To find managing gen z a massive headache

[Managinggenzoclock]

I’m a millennial and I manage a team of people. Some of them are gen z. It may be individual personalities but these are the things winding me up.. please excuse this rant. Is it just me? I manage people from late teens to early 60s. The younger group are by far the hardest work.

• Very interested in career progression and pay (not a bad thing but see below)
• at the same time not being willing to ever (I’m not talking often) work more hours or support a colleague
• not willing to recognise that anyone knows more than them, even those with decades more experience
• resisting hierarchical management structures
• making lots of mistakes (including repeated over and over) but not have the humility of inexperience/ youth which would make this much less annoying
• trying to patronisingly ‘educate’ people on contentious issues in inappropriate ways.

I think maybe I’m being too nice.

Apparently posts on here ARE private. That's why I was wrong to respond in the first instance.

Apologies.

I run a small business and we have a few gen Zs on staff (probs about 1/7 of our workforce). To be honest, every single one of them is hardworking and a team player. No whingers and no trying to teach their grandma to suck eggs! Sounds like we've been very lucky. In our recruitment process we emphasise that as a small biz there is an expectation that everyone, at every level, will muck in, and if that's not for you then this is not the right place. Maybe that puts some people off. I have made offers to couple of young people who then started trying to negotiate salaries above the advertised range (even though we have a salary convo in final interview) - that is a red flag to me and I've just said no, we can't do that, and we've moved on.

They are assholes. Rude entitled assholes.

I'm 35
My eldest is 18 (dss) I love him but asshole! The way him and his mates talk and discuss work issues like they are the boss and can do as they please shocks me. No regard for authority in a work environment at all.

My two 14 year olds are similar in the way they speak.

My 11 yr old and 6 year old however scare me...gen alpha is going to rule the world and handle all of this gen z bullshit 🤣 so let them carry on for now as it will be all resolved when the alphas come of age 🤣🤣

I’m a Gen X - I have two sets of children - millennials and Gen Zs. They all work hard and have realised they need to learn and that the world doesn’t revolve around them but I must admit my youngest Gen Z (13) does use the word “problematic” constantly about anything challenging such as film or literature that isn’t completely in line with her (ooops we can’t say her anymore, it’s problematic) views. I’m hoping she gets a bit more down to earth and flexible as she gets older! There’s a lot of superior judgement on her part presently! 😁

I actually think that's quite a good way of looking at old films, cartoons etc. We can put them in context and continue to take what they still offer, while recognising there are problems within them.

You absolutely can say 'her'. Why do you think you can't?

Ah yes, I have a student trainee at the moment. I have had to be very clear that asking questions is fine. But not a question that she could answer by looking at the timetable I have given her. Or on the school website. Or in the lesson plan. And especially not while I am in the middle of teaching or talking to a parent!

To be fair though, I remember my first boss having to tell me that a fair question was one that was asked once. A follow up question was fine. But not the same because I hadn't bothered to write his answer down...

So maybe some of these are early workplace skills. Did Gen Z work through school / uni in the same way? My first job was at 14, so by the time I was in graduate work a few of my worst sins had been knocked out of me.

Questions are hugely important, of course. But the questioner has to make some effort to answer themselves where possible and pick the right moment. They also need to realise that their manager / mentor has other job responsibilities.

Example annoying questions:

• What time does music finish? (when they have a printed timetable, one is also on the wall and on the shared drive and they have been in the school five weeks already)
• You have asked me to look through some documents and collate any questions I have for you to answer at our meeting. Couldn't you sit with me and we go through them together so I can get my questions answered straight away?

Also any question asked when I am talking to someone else or in the middle of teaching.

The element that worries me most is the total intolerance to listening to views that are different from theirs. Cancelling people. The lack of debate, discussion and learning to see the other side

This is also the part I despair about. Being an adult is also about being able to have conversations and hearing other people’s opinions, not shutting someone down like a toddler having a tantrum and ‘cancelling’ them.

but gen z seem to think they’re entitled to feel permanently happy with everything and the moment something goes ‘wrong’ it’s a mega drama
Oh I agree with this. The amount of teenagers we get come in to hospital saying they’re not happy all the time. No one is happy all the time.

