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Introduction
Millennials and the research on new millennials have taken center stage for quite some time. The cohort “millennials” are described as young, educated, assertive and outgoing (Strauss and Howe, 2003: Howe and Strauss, 2009). While the research on millennial continues, a new cohort, “Generation Z,” has begun to draw the attention of various stakeholders – business leaders, entrepreneurs, colleges, parents and the human resources practitioners in particular. A joint study by a Network of Executive Women (NEW) and Deloitte (2019) predicts that Generation Z surpasses the millennials with more than one-third of the population identifying themselves as Generation Z, therefore, understanding the new cohort and devising strategies to accommodate the new generation into the workplace assumes significance. Every cohort distinguishes itself from the rest of the generations concerning expectations, experiences, values, education, family, lifestyle and work ethics (Williams and Page, 2011; Grow and Yang, 2018), context, and behavior (Francis and Hoefel, 2018), significantly affecting the industry and the organization. Therefore, understanding the differences in the cohort and what differentiates Generation Z from the remaining cohort can help organizations successfully onboard the new generation.
Organizations have long recognized that focusing on the onboarding experience is vital to the success of the employee and the organization. Prior research studies (Acevedo and Yancey, 2011; Smart, 2012; Ellis et al., 2017) have established that the new hires leave the organization early during the first three months of the employment, and thus the current research focuses on creating effective onboarding strategies for Generation Z. The argument was further supported by industry research report as Bersin, an HR consulting firm, in their survey found out that 79% of the business leaders feel like effective onboarding is an urgent and essential priority (Bersin, 2014). As Generation Z starts entering the workforce, they are compared to the earlier cohorts in terms of their expectations, values, anticipations and how they would disrupt the workforce. The literature on Generation Z has been limited to understanding their attitudes, preferences and behaviors (Scholz, 2014; Turner, 2015; Bencsik et al., 2016; Chillakuri and Mahanandia, 2018) with very little research on organization's readiness to accommodate the new cohort. Organizations are confronted with inter-generational issues, as they start recruiting Generation Z in the workplace (Dwivedula et al.