Mind the Gap: Leveling up the ladder: Gen Z women at work

CURATED READS FOR GEN Z—AND THEIR Z-CURIOUS COLLEAGUES

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Brought to you by Liz Hilton Segel, chief client officer and managing partner, global industry practices, & Homayoun Hatami, managing partner, global client capabilities

first up

An image linking to the web page “Women in the Workplace 2023” on McKinsey.com.

Welcome back! This week, we’re honoring Women’s History Month with advice on advancement.

Happy Women’s History Month!

Among the findings from the latest Women in the Workplace report we published in partnership with LeanIn.Org: young women are incredibly ambitious (lazy girl, who?)—but they still need guidance from their more experienced colleagues. We’ve outlined a few of the challenges facing Gen Z working women in this newsletter before. This time, we’re offering strategies and advice to help Gen Z women progress in their careers.

The advice comes from Grace Puma, former PepsiCo exec, and McKinsey senior partner emerita Christiana Shi, coauthors of the new book Career Forward: Strategies from Women Who’ve Made It.

The baseline is blunt: “It’s not good enough to be good at your job. That’s the cost of admission,” Puma says in a McKinsey Author Talks interview. “It’s about consistently choosing to set a course to reach your aspirations in your career. That includes making career decisions and building capabilities.” Translation: developing in-demand skills is priority number one.

Easy enough, no? If only one knew exactly which skills were in demand and how to develop them. Puma has developed a framework for answering these questions, which she calls the SOAR method:

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Self-assessment: Think about the strengths you’ve already got under your belt and those that you need to develop further.

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Opportunities: Keep an eye out for paths to broaden your skill set.

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Action: What do you need to do to create growth opportunities for yourself?

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Red flags: Think through the obstacles that might pop up in your career and derail your growth, having a plan B at the ready.

(By the way, even when women do everything right, climbing past the “broken rung” into management is still a challenge for women across industries, and even more difficult for women of color to overcome, McKinsey research has found.)

Now that you’re SOARing … keep these other nuggets of wisdom in mind:

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Out of sight, out of mind: The flexibility of working from home may have helped women to be more ambitious at work, McKinsey senior partner Alexis Krivkovich says. But it could also hurt working women , particularly if the “proximity bias”—the advantage people in the office have when they see their coworkers face-to-face—becomes as prominent as it was prepandemic. Staying visible and engaged when you’re not in the office, either by keeping your camera on during video calls or by sending at least one message that’s visible in the company group chat, is key.

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Your own biggest stan: “Advocate for yourself,” says Puma. Start using a productivity and task tracker. (One TikToker’s viral advice on using a productivity tracker to log your contributions at work is *chef kiss.*) This can support Gen Z women—who apparently could use help negotiating their salaries—when performance review season comes along.

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Chess, not checkers: Interviewing for a new job? “Think two steps ahead,” not just about a pay or title bump in the next gig, Puma says. Keep an eye out for potential roadblocks to advancement and whether you can overcome them at your current job. “The next company may not provide the potential to grow and continue to expand.”

VISUALIZE IT

Sports such as pickleball, golf, and skateboarding are gaining popularity, while others, such as cheerleading, are seeing participation rates decline.