Let’s Allow Generation Z to Take the Lead in the Workplace
My organization was facing an important business problem that needed to be addressed the same day. Luckily our young yet highly capable in-house consulting team grabbed the reins and got the job done.
Problem: It was a beautiful sunny day out, so the organization’s co-founders demanded a company-wide mandatory team-building event to be planned and implemented in less than one hour.
Methodology: First, a list of possible activities for the team-building exercise was compiled. Criteria for inclusion were as follows: (1) Must be within reasonable distance of company headquarters, and (2) Cost of the activity/venue must be within the budget allocated for the event (i.e. free).
Next, data were collected via survey to determine each employee’s top 3 preferences among the list of choices.
Third, the votes were totaled for each option on the list. The option with the highest number of votes would be moved to the production environment effective immediately.
Results: Tennis received the most votes, with 3. Going to the dam, pool, park, and remaining on campus tied with 2 votes each. Basketball received one vote while riding bikes and going to the gym each received zero votes.
ROI: Playing tennis provides the following returns on the organization’s investment of time and effort: (1) Improves skill level at tennis, (2) Health benefits accruing from performing outdoor physical activity, and (3) Fun.
Analysis and Recommendations
The fact that going to the gym received zero votes could be an indication that it would be a waste to conduct the team-building exercise indoors when the weather outside was so nice. In future surveys, this option should only be included in the event of inclement weather.
The reason that riding bikes received zero votes could be due to the fact that the organization owns only enough bikes for half of its employees. This suggests that in the future, the budget should be allocated to allow for the purchase of additional bikes. To accommodate employees unable to operate a two-wheeler, bikes outfitted with training wheels should be made available.
It was noted that the pattern of voting clearly fell into two distinct camps, with one pair of employees voting for exactly the same 3 options, while the other pair of employees had two options in common. The ad hoc nature of the co-founders’ data analytics request and the quick turnaround required unfortunately did not allow enough time to implement a secret balloting process. Further research is recommended to determine if an anonymous voting procedure would have been more appropriate.
About the authors
E. Le is a Senior Economist at MML Associates. Ms. Le joined the firm as a consultant in 2010. Her most recent project “Monetary Incentives for Influencing Employee Behavior” resulted in a 73.2% improvement in employee performance.
S. Le is a Data Analyst Intern at MML Associates while pursuing his first-grade studies. Mr. Le’s area of expertise is the assessment of customer experience in the retail sector.