We have had a number of students who cannot handle any form of constructive feedback, if you tell them they’re doing something not quite right then immediately you’re bullying them. Oh and everyone is ‘stressed’.

If I hear the word ‘triggered’ one more time…

I've been seeing that word around a lot since about 2010. It was being used a lot in the SJW world, on tumblr and various blogs. The people using it were largely Gen X, sometimes millennials.

I don’t care who invented it, even my kids bloody say it - usually completely out of context and about stuff there’s no way they’re ‘triggered’ by…

I do think a lot of people are stressed, but feeding into this is that everyone has 'anxiety'. Of course we do, or rather, it's normal to feel anxious about things and it's a response that has kept us alive for millennia. We all feel anxious about all sorts of things. I think a lot of people, and I wouldn't say it was any one generation here, say they have 'anxiety', when they are just a bit anxious about one thing for a relatively short time. I have known of parents requesting that their children aren't asked questions in class because of 'anxiety'.

And 'triggered' is annoying. The same as 'OCD'. People like to bandy around these MH terms and use them incorrectly. But, again, I wouldn't say, from experience, that one particular generation is more prone to it than another.

Something I have noticed that Gen Z do a great deal, is to ask a question, and then, instead of waiting for the answer, start another conversation with someone else in the middle of the answer they were so desperate for.

Thanks for that. I've got to the age where a it of reassurance about my memory is most welcome. I have LPA for very elderly relative with dementia and I think it is making me question anything and everything I do and don't remember. Much as I am a Labour voter I have to say it was a very effective poster, must be as I remember it

Well it’s all over thread titles here, and I wouldn’t say the main crowd is gen Z.

Her overreacting aside why would anyone go into someone else's house and comment on their shelves? My son is 6'3" and I'm a whole foot shorter, he might think my shelves are too low for him but they are right for me.

I know it is pretty irrelevant to the thread but was there some special reason for doing a critique on the height of someone's shelves?

Crying 😆 shelf pride is a thing now apparently!

Gen Xs aren't the grandparents of gen Zs though, nor necessarily even their parents! So the kids getting on better with their grandparents bit makes no sense - boomers are gen Z's grandparents surely!

I'm gen X, my parents are boomers and not young boomers - my dad was born in at the very end of WW2 so technically the silent generation maybe? Anyway if a boomer the very oldest. My youngest sibling is a millential. My kids are technically Alpha generation I think - even my eldest isn't quite old enough (by a year or so) to be gen Z as I understand it.

We didn't have our children especially late - in our 30s.

I am technically old enough to be the mother of a gen Z but not the grandparent unless everyone involved was born to a young teen parent!

The "triggered" thing is just people who spend too much time online on social media in relation to time spent talking to humans face to face.

It's not IME something people actually say aloud in face to face situations.

It's the other end of the spectrum but the same thing as academic or technical language - only used in a specific context and not appropriate (because not audience appropriate/ widely understood) out of that context. Using it face to face suggests an inability to adapt language to the situation (which used to be a criteria for a reasonable KS3 and GCSE "speaking and listening" grade 🤣 ).

Or do people now say face to face that they're "triggered" in other people's experience?

@PorridgewithQuark

It is certainly used in my work context a lot. Mental health.

I did hear my friend the other day saying her daughter “triggers” her and I did raise an eyebrow.

Did you mean to quote me? You seem to be replying to a different post. I haven't suggested that Gen X are the grandparents of Gen Z.

I have definitely heard people say they are 'triggered' by something in a face to face conversation.

They shouldn’t be expected to work over their contracted hours without being paid.

follow your companies performance management policies and if they need to go fired then do it because it’s the only way they will learn.

My mum is gen X (age 53) I am a millennial (age 32) and my DS is gen z (14).