The Gen Z bosses disregarding hierarchy, dress codes and corporate norms
Charlotte Gill
6 min read
Sophia Parvizi-Wayne (left), a 26-year-old entrepreneur from London, is not the average business leader - Sophia Parvizi-Wayne
“I’m really into healing crystals at the moment,” is not what you might expect to hear from your boss. Sophia Parvizi-Wayne, a 26-year-old entrepreneur from London, is not the average business leader – though she soon will be.
Generation Z, who are aged between 12 to 27 years old, will represent a quarter of the workforce by 2025. One might assume that they can be easily identified – the babyfaced employee bringing their boss a cup of tea or making their first tentative calls to clients. But they are an aspirational bunch.
The number of Gen Z company directors listed on Companies House shot up by 42pc in the year to January, according to research by accountancy firm Hazlewoods. There are now almost a quarter of a million Gen Z bosses.
These young people have a reputation for being hard to work with, but now, as leaders, they are upending the corporate world. Organisations are scrambling to understand what these trends mean for the future of business. Two fifths of this cohort are attracted to being their own boss, according to a survey by Virgin StartUp.
Steeped in social media and becoming adults during the pandemic, many Gen Z bosses set a different tone in their workplaces, with a disregard for the hierarchy and dress codes of the established corporate world.
So what exactly are we in for?
Parvizi-Wayne is one such Gen Z chief executive. After running for Team GB (3000m and 5000m) and winning a full sports scholarship to Duke University in North Carolina, Parvizi-Wayne shunned the “well-paying jobs” her classmates gravitated towards.
Instead, she founded the mental health tech company Kanjo Health, an AI-driven app to help parents and clinicians better understand their children’s mental health.
Sophia Parvizi-Wayne's company, Kanjo, has a team of 10 – with clients all over the world and more than £1m in investment - Sophia Parvizi-Wayne
She was inspired by her mother, who started her first company at 30 which was eventually acquired by Moody’s, and now runs femtech company Freda.
Another impetus for Kanjo was Parvizi-Wayne’s struggle with an eating disorder in her youth. She had then successfully campaigned to get mental health on the national curriculum.
Deciding to pair her interest in mental health with her tech expertise, Kanjo was born. Now it has a team of 10, with clients all over the world and more than £1m in investment.
Parvizi-Wayne’s brandishing of crystals plays into Gen Z tropes, but it’s part of a broader relaxed tone. The office is informal – she invites staff to rate local restaurants on an office white board and bring in their dogs.
A culture of openness is particularly important to her, though she adds “if you want to keep your private life private, keep it private – but it doesn’t have to be a secret”.
Employees at Parvizi-Wayne's company are invited to bring their dogs to work as part of a relaxed office environment - Sophia Parvizi-Wayne
Checking in with employees’ mental health is important, in particular to prevent burnout. When a team member was recently having a bad day, she offered her time off before they had a chat, with the healing crystals making an appearance.
Her gratitude journal is key to being a boss. “Reflecting on the really small things every day is really important,” she says.
She shares with her staff whenever she is off to a therapy session. At other times, Parvizi-Wayne is training: “I have to work out every day, sometimes twice.”
Ria Chakrabarti, 25, is the chief executive of Veristyle, which uses AI technology to help “people discover the clothes they were born to wear”.
Chakrabarti encourages her employees – an all female, all Gen Z team – to be the faces of the company.
“As a fashion and tech company gaining quite a big following on social media, this was significant because they became spokespeople for the company, and this encouraged them to engage with the core values of the business beyond their assigned tasks.”
Ria Chakrabarti says her all female, all Gen Z team is key to her company's success - Ria Chakrabarti
Oliver Hodgson, 20, founded his own creative communications agency, Platinum Live, at the tender age of 16.
He dropped out of school a year before, having had “struggles with mental health, bullying and things like that”, but it wasn’t going to stop him. “I’ve always had a passion for wanting to be my own boss.”
Having had “a slight obsession with the world of media and marketing”, he spotted a gap in the market for Cumbrian businesses.
Now, he works with clients in local government and blue-chip brands. A local taxi firm became a client and didn’t know how old he was for about six months. It’s unsurprising – Hodgson has the vocabulary and business confidence of someone who’s spent much longer in the industry.
Oliver Hodgson, who founded his creative communications agency at 16, refuses to have a meeting before 10am - Darren Robinson
Like Parvizi-Wayne, he manages employees who are older than him, and he promotes a relaxed culture. He says he won’t have a meeting before 10am, as he’s “not a morning person”, and the office has recently started “wellbeing walks”, encouraging employees to get out and about. There are lunches every month and Netflix in the office.
Mark Taylor, a business development expert at Shipley UK, says: “There are various stereotypes about Gen Z, but in our work we find them to be an ambitious and creative generation, whose skills in technology, particularly their grasp of AI, may be a big part of the solution to the UK’s productivity challenge.
“Younger generations clearly have great awareness of the importance of mental health in organisations, and an understanding of the need for flexible working patterns. At a time when parents are increasingly struggling to manage childcare with their professional responsibilities, Gen Z’s willingness to accommodate may be their most underrated asset as an employer.”
“Family comes first, health comes first,” says Hodgson. The last thing he wants is “somebody’s coming in stressed… because they can’t find anyone to pick the kids up”.
It turns out that Gen Z is quirky, tech-savvy, but actually a bit socially conservative at heart, when it comes to helping preserve the family.
Recommended
Lay off Generation Z. We work harder than Baby Boomers ever had to
