Hannah Dannecker  
Most Gen Z's have built up this wall of nobody, except for who I so choose, has the ability to influence me, because I would then just be a puddle of nothing on the floor if I didn't create that wall. And so now these Gen Z's are coming in with this massive wall in front of them, and they're not necessarily letting their employers through it. 

Jeff Ma  
Hello and welcome to love as a business strategy, a podcast that brings humanity to the workplace. We're here to talk about business but we want to tackle topics that most business leaders tend to shy away from. We believe that humanity and love should be at the center of every successful business. I am your host, Jeff MA and as always, I'm here to have conversations and hear stories about how real people and real businesses might operate in today's world. And my guest today is Hannah Danneker, and Hannah is on a mission to bridge the gap between previous working generations and Gen Z to create an open environment where we can work better together. In 2023 she published her first book entitled "Well shit time to grow up", which is a post graduation memoir in which she explores moments from her childhood as well as her journey after graduation, sharing how she conquered imposter syndrome uncertainty and uncomfortable confrontations, themes that are all familiar to us on this show, Hannah is sought by HR managers, business owners and operations teams to help them learn how to connect with Gen Z, because as a member of Gen Z herself, Hannah brings insights that business leaders can't get Anywhere else about how to deal with Gen Z employees. So I'd love to welcome Hannah here to the show today. Hannah, how are you doing?

Hannah Dannecker  
Really good. Jeff. Thank you so much. It's always so funny to hear my introductions. I'm like, Yeah, tell me more. Who is this girl?

Jeff Ma  
It's the most awkward thing in the world. I love it. I'm super excited about this topic. I have to be honest. I think in my line of work, where I talk and consult with people all the time, we we don't avoid this specific topic, but it comes up non stop, or at least it becomes kind of the first place people go when you talk culture, it's like, well, you know, depending on which side you are on or where you're from, Boomer, millennial, Gen Z, whatever, it just starts coming out. And so I've been dying to tackle this topic head on. And what an opportunity to do with you. As I said, your intro. You a Gen Z yourself. Tell me a little bit about you. Tell me, I guess less so about the Gen Z part. We know that that's just by definition who you are, but, but tell me a little bit about you and where your passion I'm really curious about your passion. What is your passion and where does it come from? Oh

