COLUMN: Gig workers, Millennials, Gen Z – it is a GEMZ world out there

With youngsters (millennials & Gen Z) making up the majority of the Indian population, there is a need to observe closely and understand how their digital lives, habits and interpersonal relationships are bringing noticeable shifts in the norms of society and culture.

To me, the Gig Economy, Millennials & Gen-Z (GEMZ) are the true gems of this century. It is an exciting time to be alive, and to see opportunities around us.

It is just that the GEMZ are in a somewhat similar situation of not being fully understood, yet much discussed and debated and mostly neglected or worse off being written off, as “those youngsters”.

For they are important to be included in our policy discussions and narratives, as they represent our future. And they are the future ! Some trends to learn from and to track as they evolve as well as shape societal narratives.

A gig economy is a free-market idea, represents impermanent employment, and vastly assisted by digitally enabled mediums.

The culture and personality of the work organisations are fast changing and have to adapt to the new-normal of the gig economy.

Forecasting future of work, socio-economic trends, and learning to optimise scattered-marketplace-resources for better outcomes would start making news.

In recent times, we have seen individuals gain popularity from social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube etc. We observed many who started individually, formed online and offline friendships with other content creators. Often, as their audience, we also got to watch these friendships, relationships evolve and grow in real time as many of these individuals share a huge part of their life on social media platforms.

Will online relationships sustain and last?

Will people need to meet face to face for forming opinions, views, bias and actual human relationships? Will there be permanency in relationships or will there be depth in relationships or will there be on-off need-based relationships?

That the Gen-Z is shunning physical mode asset ownership seems to be a given. While that was said of millennials, it gave rise to many an asset-light shared-economy business ideas like Uber, etc.

Will be see increased fractional ownership of materialistic objects? Will NFTs of the world shape such ownership ideas into other investible spheres?

Will these impact or impair traditional asset classes like realty, jewellery, etc? Or will we see shifting asset classes emerge faster than they ever did before?

Gen-Z generation grew up with digital technologies in their midst. Hence the term digital-natives.

How they think and how they perceive is different from the way non-digital natives do.

So the range of differences between ‘digital as a way of life’ and ‘digital as life’ will impact the way humans think.

Web 2.0, coined by O'Reilly and others between 1999 and 2004, moved the world on from static desktop web pages designed for information consumption, and served from expensive servers to interactive experiences and user-generated content that brought us Uber, AirBnB, Facebook and Instagram. The rise of Web 2.0 was largely driven by three core layers of innovation: mobile, social and cloud; and benefits more than 3 billion people for over 80 percent of their waking hours, every day!

Web 3.0 is the next stage of the web evolution that runs without servers, depends on a network of phones, computers and other devices. It does not allow any one entity in the network to have control on data — in a word, decentralisation.

In a Web3 world, people control their own data and move online from emails to their social media to shopping, using a single personalised account, creating a public record on the blockchain of all of their activities.

Will the new age Indian businesses see democratic form of leadership? Where the leader could take everyone along?

Or will be see an authoritarian style of leadership by the Gen-Z?

As much as non-digital natives place emphasis on history, and take solace or even umbrage at it, the Gen-Z don’t worry about it.

For the youngsters, creating a legacy is important goal, however simple or tough the aim is. But they clearly distinguish with their own legacy versus someone’s else which to them is ‘history’.

The exuberance of self-confidence is an amazing trait to learn from the youngsters. Many a times, they are perceived as being arrogant or sounding over-confident.

This personality trait comes from their lack of fear of failure, an aspect that my generation got confused with fear vs respect!

While all of us, across generations, seemed to be a rebel to the succeeding one; Gen-Z seems far sorted out in the sense, they have a cause to rebel about.

It is this ‘sense of purpose for impact’ that sets them apart.

No wonder, we see their ‘dare to dream’ spirit.

Until few years ago, where one came from or studied or networked-with was an important basis. For Gen-Z, where they come from is least important, as they believe in themselves and power of their ideas. They are not worried about failures or obstacles. Will they create their own code of conduct? Will they be inclusive and humble, even with success? With they deal with the rest of the society with fairness?