To think poor communication skills in the workplace is now acceptable behaviour?

[Hummingbirdyy]

I'm in my late 30s and have worked since I was 16. Im not sure if this is something unique to my workplace however, I've noticed a growing trend in young ppl straight out of uni joining our workplace who have abysmal communication skills.

We have a young person at the moment who has been with us nearly 2 years. They refuse to deal with clients and just does the backend work of a project. We have an informal reception area - ppl knock at the door and we deal with their query. They never get up and answer the door.

They sit in silence the entire time they are there, listen in to our conversations and smile to themselves when it's something funny but don't participate. If they do talk it's very rare and awkward and just about work - one or two sentences. They then go home and send half a dozen emails when they could have just spoken to us about it which would have been quicker instead of going back and forth with emails. If I call their number (work phone) they never answer.

A colleague's DM passed away recently in very sudden and tragic circumstances. It was an extremely difficult time for my colleague and this was no secret. She spoke about it openly. The young person who sits next to her, not once asked how she was doing or even acknowledged it. I only know this as colleague was slightly hurt that they didn't ask as she does try to make an effort with younger colleague.

This type of behaviour has been similar in the 3 of the 5 most recent graduates at work.

Im not asking anyone to make friends at work ( I certainly don't) and be life of the party, chatting away constantly but a certain level of communication with your colleagues, in my mind is expected and it's considered rude to just sit there in silence and especially to pick and choose jobs that require minimal verbal communication.

I'm expecting the usual mn response that noone should have any expectation to speak to anyone at work and that's it's absolutely acceptable to only do work that you're comfortable with.

No it is bloody not.

Sorry for the cranky reply. It is not your fault. I read your post and thought let's play Autism Bingo. Not three posts later. Arghhhh.

Have you tried "Sarah" get the door once shes done it a few times she will probably be fine and it will help her build confidence

My daughter is autistic but is training to be a nurse and demonstrates compassion and care to people. Being autistic doesn’t mean you are rude ambivalent and uncaring.

Clearly? How would you know?

I think you need to approach it from a how can we help our graduates / young employees settle into work, develop confidence and understand the soft skills needed to succeed. You could say you've noticed over the last few years that they seem to lack soft skills, avoid client interactions and cherry pick tasks. Obviously that isn't how things work.

Think about the skills they need, what the person who did well did and then how that gap could be addressed and something implemented to help young employees developthese skills.

To help train these skills, where I work we have a mentor program. Graduates are paired with more senior staff as a mentor. My first one was a bit like you describe. We talked about work, soft skills, how to build rapport and relationships. I was thrilled that 1. he was offered an ongoing role and has excellent feedback from his team mates and internal customers and 2. I got a new graduate on my team and he reached out to him unprompted for coffee and lunches. When I first started mentoring him, he wouldn't have done that.

I interviewed my new graduate and really liked him at the interview. Personable, able to link skills from his work during uni to the role. I haven't been disappointed. He's settled in well and I'm getting very good feedback on his work. I met with him weekly for 3 months to answer any questions he had, work related or career related. Talked to him about what he was doing and how it would give him knowledge and skills for the next step in his 2 year placement with me. I explained that everyone has to do boring thing or things they don't like but there should be some enjoyable stuff as well. He's expected to draft responses eg for policy queries and speak with people who call. I talk to him about my work (I'm a director) so he can see the context of what he is doing and how it progresses with experience. I still do some of the things he does eg policy advice, but at my level it's around really complex or sensitive questions.

So, if I were you, I'd use it as an opportunity to put forward a solution. In my mentoring I would have spoken to my mentees on office politeness eg saying good morning etc. I've got so many of my own examples I can share from my career to demonstrate how people can see and react to things like not saying good morning or not joining in general chats.

Just had to say you sound amazing.

They sound dreadful and immature, a friend of mine says the same thing about their new hires

“A certain level of communication with your colleagues, in my mind is expected”

Some of your examples are a bit over the top imo, not speaking in meetings is absolutely not the same as asking a colleague, who you have no personal friendship with, about how they’re doing after their mother died.

You've generalised your thread when it's clearly very specific to your organisation.

Where I work, anyone who joins has to have attended an interview. We have regular intakes of degree apprenticeship and graduates who are all polite, very communicative and couldn't be more helpful.

This sounds like a nepotism problem not a generational problem.

