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 manage a really very sweet and humble one but have to say she does make a frustrating number of mistakes and just seems to never learn, no matter how often shown. Also doesn't take notes and has a habit of just asking without even attempting to do pretty basic things first. Basically likes being spoon-fed.

Generation changes represent different cultural changes, usually connected with technological change or significant world events. They are real, and there are marked attitude differences.

The edges of generations are not set exactly. They are fuzzy.

Some people at the edge of Gen X and Gen Y (Millenials) form a microgeneration called the Xennials. They contain characteristics for both. The defining quality is analogue technology in youth. Xennials are described as having had an analog childhood and a digital young adulthood. So whether you fall into this group depends a lot on when your family adopted the new technology of the internet. DH and I are technically in different generations but definitely both fall into the Xennial bracket.

What we find interesting is neither of us fit with our own generation. Older Gen X has so much less idea about social media whereas Younger Gen Y have no idea about the social cohesion that the analogue era had due to everyone watching the same TV.

There are also microgenerations between the other generations but Xennials are the best known/commented on.

'Generation Jones' are people born on the cusp of Boomers and Gen X (roughly between 1954 and 1965).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones
'Snapchat Generation' or ' Zillennials' are people born on the cusp of Millenials and Gen Z (roughly between 1993–1998)

Microgenerations are thought to bring a mediating ability to the workplace as they are thought to be useful assets to bridge the communication gap between different generational cultures.
For more on micro-gens look here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusper#Millennials/Generation_Z

I find it fascinating, because its had quite an impact on DH and I. We have friends the same age as us who aren't cuspers and are firmly in the main bracket of their own gen and its definitely to do with the technology change. My best school friend is Gen X whilst a lot of DH's uni mates are firmly Millenials. We are neither and do definitely do the bridging thing.

Good on them. I’m a millennial but lean more towards gen Z in my views and the way I conduct my life. I’ve never worked unpaid overtime, I work the hours I’m contracted to because that’s what I’m paid for and my life is about more than work. It hasn’t hindered my career. I challenge things I don’t think are working because a lot of workplaces are stuck in their ways just because they’re scared of innovation, and aren’t as efficient as they could be. Employers also should be offering more flexibility and higher wages across the board - the cost of living far outstrips wages in the main and people should absolutely fight and negotiate where they can. Employers need to realise they need employees as much as employees need them and stop expecting people to unquestioningly sacrifice themselves at the altar of work.

I remember going on a course on how to manage millennials as they were perceived as a 'challenge"'.

See I think this deferential attitude is largely nonsense and actually quite damaging, and people could learn a lot from gen Z. Innovation and speaking up should be rewarded, not mindless grovelling to authority.

😂

You forgot ‘raise your standards’

The arrogance of youth is nothing new. 😁

I'm gen x and I'd say that about younger millennials.
Compared to how I felt when I was young they seem to have no humility and be much, much more confident. Is it just perception?

I disagree on point 2, nobody should have to do overtime.

Meh..I recall is all having special training to help us recruit and employ millennials back in the day. (Big City bank). There was a huge amount of concern in the corporate world about how we would ever integrate the crazy youngsters. Now they are just like the rest of us. I think this is generational to some extent, although some youngsters genuinely are appropriating MH in a really improper way. I know people with real MH problems (along the lines of lifelong medication and electric shock therapy). They need time off work every so often for good reason. For a lot of kids they seem to lack resilience and they do need to get out of bed and go to work. We’ve been running an uncontrolled human experiment with regard to social media and no one knows the damage that may have accrued.

*us all

I’m the tail end of Gen x (so almost into millennials) they coined a word for this but not sure what…anyway, it’s the best one.

I kind of agree. I think these are generalisations, but I’ve worked for some Gen X managers in my time who frankly could have done with a bit of shaking up. I’m an early (i.e. older end) Millennial.

