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.

I think the word "trigger" is overused these days and said so once. Immediately I was told that my views were triggering. I had to apologise.

Yes me! The boomers were so big, we just sort of slipped past. We should be running the world now so people should be pretty cross with us.

I actually think my children include me under 'boomer' anyway.

Yep, totally agree with the OP, 100% spot on.

We are facing a total workplace cliff situation where older generation are retiring/ leaving and new gen don't have the skills to replace - nightmare.

New gen, AKA snowflakes have "melt downs" they want high pay salaries before delivering anything at all or proving their worth. A "melt down" i ask you? WTF, just get on with it. They want "career road maps" drawn up for them and God forbid if a snr position asked a grad to make them a cup of tea, majority would complain they shouldn't be doing that. They have no concept that training costs money, that's a given, no concept that time is money and majority cannot work unsupervised. WFH also is also a killer, sorry but most cant be trusted they will mess about if left to own devises.

Appreciate some will say, especially the snowflakes, ohhh thats a big generalisation but its how it is, i would say as high as 75% next to useless and hard work and a total waste of time employing from the younger gen,. - sorry but agree with the OP

I am an 'older' mum. At sports day if my DC got upset about loosing, I explained that not everyone can win, and you just have to get used to loosing sometimes.
I remember 1 dad who was furious his DS didn't get a sticker for taking part. He was shocked when I disagreed with him.

I have some Gen Zs and a couple of them were up themselves, and thought they could do better, so I set them the challenge of prooving that they were right. After a few weeks they lost all enthusiasm for it and so each time they bring it up I just say, that they can continue trying to proove it, or they can continue doing the job the way we've asked them to. The rest of the Gen Zs are good, mature and accept that they don't know everything. I also have 50 year olds who refuse to do part of the jobs. So I'd say it's the person rather than the age. Sounds like you've just got a bad bunch.

Posted too soon.
I thought NK this s attitude underlined some level of entitlement.

*think

It's because they don't know we exist.

Which is the most Gen X thing ever, and always brings me much ironic joy. Our parents didn't know we existed, and now our kids don't either.

Even some of us don't know we exist (see pp upthread)

It's all too perfect for words....😂

Has anyone seen the TikTok with the youngster crying that he had an EIGHT HOUR shift at Starbucks?
Apparently he thinks no one should ever be asked to work that long a day.
The comments are hilarious.

I’m Gen X. I have no problem with gen zers refusing to work unpaid overtime- they’re right about that, and I always back them up. But OMG, the workplace is not a fucking democracy! Of course I want to hear people’s ideas. Of course I’m happy to discuss them and work through the pros and cons. But I’m the one who is accountable for delivery, and that means when I say OK that was a useful discussion, but we’re going to do X, we’re doing X. And when I say we’ve spent too much time on this now and we need to move on, we’re fucking moving on.

And another thing I’ve noticed is distinctly persistent low standards. Crappy, sloppy presentations full of mistakes, and when these are pointed out the attitude is very much, well, they’ll have to accept that because we tried. They can’t expect us to do more than try. Nobody told us it has to be good, or finished by the deadline we agreed. Let’s just tell the director we need to reschedule the meeting at half an hour’s notice, because it turns out we aren’t ready.

I have no idea what "triggering" even means or what good a trigger warning is.

if someone has trauma, surely a title which says "trigger warning: rape" is triggering in itself?

Trigger warnings trigger me!

The above post was @MarshaBradyo ...no idea why it didn't quote.

No they wouldn’t. Everyone hates us.

@hesbeingabitofadick you are gen X it's anyone born 1964-1980 millennials (gen Y) are 1981-1997 and gen Z are 1998-2014 don't know what they are going to call 2015 onwards.
@MarshaBradyo yes me to but then again we are the X-men

Fuck me I hear you. They are so whingy, work-shy and up themselves. Me me me, can't accept any sort of constructive feedback. Boring.

Yabu, only because it's the oldest ones in my team that behave the worst 😆 (not much older than me btw, I'm not being ageist)

People didn't - they got sacked and had to find another one! It didn't always happen immediately, but as soon as a redundancy round came up, you knew full well who would be on the list and knew you'd be on it too if you'd made an error along the way.

Tell me about it.

i can recommend this report to any manager. It’s nhs focused but there’s a really good infographic bit about the different generations and how they have different expectations at work which is relevant to any sector. recipeforworkforceplanning.hee.nhs.uk/Portals/0/HEWM_LinksAndResources/Mind-the-Gap-Report.pdf?ver=9I42ydmg7VlOHIVLzCGm5Q%3d%3d

This is making me laugh too 😂

Although as pp said I bet we’re just filed under boomer which would be irritating.

Forgot being the slacker generation and MTV brain fry. I love Gen X ;

Horrible amounts of ageism too

The irony.

'Scuse me but it's 1996 and onwards. As a 1995 baby I am firmly a millennial! I'm almost 28 and am very out of the loop of current youth culture 😂

I know it's great! We were the original gender benders, punks and all sorts!

We lived our teenage life under almost contestant thread of death - IRA bombings, 3 minute warnings, hide under a table and wait to be wiped out!

We didn't give a fuck then and we certainly don't give a fuck now!!

I am enjoying this thread!
Weirdly reassuring and completely frustrating at the same time.

Yes, people nearing retirement can be horrible to manage.

I work with university students (not sure what generation they would be) but the thing that stands out for me is their lack of resilience. Any hint of stress or a problem or something difficult and they just can't handle it, and aren't willing to try and muddle through.