Hannah Dannecker  
my gosh, I've got way too many of them to keep track. But yeah. So I was born and raised in Canada, just a little bit north of Toronto, and my dad owned an agency the entire time I was growing up, for as long as I can recall, and it originally started as a transportation agency, and that kind of originated from my grandfather and my uncle both being truck drivers, so his original goal was to revolutionize the way that people saw transportation, because he had seen it from a different perspective, where they had been treated really poorly and for no real reason. And so that was my upbringing. I was immediately thrown right into staffing and specifically into transportation. And at the time, I thought transportation was so lame, so boring. I wanted nothing to do with it. And growing up, I thought that staffing was pretty interesting, but it was definitely not where my heart lied. So I came to the spot where I was graduating high school, ready to go to university, and I really wanted a marketing degree, and somebody said, Hannah, don't do that. What they are putting and printing in those textbooks is completely irrelevant from the time that it leaves the press studio. And I was like, Oh my gosh, how interesting. Everything is changing and evolving so quickly. So naturally, I was like, liking an HR degree. That's the only other thing that makes sense to me, just based on my background. So I got an HR degree, and I moved to Orlando, Florida, and I live here now. And I originally, when I was here, was a substitute teacher, working with kids, loving children. I started with kindergarteners because I thought they'd be so fun, so easy. They are not if you're a teacher, if you are an elementary school teacher, shout out to you. I am so impressed. Could not be me. I did not have the strength for that. So I transitioned to middle school, and I actually loved middle schoolers. I thought they were really fun. But then I landed in high school, which, at the time was really funny, because I was 19 years old, and I was working with and substitute teaching for high schoolers sometimes, who were just as old as I was. And so this Converse. Kind of came up where I was communicating with them on a regular basis about what they knew and understood about the workforce ahead of them, and I was appalled by the lack of information that they had. They didn't know what they wanted to do, which is typical, not most high schoolers do, but not only that, they didn't know what was available to them. And that broke my heart, because I grew up in staffing, I was so aware that there are so many job opportunities and career opportunities for people out there, but they just didn't know. And so fast forward, the pandemic happens. I am across in a different country from my family. The Border shuts down. Naturally. I move home, this pandemic looked really different in Canada than it did here. And so I transitioned back, moved back to Canada, lived there, and started working for the family business. And as I started working for the family business, at first, to be honest, I really struggled with it. I was working in an office that had no windows for eight hours a day. I was in the middle of a quarantine we were doing social isolation lockdowns, you you couldn't leave your house if you weren't going to your work, if you were going anywhere on the road, you could get pulled over by a cop, and they could demand that they see the proof of where you were going as an essential employee. Like it was crazy. I was not doing well mentally. And I went to my dad, and I said, I love you. I love this business. I now see what we're doing. I see the concept of, okay, we feed families one shift at a time. We find jobs for people who need them. We help people who can't advocate for themselves find placement. So I was like, Okay, I get this, but my word, I hate my life, like I see the value in what we're doing, but what we're doing is killing me every day. And so I said, I want to keep going. I want to keep doing this, but I can't keep doing it the way that it is today. And so we looked like a very typical corporate office, right? You were in before the boss out after he leaves. You. You try to have the most hours. You try to always pick your phone up. I grew up on call in high school. I was an on call person for an agency, which means anytime that my family, whether it was one o'clock in the morning or 2pm in the afternoon, I would still pick it up. So I was living this really rigid, uncomfortable life, and I said, I want to work from home just one day a week. My my mental health, not doing well. I'm not seeing the sun. It was the middle of the winter in Canada. The sun was down when I went into work and down when I came out of work. I was like, I just live in a basement apartment, but give me at least half of a window for one day a week and I'll be fine. Like, that's that's all I need. You know, I took an inch and ran a mile. So now we have one corporate office. We have closed down a couple different locations. We have also opened up a couple different virtual locations. So we've transitioned this company from locally in Ontario, when I started a handful of years ago to now we're across Canada and the US and these little minor changes after he started to see the benefits of what just a little bit could do. He got super excited and took the whole thing and ran down the football field with it. So now we can operate Canada, US, and we're doing so much more than we ever have before. But through all of these changes, we started working with Gen Zs, and I was like, look, look at how fantastic this is. Look at how fantastic they are. Look at everything that we're doing together and how it's really working and coming out in the other side. But it took a really long road to get there, but that's how we ended up with the whole this is what Gen Z's look like. This is what they love. This is the formula for making them come into your company, yes, but see the value in what you're doing and stay. Sorry that was so long winded, but that's that's the story.

Jeff Ma  
It's okay. It's your episode. So we actually want you have as much space as you want. I love that. I love that origin story. If you will help, help me, I guess reset, maybe for the audience more so reset on the topic itself, what, what defines Gen Z? I mean, I think we all, I hope, I think we all know what it is at face value, but maybe your own kind of take on it, like, what makes Gen Z, Gen Z, and what is, what's the big deal?

Hannah Dannecker  
So the easiest way to define a generation Z is by the year that they're born, they're born between 1997 and 2012 there's 72 million of them across the world, and they all are made up of what I would call a similar life experience that has resulted in them being who they are. Now, again, I don't want to stereotype. Everybody is very different. However, based on the way that globalization happened as they were maturing and aging, the way that technology has advanced, and then the way that covid happened as they were becoming adults, really shaped who they are as human beings. And can really make up the makeup of a lot of Gen z's.

Jeff Ma  
So I guess, what's the rub? You know, like it comes, like I mentioned at the at the start, like this, this comes up a lot. You'll still talk to certain groups of people, and they'll just complain. There's be frustrated, or it could be positive as well. But the point is, there's, we don't like to stereotype, but it it always comes to this place where there's certain things in certain issues, or certain stereotypes, if you will, that that just seem to kind of get people frustrated or worked up, or, you know what, what are those things that you see? I mean, we can start there. What are those things that you see maybe you don't need to solve.