I’ve always spoken up against inefficiency and incompetency, and I don’t think it’s entitled when people call things out - it’s a breath of fresh air.

at the same time not being willing to ever (I’m not talking often) work more hours or support a colleague

Not being willing to work for free or do someone else's work for them? Sounds like they've got their heads screwed on.

If only millennial bosses realised people have lives outside work.

This 💯

Yep. This sounds like gen Z. They're the same in my workplace.

Wasn’t there a film called Slackers? Am pretty sure it was a Gen X one.

I think we need to drop the labels.

My 26 yr old on gets frustrated with the 50+ folk in his office who can't conceive of doing things differently.
Printing out emails and the like.
New systems being roundly rejected. (It is his job to introduce new things, he's not randomly telling them they are doing it wrong!).

It amuses me because for a 26yr old, he's very set in his ways too!

I had two generation Y DC's then 18 years later a general Z. All three of them had to get weekend, holiday work from age 16 and all the way through university.

I'm a bit baffled when other parents said their children had to concentrate on studies so couldn't possibly get jobs yet handed over big allowances every month.

Working in hotels, pubs, on farms gave mine a good idea of how money needs to be budgeted. Being in junior positions learning from experienced adults was good for them.

It's down to parents to gift this invaluable knowledge it's really not the childs fault

I'm a baby boomer. My parents were horrified by my teenage self. Clothes, music, morals all fell way below their expectations

😂

(Although you can’t ‘become’ a boomer. Unless you have a time machine and can change your year of birth?)

My DD (32) is a head of dept in a High School and deals with trainee and newly qualified teachers, she says not a day goes by without tears and inability to cope with the slightest criticism 🙄 How do they expect to control gobby teenagers if my 5ft 2 DD terrifies them?

I was massively exploited when I was in my early 20s working until 9 most days, 11 at worst. When I see younger colleagues getting up and going at 5 I think good for them. They are still going to progress because that is just how corporate life works, particularly in the current market with so many vacancies. And the arrogance of youth is universal and I was certainly guilty of it and I'm sure most of us on this thread were the same.

Gen Z so at very push 27 but down to 12 mostly teens and early 20s.

Thats not 'Gen Z' issue its just general teenager/young adult mentality... teens in the 60s/70s/80s/90s/00s/10s where equally as stubborn lazy authority challenging know it alls, its just we have grown since then.

Xennial. It's a microgeneration, generally accepted to be 1975 to 1985. Said to have an analogue childhood and digital adulthood. Doesn't quite fit the typical experiences of Gen X or Millennial.

Some of the nastiest abusers I ever knew where tiny like 5 foot and 7 stone girls and some of the sweetest people where 6 foot 300 pound tattooed skin head men... being 5 foot 2 and a woman doesnt mean you cant be a bully and scare people.

I had two colleagues like this in a previous job.

We all theoretically worked 24/7/365 variable shifts (including four sleep-in-on calls each per month- making 20 hours at work, with 8 hours full on, six when we could sleep if there were no emergencies but on site, then another 6 hour early shift) in a small team.

Two team members decided that they couldn't do the sleep in on call shifts, nor any weekend shifts, due to their mental health.

Of the six people left taking the slack one was a carer for her sister with terminal cancer who lived with her, one was over 60 and struggling with her physical health especially circulatory issues, I was the only one juggling the job with school aged children over the first hard lockdown when my dyslexic youngest especially needed significant support - the other three also doubtless had their struggles but we were all told (by our manager- the only person able to work from home, whom we didn't see except on a zoom screen for six solid months, and who spent every zoom meeting telling us how stressed he was by the pandemic) to "pull together and support" the two who felt it would be better for their mental health if they only worked Monday to Friday daytime shifts...

Nobody acknowledged the burden of extra antisocial hours shifts and time away from our other responsibilities this put on the rest of us.

I left, my oldest colleague said to everyone regularly that she'd leave if she wasn't so close to retirement, and another colleague was signed off sick for six weeks just after I left.

We all liked our colleagues but they had absolute blinkers about the hypocrisy of driving the rest of the small, close team to breaking point.