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Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic situation caused a sudden shift in work culture. Moreover, it has changed the daily life of people around the world too. The lockdown forced most office workers to work from home and forced organizations to adapt quickly to the new situation by technological and managerial support. Organizations face significant long-lasting work challenges following COVID-19; moreover, they need to prepare for any other disease. They may need to adopt new ways of working (NWoW) and the circumstances underpin young, digital generations’ place in the organizations. When digital collaboration technologies are introduced, organizations benefit from the digital-natives’ abilities (members of Generation Z), who can cope with the considerable information flow and the rapid changes both in technology and business life. Due to the aging society, it has already been an ongoing demand to recruit and retain employees who can effectively use modern communication tools.
In the twenty-first century, the increasing demand for skilled workers called attention to the employees’ preferences and expectations and organizations began to develop an employee-centric attitude (Beechler and Woodward, 2009; Ronda et al., 2018). As the COVID-19 pandemic situation questioned the work practices, organizations need to reconsider them. In the preparation phase for the post-COVID-19 era, the management decisions should be supported by research in the workforce’s preferences. The wants and preferences that people attach to work, shape their behavior and attitude toward their actual job (Kalleberg, 1977), and therefore it is crucial to understand them. As Generation Z have little or no presence in the labor market yet, their expectations can be examined by discovering work values.
The purpose of this study is to find out the future workforce’s work values and, based on them, to examine the work environment Generation Z are looking for in the situation of job search. Our research collected the future workforce’s essential work values and then we synthesized the findings with the work value theories. As the COVID-19 pandemic is predicted to have lasting effects on office work, especially on the work environment, this paper aims to highlight the main management issues that need to be considered to align workplace and job design with Generation Z’s work values.
Literature
Work values
First of all, it is essential to understand what work...