen Z is hard to manage and more that many managers are underprepared. Gen Z brings high expectations into workplaces where almost half of managers lack formal training. Those expectations (regular feedback beyond annual reviews, recognition, clear growth paths, and transparency around skills and progression) aren’t unreasonable.
In fact, they actively improve performance and culture. Instead of complaining about Gen Z’s supposed shortcomings, organizations should invest in helping managers meet these expectations and do better.
How to give Gen Z coaching that works
Now that we’ve established Gen Z’s expectations, let’s move onto practical advice. Here are three simple ways to provide effective Gen Z coaching (that can also benefit employees in other age groups!).
1. Continuous instead of occasional performance management
It’s not just Gen Z that dislike infrequent performance management. Most discourse around annual reviews suggests everybody hates them, and for good reason. Annual reviews invite managerial bias, disrupt workflows, and arrive far too late to be useful.
The result is feedback with little impact, often perceived as unfair. Of course, reviews still have value when bridged by continuous feedback: regular check-ins, 1:1s, and ad-hoc conversations that deliver guidance at the point of impact and show employees their development genuinely matters.‑hoc conversations that deliver guidance at the point of impact and show employees their development genuinely matters.
2. Two-way feedback to support engagement
Performance feedback isn’t the only feedback that matters. Two-way feedback between Gen Z and managers or coaches is essential for shared understanding of expectations. Regular check-ins support Gen Z coaching by giving employees space to voice opinions and request support. They can shape goal-setting, ensuring goals reflect their interests and strike the right balance between challenging and manageable outcomes consistently.‑way feedback between Gen Z and managers or coaches is essential for shared understanding of expectations. Regular check‑ins support Gen Z coaching by giving employees space to voice opinions and request support.
3. Personalized learning and development support
Given that L&D is the second most important factor for Gen Z when choosing a job, personalized learning is central to Gen Z coaching, as it’s an area where AI adds a lot of value. Rather than assigning mandatory training, personalization encourages proactive learning.
Agentic AI can tailor recommendations to roles, ambitions, and organizational skill gaps, while employees browse options themselves. This approach shifts development from compliance to choice, giving Gen Z real control over how they grow and aligning learning with the needs of your business.
How Gen Z benefits from an AI coach
As businesses experiment with using AI for performance management, it’s important to consider the benefits of AI for Gen Z coaching. Here are four ways AI coaching tools can benefit Gen Z as well as the rest of your workforce:
- Real-time nudges: Nudge automation is an understated but highly effective application of AI. It can deliver real-time nudges through Microsoft 365 via Teams or Outlook, reminding employees to submit check-ins or complete e-learning, making it easy to keep on top of performance and development commitments in the flow of work.
- Personalized prompts: Personalization elevates nudges beyond simple, automated reminders. AI can surface goal, learning, and engagement data to deliver prompts tailored to the individual. This helps AI coaches to function like real, always-on, personal development assistants.
- More consistency and less bias: AI-powered Gen Z coaching can be more consistent for two reasons. First, AI never sleeps and doesn’t have set shifts, so they’re always available to offer guidance. Second, since AI can surface data from performance reviews and check-ins, it’s less susceptible to the kinds of bias that can affect managerial decisions.
- Scalability for enterprises: As businesses grow, so too do the demands put on managers and HR. By automating key processes, AI coaching cuts the time demand needed to support employees. This benefits Gen Z workers by ensuring they always have access to coaching services, even if their manager isn’t online.
Why a hybrid model is best for Gen Z coaching
For all its impressive functionality, AI coaches shouldn’t completely replace human managers but augment them instead. The best method for Gen Z coaching is a combined approach that incorporates the strengths of both. So, let’s finish up by looking at what AI does best versus where you should stick to human-led coaching.
AI is best suited to handling data collection and analytics. It does these things far faster than human managers or HR teams, which frees them up for tasks that need a human touch. AI can also be useful for automating coaching frequency, as it can easily surface workflows and calendar commitments to find the best times for everyone.
On the other hand, human coaches are better suited to handle emotionally complex issues, build trust, and make sure employee work has real meaning. Actual coaching conversations should be left to them instead of automation so they can build a dialogue with employees.
Imagine a B2B marketing team. AI handles scheduling and surfaces goals, performance data, and your last 1:1 transcript. In a conversation with a trusted human coach, an employee shares ethical concerns about the company and their role. You could respond by aligning their work with an animal‑rights group or similarly ethical client to restore purpose.
Find the right balance for your employees
Although AI and human coaches each have their own strengths and weaknesses, hybrid approaches are ultimately about finding the best middle ground. Where should automation end and human support begin? You may have to experiment to find the best balance.
To help figure this out, we recommend this article on continuous coaching, as well as this one about AI’s applications in the HR space. Whatever you’re looking for, we’ve got the latest workplace insights ready to go.
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