Hannah Dannecker  
Yeah, I think, I think the first thing that I see most regularly that people struggle with the greatest is communication. Generation Z's don't communicate the same way that millennials or boomers or Gen X's do, or the silent generation, right? None of them, we're not communicating the same and you and I don't communicate the same way. And me and another Gen Z, who could be my very best friend in the whole wide world, even if it was my twin and we had grown up in the same household, we still would not communicate the same way. But so frequently, what happens is millennials, Gen X, boomers, Silent Generation. They'll gain that experience. They'll gain however much experience they have in the workforce. And they'll see the newbies come in, and they will think that they know how to communicate them with them based on the experience that they have had in the past. And so it creates this rub of, oh, it's the newbie. I know exactly what to say to you, because I just did it. It's like no you know what to say to you, because you just did it. But this whole new human who has come in is completely different. And I think that that pattern we see really regularly, just when it relates to senior and junior people.

Jeff Ma  
Do you think that that that pattern has always existed, or is it more extreme, like, why is Gen Z such a at least in my head? And maybe because, I guess I'm a millennial by definition, on I'm on the older end of the millennial spectrum. But like when I was a new and upcoming employee in the workforce, you know, there were, there were generations above me, and we suffered from, sure, communication problems and new changes and expectations, but it, it, it didn't feel as drastic, and maybe I was on the wrong side of things, but same time, it didn't feel as drastic as like today, where it feels like there's a sometimes a complete, just wall of understanding that, yeah,

Hannah Dannecker  
place, yeah. So I think you're right. It is very different this time. I could be wrong, because I've never experienced it before from the other side. So that's hard for me to say, but I do think that it is different this time, and here's why, based on the way that Gen Z's have grown up with technology, they have redefined the concept of what an influencer is, right? When I say the word influencer, what do you think of?

Jeff Ma  
 social media

Hannah Dannecker  
Right? So social media has been around since I'll use myself as an example, because I only want to speak on my own experience here. But social media has been around since I was, I mean, since I can remember, in third grade, I've been using my mom's Facebook account. Then in seventh grade, I got some some social media, some, oh gosh, what is it called Snapchat. And then by the time I was in ninth grade, I started using Instagram. So it's kind of like the the timeline that I have seen. And through that, the concept of influencers has evolved so greatly across so many vast platforms that as somebody who was just beginning to age, as a third grader who didn't know what it meant to not look at an ad on the side, as a seventh grader who didn't know how to properly screen the right people who are sending me requests on Snapchat, as a ninth grader who didn't know What was real and what wasn't real on the people that were most famous around me, that I was looking at every single day, I had to learn to build a wall internally that nobody else was able to see, because everybody was trying to influence me in some way, shape or form, and most of that was being seen on social media. Now, of course, that was also being seen in your classrooms, in your homes, whatever else, everybody has experienced the concept of influence in their life. I'm not saying that's new, but the level at which it was happening was so intense that most Gen Z's have built up this wall of nobody, except for who I so choose, has the ability to influence me, because I would then just be a puddle of nothing on the floor if I didn't create that wall. And so now these Gen Z's are coming in with this massive wall in front of them, and they're not necessarily letting their employers through it. Whereas previously, millennials came in and they're like, Oh, my bus is so smart. This is the perfect person for me to learn from. And now Gen Z's are coming in. And saying, I know that my boss thinks that they're really smart and let me hear what they have to say, but I'm also going to go back and fact check it with everything else I know and all of these other resources and pieces of information, and unless you can validate what you're already saying by the research that they're doing behind the scenes, that wall will not continue to come down, and it'll just get bigger and thicker and harder. So you're right, it's totally different, and that's why I think, at least that's why I think, but I don't know, what do you think? 