That's very kind of you. I've invested a huge amount of time in leadership training and development - I focussed on it for six years. Early in my career people were scared of me. I say that now and everyone laughs.

It sounds as though they know they can get away with the minimum as they have been gifted the job and are related to senior management. In my view it isn’t acceptable for people to pick and choose what they do ie not getting up to answer the door. In this scenario I’d be trying to put some kind of rota in place and if they refused I’d be calling them out.

As their manager I’d be managing them, as a colleague, if their lack of work wasn’t addressed I’d be subtly matching it. As regards their lack of office chat I’d just ignore and engage with others.

I think it is a general trend among young people.
they are used to communicating with each other online via social media posts or messaging.

They went through lockdown.

In person communication is dying everywhere- you
can shop online or even in person without having to say a word.

They expect personalised on demand entertainment.

And to be fair to them - in an office environment lots of communication is done via email even between workers who are in the office.

However, as someone who started their working life in an office with manual typewriters and desk phones where the culture was getting rounds of tea, popping out to lunch together and going for after work drinks, it is really depressing.

The young people wear ear buds all day so they are in their own worlds and you feel put off engaging in chat with them.

It is a bit like they are just treating their work place like a desk space (and again to be fair to them, a large
part of their job could be done from home via a computer)

Part of what the workers have to do at where I work is get answers from people - usually via email.
Once a youngster said - “I don’t have their email just their number” So I said “Well call it” and they said “What do I do if they answer?”

Is there a reason you use ‘they’ instead of she or he when talking about one person? I can’t imagine it making that much difference to whether you’re identifiable.

I agree that it sounds like nepotism and the resulting sense of entitlement are a huge part of the problem.

I am much better with typed communication than spoken. I can articulate myself much better when typing and I feel comfortable and confident doing it. Words never quite come out how I want them to.
As a younger person, I often preferred to communicate by way of written words than spoken. I’ve had to really work on my spoken communication and push myself to get more confident with it.

They need to be doing the full job they were hired for, for a start. But they may need to build confidence at this. Don’t you remember your first job? Maybe you were always confident. So many things will feel basic to you and they might need a bit more support.

In 2000 my first job post uni was in an office taking phone calls often from unhinged people, I was nervous about this at first but built confidence after a while.

It is also difficult to come in to a new office and find your place. As a youngster I wouldn’t have wanted to ask a more senior member of the team about their personal lives as it would feel like an overstep and disrespectful.

My bosses are in their mid to late 40s and absolutely terrible at communication. So it’s not just young people. I’ve also through the years worked with experienced staff who would email and wait for a reply to something urgent rather than phone and get an instant answer. Very annoying.

Of course, I don’t know what’s really going on in your workplace, but just another viewpoint.

I am wondering autism too potentially especially after 2 years. My son although 16 is autistic and cannot tolerate any verbal communication or being around people. He would be the same and not go to reception or answer the phone or chat to colleagues and would email instead. But they shouldn't be in this role if this is what they are supposed to do as in customer facing customer phonecalls etc.

I remember when I was 16 and a trainee admin person at my 1st job and I was asked to answer the phone and deal with it. I was so scared when it rang I picked up another phone and pretended to be on a call so I couldn't answer the ringing one 🤣 I got away with it. I also didn't understand what I was doing but at 16 I was too scared to ask for help or more advice. I appreciate your colleagues are slightly older but could be similar and need mentoring

Love this - you are clearly a very experienced director and would had loved you to mentor my 'autistic' son if he worked in your company! 🥰

Isn’t the issue the nepotism rather than the poor communication?

I have known some that do.

To lack empathy and basic manners whether in a workplace or otherwise is pretty rude.

Where is your empathy for these employees? Or does empathy only go one way?

Some people would see this as intrusive.

junior people tend to default to not intrusive

Yeah, the problem here is clearly that your company hire based on who you know, not who is best for the job.

The young people on my team have really good social skills, no different from older team members. And these are developers, so a group that maybe have a bit of a stereotype of not being being so sociable.

I give them a little help on how to deal with other teams, chase people up etc, the kinds of things you can’t really learn until you start working.

They also are good at their jobs and work hard (but have good boundaries on not doing free overtime).

Maybe my company has an exceptional hiring process, but my impression is that Gen Z has an undeserved bad reputation.