DOI: 10.14457/tu.the.2021.160
title: The influence of ESG on generation Z: a review of preference for workplace

description: As new generations are entering the labor market, the author has experienced generational differences in thinking and attitude within the workplace. Without understanding these differences, it sometimes impacts on its turnover or be a barrier for attracting new employees. Apart from looking into own workplace, when the author sees business environment in the world, it currently requires more attention to climate change and corporate social responsibility in business. These experiences triggered to do further study about generation and such trendy topic.By looking at past studies about generations and current corporate activity toward environmental or social issues, the author found that different generations have different views on work values. In addition, it is also clear that Generation Z will largely dominate the labor market in the next years. As not only the actions by companies but also the governments around the world are being urged to be more environmentally conscious and more socially aware at the moment, companies have been started to be evaluated from the perspective of ESG that contains environmental, social and governance. Since ESG is generally used by investors to evaluate corporate behavior and determine the future financial performance, ESG is not generally used for job seekers. However, this study aims to clarify how important ESG factors that are currently required by the company will affect the future workforce, especially Generation Z.This study applied both an online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews to study what Generation Z in Thailand considers when choosing a workplace, and what their impressions on ESG are. The results of the online questionnaire revealed that their top priorities were “Good salary”, “Support from colleagues”, and “Job security”. Regarding ESG, the author also found that “Social” was the most important to them, “Governance” was the second most important, and “Environmental” was the third most important. Through the interviews, the author tried to find out what kind of past experiences led Generation Z to come up with the ideas expressed in the questionnaire results, and what exactly they value in terms of ESG and what they value in terms of choosing a workplace. As a result of the interviews, it turned out that the experiences of themselves and persons close to them, especially negative experience influenced their thinking. Furthermore, the author found that among the ESG factors, “Freedom of thinking”, “Equal opportunities”, and “Transparency” are the most important. On the other hand, it is clear from both the online questionnaire and the interviews that environment is still important to Generation Z, however they are less concerned about the environment when selecting a place to work for.In the last chapter, based on the results of this study, the author described specific ideas on what companies should start their ESG related approach with examples of corporate activities from high ESG performance companies. The companies used as examples in this study included the case of Thailand which is the target country of this study, world leading companies, and the case of Japan which is the author's home country.Not only the results of this study demonstrate the importance of approach for ESG, but also it helps us better understand the differences that in attitudes between generations. The findings may be accepted as one of the ideas to create a better workplace for future workforce.