Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, the scientific journal of the Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic

This article addresses the pressing issue of attracting Generation Z to the agriculture sector in the Czech Republic, a vital issue given its crucial role in ensuring food security and sustainability. During demographic changes and declining interest from younger generations to work in agriculture, it is essential to understand and meet the specific needs of this generation. This article examines the alignment between advertised employee benefits and the preferences of Generation Z, offers a new employee benefits categorization, and highlights possible interventions to increase the attractiveness of the agricultural sector in the labor market. Based on a literature review, quantitative content analysis of job advertisements, and a questionnaire survey, the research aims to evaluate the current offers of employee benefits in the agricultural sector in the Czech Republic in terms of their attractiveness and how they are perceived by Generation Z before then categorizing these employee benefits. The results show that benefits from the “Holiday and times off” category have the highest value for Generation Z and that, on the contrary, they value benefits from the “Benefits for work–life balance” category the least. A total of seven categories of employee benefits have been newly identified.

The paper discusses the concept of social responsibility of higher educational institutions (HEI). The concept of corporate social responsibility was initially created for the commercial sector. With changes occurring in the external environment, this concept is now also being introduced in other areas, e.g. in HEI. The paper describes the qualitative part of research on the application of the concept of social responsibility within public HEI in the Czech Republic. Through the method of focus groups the article chases up the knowledge and relationship to problems of social responsibility of universities between two important groups of interest - current and potential students – and students´ requirements on universities.

Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, the scientific journal of the Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic

Questionnaire surveys measuring job satisfaction at the workplace are relatively very popular and widely used methods in most organizations. Experienced methods that are still used for the current working generations may not be so effective for the upcoming Generation Z. This generation is impatient, distracted, easily lose focus and patience, and dependent on digital technologies. The main goal of the article is therefore to identify the possibility of shortening the Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ), based on the use of subareas of self-determination theory (SDT) for the needs of generation Z. Furthermore, a comparison of whether filling in both versions of the questionnaire (standard and shortened according to the SDT) will have the same indicative value. The research is based on a quantitative questionnaire survey (n=395) and a statistical evaluation of the data. The quality of the questionnaires was verified by Cronbach's α and Confirmatory factor analysis. Both versions of the questionnaires were then compared at the level of sub-parts (autonomy, competence, relatedness) by comparing the average values of the recorded answers by Wilcoxon rank. The results indicate that the WDQ can be shortened in the areas of autonomy and competence, while in area relatedness this possibility has not been proven.