Jeff Ma  
I mean, that's my favorite, that's my favorite explanation, or at least breakdown I've ever heard, because I haven't had that clarity honestly, because I think people are more focused on almost the symptoms and like what they see and the who's right, who's wrong. You know, you hear a lot about, like, work ethic, and you hear a lot about, like, complaining, or like, kind of not respecting authority or respect and stuff like this, and those are all symptoms, and what you just, what you just share, what I heard was like a root cause and something that's deep, deeper rooted than just just characterizing and coloring a whole generation, as you know, not having the same values, but really, it's, it's, it's an experience. So that's, that's awesome. You've morphed my head right now into a whole other space. But I guess that naturally brings me to questions about, like, what is the bridge? What is the the way to bring the walls down? And who's that on? Because that's another big question, I guess, is that you I mean Gen Z will, at some point, just by the laws of nature, inherit the earth and be in all the leadership positions. There'll be all the, you know, there'll be who's here leading the way. But between now and then, is it? Is it on the the which generation needs to fix themselves first, and who has to step to the step up and, you know, change like, that's the big questions people have.

Hannah Dannecker  
I think, I think it's everybody. You know, it's, it's not necessarily fair to say that it is on the employers to make that and break that and follow through with that. But it's also not fair to say this on the employees, either or or any generation who falls into any of those categories, right? The hard thing is that there are more boomers than there were um, Gen Zs, there are more millennials, there are more Gen Xers than there are Gen Zs, and that pattern is continuing, right? The birth rate, replacement rate, whatever that's called, is continuing to go down, so there's less of us and more of the past, and so at some point it is going to teeter to the elder generation's responsibility, because there's going to be less of the younger generation. So it's going to mean that it's more important for them to do it, because they're going to have a less opportunity to do so with the less amount of Gen z's. So that that that does play like a little role. And I mean, obviously understanding they are more mature, they have had the opportunity to experience this before, so I would hope that that person is going to try and take the larger half of their responsibility, but it absolutely goes both ways. Right. Like a Gen Z can only be as strong as the people in front of them, but the people in front of them can only be as strong as the ones who stand behind like it. It really does play back and forth a lot so, but I think that the majority, if there were to have to be one would end up with the employer. 

Jeff Ma  
So what kind of things need to happen, I guess

Hannah Dannecker  
Like, what do we do? What do we do? 

Unknown Speaker  
What do we do about this? Yeah,

Hannah Dannecker  
I tell people, and it's a funny sentence, but I tell people to listen. And when I say Listen, what I mean is, I want you to listen to learn. I want you to learn to understand, and then I want you to understand to speak. But often what we do is we skip to the very last step and we just start speaking because we heard something. And we think that we know what they're saying, but we don't, and so we need to first listen to learn, try and understand what they're saying, regurgitate it back to them, say, is this what I heard from you? Should I understand that properly? And then when you do understand what they're trying to say to you, is when you take the opportunity to respond. And that, in itself, solves so many problems just between the communication barrier that, Hey, did I hear this correctly from you is, I mean, going to solve so many of your problems. Just try that with your significant other tonight, when you get into a fight, see if that helps, because what you hear and what they say are not always the same thing, but outside of that, it's so much just about having a respect. A mutual respect for everybody around you, right? Look at the person that you're having a conversation with and understand that they're probably not out to get you, even if you guys are bashing and hitting heads, try and take a huge step back and say, maybe we're just not on the same page here. Let's let's try and reevaluate, readjust. Help me understand what you meant by that. The the statement helped me understand is my favorite sentence. I've probably used it 1000s of times this year already, but just what did what did you mean by that? Before I start to put my own impressions on what I think you meant, just tell me. You know, just ask more. It's so much more about communication, then it's not that easy to do.

Jeff Ma  
Help me understand more about, I guess your perspective kind of going outward, right, like, right now we've been talking a lot about, like, like, we're all here at the 30,000 foot level, yeah, and talking about just everyone in business and just generalizing everything, but, you know, I'm just statistically, I know that my audience is going to be older right now than Gen Z. I know I have a few, but I think the people who listen to this show who are trying to, you know, like really love as a business strategy is about change, and about changing our mindsets, and changing how we do business and all that stuff. And so that's a huge passion of mine. And I think the audience that I share this with is kind of in the same place where, you know, I don't consider, I don't I don't look at a Gen Z as a generation and think, oh, problematic, or anything like that. But I do consistently see this being the platform in which people have their frustrations and arguments on and having you on the show gives me a unique opportunity, I think, the audience, unique opportunity to just truly like, I would love to like, peer into your your head, like, What? What? Yeah, like, help me and everyone understand, I guess. Like, what is that? Gen Z? Like, what are you seeing from your psych? How do you what do you think of? What does it invoke in you when you think Boomer, Gen X, millennial? What do you think when you think of the corporate workspace? I mean, what do you think of when you think of when you hear love as a business strategy? Like, is it you just rolling your eyes and like, oh my gosh, or is it, like, what do you want to see out of that? I know that's a big, really involved question, but that's, that's kind of what I want the most out of you.

