Every month, we gather data insights drawn from the millions of signals we collect on Flexa. This month, three numbers stood out. Each one challenges a common assumption. Together, they make a case for rethinking how you construct and communicate your EVP.

Gen Z are 72% more likely to choose learning and development and 71% more likely to choose career progression than the average Flexa user

The generation too-often dismissed as ‘lazy’ is actually your most ambitious cohort

Two stats sitting almost identically close together are worth paying attention to. Gen Z users on Flexa are significantly more likely than the average candidate to prioritise both learning and development and career progression when searching for their next role. And the near-identical figures are not a coincidence. For this generation, learning and progressing are essentially the same thing. They want to know that joining your organisation means investing in their future, not just getting a job today.

The external data reinforces this. PwC's 2025 Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey found that 62% of Gen Z professionals feel optimistic about their careers, nearly double the proportion of Gen X. Randstad's research adds something important to this: the fact that a lack of career progression is Gen Z's second biggest reason for leaving a role, only falling behind pay. Their average tenure in the first five years of their career is just 1.1 years, significantly shorter than any previous generation. But that mobility isn’t aimlessness; it’s the logical response to ambition going unmet.

What is particularly relevant for TA teams is that Gen Z are now screening for this before they apply. Career progression and learning and development sit in the top 10% of all EVP search terms on Flexa. If your careers page or job descriptions don’t address these clearly and early, a significant chunk of your target audience has already moved on.

The bar has also moved on what counts as a credible answer. Vague mentions of development budgets or annual reviews are not enough. Candidates want to see structured programmes, hear from people who have actually progressed through your organisation, and understand what advancement realistically looks like. 

What to do with this: Look at how prominently career progression and L&D feature in your job descriptions and on your careers site. Can a candidate land on your page and immediately understand what growth looks like inside your business? If not, that’s the gap to close first.

Parents are 73% less likely to choose office-based work than the average Flexa user

73% below average is one of the sharpest negative indexes in our entire dataset. This is not parents rejecting structure. Our Talent Insights Report 2026 shows that parents' also over-index on part-time work, compressed hours, and core hours. What parents are actually looking for is consistency. Flexibility that works reliably around the daily realities of having children, not flexibility that is technically on offer but complicated in practice.

The office sits awkwardly against all of that. A fixed location requirement adds commute time on top of school runs, makes childcare logistics harder to manage, and introduces a rigidity that does not map onto the way most families actually operate. The report also shows that parents are 12% less likely to want hybrid working. Unpredictable in-office days can be harder to manage than a fully remote role with clear expectations.

The practical consequence for TA teams is that a blanket office requirement, or the assumption that hybrid automatically works for parents, is quietly screening out a large and experienced part of the workforce before they have even read the rest of the job description.

What to do with this: It’s worth looking at how you are supporting working parents overall. Where location flexibility exists, say so and say it early. And consider going one step further by telling candidates what a realistic working week actually looks like for a parent in your team. That kind of specificity does more than any policy statement.

Members of the LGBTQIA+ community are 38% more likely to choose the not-for-profit mission than the average Flexa user

Your mission is doing more recruitment work than you probably realise

Of all the mission types on Flexa, LGBTQIA+ users are most drawn to not-for-profit. Our Talent Insights Report 2026 gives useful context here. Across the platform, more candidates are choosing purpose over profit as a career driver, particularly as the world feels increasingly politically and socially uncertain. People want their work to mean something. LGBTQIA+ candidates are at the front of that shift, and when you think about it, that makes a lot of sense.

Part of the explanation lies in how LGBTQIA+ people have historically had to approach the job market. Our data consistently shows that LGBTQIA+ candidates place a high value on inclusive work environments, suggesting that for this group, values alignment is not a secondary consideration – it’s a baseline requirement. 

The not-for-profit preference is also worth reading as a values signal more broadly. LGBTQIA+ candidates want to be actively oriented towards making things better through their work. An employer that exists to serve communities or address real-world challenges says something very different about its internal culture than one whose purpose begins and ends with commercial returns. 

What to do with this: If your organisation has a genuine social mission or meaningful community impact, it should be visible and prominent in your recruitment marketing, not buried in an ‘About Us’ page.