Barriers to work motivation of generation Z

Generation Z (born after 1995) has started to enter the labour market and in the decades to come, it is going to run the world. Naturally, researchers aim to understand unique characteristics of the generation to help employers prepare for the new ‘cohort’. While there are many research efforts to separate factors that would help Generation Z feel good at work, less attention has been paid to factors that might present barriers to work motivation. Our study aimed to fill the gap by identifying and exploring factors that possibly create barriers for Generation Z in their work context. Using the narrative data collection method of empathy-based stories (MEBS) on a sample of 235 business students we collected 703 unique items of perceived barriers to work motivation, that were further analysed, coded, grouped into a set of 26 factors and finally organized according to their relationship to three dominant themes (employee, job, and organization) into 6 clusters presenting different intersections of these themes. According to our results, the most prevalent barriers to work motivation emerging from respondents’ stories are: not enjoying the content of the work, bad team climate, workload, and having no sense of purpose in the job. We also aimed to identify dichotomic factors i.e. those which were identified as motivation drivers and barriers at the same time. A prominent list of dichotomic (overlapping) factors in both motivators and barriers indicates that most respondents do not separate motivation drivers and barriers in two isolated groups. Enjoying one’s work and team climate were also the top two factors accounting for both states of mind at work (positive work motivation as well as lack of it).The most frequently occurring factors cited in surveys on Generation Z such as options of career advancement and continuous learning/growth, generous rewards and chances of making a positive impact were all replicated in our study as well.