Hannah Dannecker  
Yeah, I mean, love is a business strategy. I love that I come from a family business, and I tell people all the time that family business, this business with a heart. So that's, I mean, very relevant, but that's much more about my upbringing and much less about my Gen Z demographic. I think Gen Z's Are you? Are you trying to understand, like a, like a simple approach to getting them to stay Are you trying to understand? Sorry? 

Jeff Ma  
think it's less tactical and more just curiosity around. I think, I think I can, yeah, I can, you know, I've picked the brains of Boomers, Gen Xs, millennials all the time. And because we communicate the same way, you know, we, you know, it's, it's been quick and easy, and I think a lot of our interactions at this this general, with the Gen Z, you know, groups have been more, you know, either professional or problem solving or pointed in one direction. I don't think we've taken enough time to just be curious and hear what it's like to be Gen Z. What you know, what Gen what Gen Z sees of the world, like, what, what are you and you shared kind of one aspect of it, like, that's why it blew my mind when you said, like, you grew up with influencers and how that shaped everything. Like that kind of stuff is, like, really missing from the conversation, sure. So I guess it's kind of a lot of pressure to say, Hey, speak on behalf of all Gen Zs, but

Hannah Dannecker  
 that helps me understand where you're going with it. So yeah, in there's two pieces to that, right? What's it like to be a Gen Z and what makes us who we are? So what the what makes us who we are? Piece that. That piece is very similar the social media, the technology, but in a different vein, I would tell people, globalization makes a Gen Z who they are. We grew up in a period of time where we could fly across the world and be in a different place tomorrow, and that was extremely normal and well, yes, it was a blessing. Don't get me wrong. People who went on vacations as kids. That was a blessing, but it wasn't out of the norm. Whereas my mom would say that, and she would say, oh my gosh, someone who went on a week vacation, like my grandmother went on one week vacation her entire life, and that was the peak of her existence, as far as my mother understands it. And. Whereas that's not what my experience was. Because of the way that globalization has changed, and we've been able to do that so readily and so easy and so that's really changed. Your Gen Z, time and space don't really mean that much to them. Where they are doesn't mean that much to them, so asking them to come in and be in your office is asking a whole lot more of a Gen Z than it is of asking a millennial, because their experience is just very different. That means more to them. It makes more sense to them a Gen Z, however, with light of what happened with globalization and then this other massive thing called covid 19, they were coming what I call baby adults. When they were experiencing covid, 19, they were graduating from children into their baby adulthood, where they were trying to figure out what it meant to exist. And for so many of them, their education experience got completely pushed online. And so again, that time that space awareness was so much less important. And so again, asking a Gen Z to show up from eight to five in this specific location is a lot harder, because that's not their makeup anymore. It's not what they've understood to be necessary or relevant in their existence. So covid 19, globalization and technology are the three massive things that I would say really, really affect a Gen Z and kind of how they are, the way they are. But then, what is it like to be a Gen Z? It's hard to be honest with you. It's it's a little challenging. I personally have just gone through a what I am calling a detoxification of my social medias, and have been doing it all summer, but I went from I've got okay all of them, to deleting three or four of them off of my phone, and it has taken my phone time down two hours. So if I think about the two hours that I spent every single day looking through social media at other people's crap, because, let's be honest, not all of it's real, and then I think about, Okay, I've been doing that for two months now. I don't even know I should be able to do that math very easily, two times 60. So 120 hours through the summer that I've not spent judging myself. Most Gen Zs when they're on social media, yes, they're looking at people, yes, they're seeing stuff, but they're actually judging their own lives up against every single person that they see. So if you think about every social media that every Gen Z has, and you think about all of the time that they have spending on it, a lot of them are creating self deprecating thoughts through those things that just this past month, in these past two months, has completely changed so much of the way that my brain chemistry works. I'm nicer to myself, I'm more patient with myself. I don't care as much about the people who really don't matter, and I do care so much more about the people that really do. And it's a lot easier to see, and that's just two months. But Gen Zs have been doing that since they were kids, and so it's really interesting just to zone in to one small, tiny aspect of what that might look like and how they were raised to be just mean to themselves. And I mean, that's, I mean, just social media. Let's talk, if you want to talk about housing costs and the cost of food and the cost of the price of a first average wage comparatively year over year. That's that's also very different, and it's really hard to be a Gen Z just in this experience when with the wash, what's the proper word economy right now? But that's like a whole different thing and a completely separate topic. But that's a that's a small dive into a very large bird's eye view for you tiny, tiny peek into my brain.

