The Key Learning Points:

1. The importance of diversity in the workplace to promote a variety of different perspectives and ideas.

2. How Gen Z is changing attitudes towards the level of responsibility given to graduates.

3. Tips on how companies can design a work environment that reflects how young people view time and career progression.

Today on the Risky Mix podcast we’re joined by Inna Grynova, Head of Support at FinTech, Revolut. An interesting fact about Inna is that she can speak five different languages and is in fact based in Poland, Krakow, making her our first ever international Risky Mix guest!

Inna tells us all about her career in the world of tech, explaining that her first IT role was an internship at a bank in Ukraine, where she worked for two summers. Inna had no plans to leave Ukraine and wanted to build her career there, but after receiving a call from Google, asking her to interview for a role in Poland, she simply couldn’t refuse! Inna became a customer representative for Google’s AdWords product and spent six years working her way up to become a program manager for the help centre. She then decided to take a break and went travelling around Asia and explained that her first day out of Google was the first day she became a Revolut customer, admitting that she “fell in love with the product”!

Inna explains that she “wanted to be connected with something that changed the world in a technological way” and Revolut seemed like the perfect match, given her economics education and prior experience working at the bank. She joined the fintech business when it was in its growth phase - they had less than one million users and today they have over 10 million! She goes on to explain how the Revolut workforce has changed in line with how its customer base has changed. When she first joined, the workforce was made up of mainly people in their 20s and early 30s, but as the customer base has become more diverse, the workforce within Revolut has also become more diverse. “I really like working in a diverse environment where you can get the background of every single person, you have different ideas and you end up getting a much wider perspective.” 

The conversation moved on to Generation Z and the things companies should think about when recruiting and retaining younger people. Inna explains that Gen Z want to do something that is meaningful and valuable. They need to be given responsibility and businesses need to trust them with that responsibility: “I’m hiring you and I trust that you’ll do your best.” Revolut focuses on trust and asks their young grads to complete a range of roles which carry significant responsibility. Inna believes that if you don’t give young people challenges, they’ll get bored. 

Inna adds that the young people she’s worked with have a different perspective when they think about time, adding that typically after two months in a job she regularly sees younger people worrying about their career progression and wanting that next step. For this reason, Revolut has built a formalised progression structure that motivates new recruits, maintains engagement, and helps to avoid the “what’s next?” question. 

Inna has also seen quite a significant difference, even between Millennials and Gen Z, adding that the way they learn and what they need is very different: “You need to give them [Gen Z] a job where they believe that they’re changing the world…If there is no meaning, what’s the point?” She has also observed a difference in emotions, explaining that, in her experience, Gen Z react more emotionally to problems than Millennials. In addition, she’s observed that Gen Z like to have a strong and close connection with their line managers – their role needs to feel like so much more than “just a job”.