Episodic careers: the trick to providing variety and stability to the Gen Z

Gone are the days of the job for life, and even the career for life. Gen Z jobseekers are on a different trajectory. Unlike their parents, who often aspired to a long-term career in one company, this generation is seeking so-called episodic careers — successive or parallel roles that allow them to experiment and build a vast range of skills.

“Episodic career” is a term coined by writer Farai Chideya in 2016, and employers can’t afford to ignore it as Gen Z workers join the post-pandemic workforce. As banks continue to compete with other sectors in the pursuit for Gen Z talent, providing this kind of diverse career experience is important. Here’s why:

• Gen Z are a restless generation, with research from social research firm McCrindle finding that they will switch jobs an average of 18 times during their careers. ?
• Yet despite this desire for variety, this generation also craves stability. As a result, a survey of graduates conducted by the CFA Institute in April 2023 found that a quarter consider finance the top sector for their career. ?

Banks that can provide both variety and stability can appeal to both needs, positioning them to take the cream of Gen Z talent. A framework for managing episodic careers, or conducting career experiments in a safe environment, could be just the answer.

You might think “our interns rotate through several teams” or “our C-suite members have worked all over the bank.” But, that’s not enough.

It is excellent that rotational experiences are hardwired into senior and junior staff’s employment experiences at many banks. But what about everyone else? These kinds of diverse career experiences need to be part of everyone’s employment experience in order to retain the interest of the Gen Z.

Five ways for banks to offer episodic careers

1.???? Invest in job architecture

Job architecture needs continuous focus. Banks should frequently ask themselves:

1.??? What jobs do we have in the bank and how are these evolving?

2.??? What are the skill requirements for specific jobs?

3.??? Can jobs be grouped together on the basis of common skills?

4.??? What skills does the bank possess across the entire workforce?

This knowledge is a foundational step in creating the platform for episodic careers. Without it, employees will be deployed to jobs without any structured consideration of their current skill sets or their upskilling needs. ???

Banks should keep two factors in mind as they review their job architecture:

• Monitoring and maintenance. The job architecture cannot be static. Governance is required to confirm that job architecture assets, such as job descriptions, skills frameworks and career paths, are “living” tools that evolve alongside the business.
• Next-generation jobs. With banks navigating the opportunities of artificial intelligence (AI), jobs are likely to change. In fact, research by Goldman Sachs suggests that two-thirds of occupations in the US will be exposed to some degree of AI automation. This disruption creates an opportunity to re-invent jobs. In banking, a range of new, digitally centric jobs are emerging that need to be factored into bank operating models and be “on the menu” for episodic careers. Examples include product designers, customer experience and employee experience strategists, ethical hackers and financial wellness advisors. ????

2.???? Enable job switching via internal talent markets

Internal job markets are typically tech-enabled solutions that match internal talent to open roles – be they temporary or permanent – across the firm. At best, they exist but are under-used. At worst, they don’t exist.

But, they deliver tremendous benefits. In addition to enabling episodic careers, these platforms help managers make smarter talent deployments when the needs of the business change, reduce replacement costs when talent leaves and there is no internal alternative, and help identify talent migration trends through analytics. ?

However, internal talent markets offer little benefit if they are not advertised. Promoting this infrastructure to employees signals that episodic careers are hard-wired into the bank’s talent strategy and are an authentic component of the bank’s employee proposition. ??????

3.???? Create an environment of continuous learning

It can be daunting to try a new job that needs skills you don’t yet have, so banks should help their staff acquire them — quickly. It's no use advertising an exciting menu of jobs to workers if employees do not feel skilled to perform those jobs or supported to develop the necessary skills. This is particularly relevant to the Gen Z who are, for the most part, in the early stages of their careers and still building their professional skills profile.

While the EY Generation Z Segmentation Study indicates that the Gen Z values the opportunity to take control of their own professional development, other generations do too. To give employees the learning experience they want, create an environment where learning is “all around” and where continuous learning is an expected part of the job.

Techniques include:

• Making learning content available on-demand as opposed to limiting access to structured programs with strict time slots.
• Providing micro-learning content that can be consumed “on the go” via personal devices – this could include educational articles, podcasts, videos and more.
• Offering fun ways to learn via shadowing and coaching, peer-to-peer learning, reverse mentoring and gamification techniques that could involve contests and prizes.
• Establishing a learn-then-do philosophy where all learning is reinforced via structured and practical application. This could include on-the-job work assignments or virtual simulations.

As discussed in our article, How banking on Gen Z talent will make or break the future of banking, the Gen Z have grown up learning differently than preceding generations. Providing them with an innovative, multi-modal and digitally enabled learning experience is a basic requirement. ??

4.???? Create a culture of career mobility

To normalize episodic careers, banks must create a culture that empowers employees to conduct career experiments. Staff will be less likely to pivot to a new role if they think it will create problems for their current team or if they worry their decision will make them look unreliable or non-committal.

A supportive culture has to come from the top of the organization. Leaders should promote an attitude of agility and flexibility toward careers and give staff the confidence to put themselves forward for new opportunities. They should make it clear that employees can — and should — move around the organization to try out different jobs, without feeling constrained by any long-term commitment to a given manager or team.

That said, internal movements can create disruption, and managers will have to accept that they could lose their best people to another team. For some managers, this will be a tough pill to swallow, particularly for those that take pride in building their team, including its culture and its people. ?

It is important to support managers, especially those known to develop high-performing teams. This means making sure that these leaders are not just donors of top tier talent, but also recipients. Some simple acknowledgement will help: while it might be tempting to a manager to hoard the talent that they have worked so hard to build, it is noble to share this talent with others to advance the greater good of the bank, and to advance the individual careers of these talented employees.?

5.???? Innovate performance management

Traditional performance management models might need adjustments for employees who pursue episodic careers. For example, a person who pivots between multiple roles might end up completing several projects with several different managers in a single year, so an annual performance review carried out by a single manager is not optimal.

Some ideas to address this challenge include:

• Introduce agile metrics. These are short-term performance metrics, tied to unique assignments, that are evaluated during and at completion of each short-term assignment and aggregated at year-end as part of the annual performance review.
• Appoint a single “talent” manager for the employee. It is incumbent upon this manager to facilitate the employee’s performance, development and compensation decisions, in consultation with other managers to whom the employee has been “on-loan” during the performance year.
• For permanent or longer-term transitions from one team to another mid-way through the performance year, mandate a collaborative assessment of performance from the respective managers (old and new) and potentially, a co-funded or pro-rated performance bonus.

The future is episodic

We know that the Gen Z seek variety, but also stability, from their employers.

Episodic careers might be just the answer. While hardwiring these experiences into the talent strategy of a bank is not easy, it will provide the Gen Z with a rich environment for career experimentation within the comfort, and stability, of the bank’s four walls.

As most will attest, it is better to re-circulate existing talent than lose them to competitors – which is especially true for high performers or high potentials who are often eager for the next professional challenge. ??

Additionally, benefits stand to be gained from episodic careers across the larger workforce in the form of employee engagement and retention, capability building and cost management through lower attrition and replacement costs.

A word of caution: it is not as simple as snapping one’s fingers to make episodic careers a reality. As banks contemplate these kinds of careers as a formal fixture within the talent strategy, they are wise to consider the enabling factors, such as the underlying job architecture, cultural conditions, supporting technologies and performance management frameworks. ?

This is the fourth in a series of five blogs that explore how the financial services sector can attract and retain Gen Z. These follow our first report, How banking on Gen Z talent will make or break the future of banking.?

The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.

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