Jeff Ma  
And I just, I just appreciate that so much like I think the one thing I'm taking away is, and this is not because I'm just just littered with opportunities to interact with tons and tons of diverse amounts of Gen Z, but I definitely haven't made a lot of space in my brain to, like, go and like, like, have that curiosity, because, because, like, the things you brought today around these, like, real, lived experience, like, like, it's been no secret that, you know, there's some factors that Make Gen Z, Gen Z, Gen Z, like living through the pandemic in certain ways, yeah, and, but I think people take that at face value quite a bit. And we don't like, kind of, like, put ourselves, like, like, the way you've been able to kind of paint the picture of, like, growing up in certain environments and like, how that really shapes is just so important. I think it's just incredibly important. You. And so I really appreciate you bringing those things today, because it's really sparked this like realization in me. I don't know what to do with it yet, but, um, but it's, it's amazing even,

Hannah Dannecker  
even if the the realization is, next time you're talking to a Gen Z, and you have in order that you have to give that Gen Z, because they have to do something for you. It's saying, hey, how do you think this would work? And would you mind helping me with it, rather than, hey, this is for you. I expected by Friday, right? Like it's, it's all about communication. Honestly, if you just bring a little bit of love into your communication, you'll be so much better off in the end.

Jeff Ma  
Well, that fits the theme perfectly, almost like

Hannah Dannecker  
I teed it up for you intentionally.

Jeff Ma  
And I really appreciate your time and all the things that you brought to the show today. So thank you so much for joining me and and, gosh, just bringing great stuff today. Thank you.

Hannah Dannecker  
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a lot a lot of fun, and I love the chance to talk about Gen Zs. It's always fun. So thanks for giving me the platform to

Jeff Ma  
do it. Sure, anything you want to plug or share with the audience.

Hannah Dannecker  
I So, yes, I have that book, The well shit book that's specifically all for Gen Zs. You can find that that's very Boomer endorsed. It's meant for kids who are graduating university and they're graduating, they're going, oh shit, what do I do? So it's the best card you could give them for a graduation. I like to tell people, but I also have, oh my gosh, I'm about to read. I'm about to publish another one. I think 123, this will be my fifth book I'm publishing, hopefully. Fingers crossed in the next three weeks. I'm really excited about it. It's my first kids book, and so I would love for people to check that out, but you can find all of my stuff on XtoZ.org, and yeah, all of my links, all of my everything to get help with hiring if you actually need one of these Gen z's. And you're like, Hey, Hannah, sounds great, but I need some more applicable steps. Come chat with me. I can help you find one. But yeah, that's the best place to find me.

Jeff Ma  
Awesome. Thank you so much. And thank you to the audience for joining today. I hope you continue listening and giving us that feedback if you haven't. As always, I don't think I've done a single episode where I don't continue to plug love as a business strategy the book itself. Don't know why you're here if you haven't read it yet, but go read it and subscribe and write the podcast if you can! With that, we will be seeing each other in two weeks. Is how often I've been posting now, at least as of now. So we'll see everybody in two weeks and have a good one bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai