To be utterly fed up of what UK workplace culture has become?

[ExpectationManagementCharm]

I'm a middle manager in a large UK firm. I am not a new manager; and I'm not young, late 30s. I am generally perceived to be at the "laid back"/supportive end of the management spectrum (but I'll fight tooth and nail for one of my team if I think they're being asked unreasonable stuff/being treated unfairly).
However, I'm tearing my hair out at being at the "crunch point" of upper level expectations to get on and deliver stuff vs. how my more junior employees expect to work these days. I'm so exhausted and getting no support from anyone. I can no longer see if it's just my workplace or the norm.

Example1: Junior staff expecting to not dial into team meetings beacuse of trivial reasons - some of which are downright unprofessional (i have my weekly run with a PT booked then- but this is within normal work office hours e.g. 2pm on a Thursday). While my HR policy states that I need to be "flexible" for personal reasons, which means I then need to follow up separately with that person each time. Result - less work for employee, HR is happy, senior management say no problem, more work for me.

Example 2: Junior staff (especially our newly graduated colleagues) expecting to be able to get out of (reasonable) work deadlines by using the word "anxiety" all the time. "I couldn't deliver a client item/I was feeling anxious" (meaning I had to pull an all nighter to get it finished to meet our deadline). I try and escalate to HR - but I need to be "understanding". Result - employee's piss poor performance slides, HR are happy, senior management say no problem (because client delivery didn't suffer), I get to work an all nighter to cover the gap.

These are multiple examples, across lots of team members over the last ~ 5 years, but it's definitely got worse over the last year or so. The concept of "my word is my oath"/reliablility seems to have completely gone out of the window.

Yet my employer's HR team just turn it back on me as a team manager to manage, leading to more work, which means I just have another thing to do.

I'm currently pursuing performance improvement plans with 2 of my team at the moment, whose hiring i was not involved in, and i'm going mad trying to fit in what HR expect (to follow the process) alongside juggling my own actual workload. I'm not just a people manager, yet HR seem to think i have free time to spend doing delicate, intensive people management activity, despite my already crushing workload.

Does anyone else recongnise this or is it time to look for a new employer?

FWIW, i love my team (in general) but the recent piss taking has really taken its toll - I feel like no one at work has my back at all.

I don't think it's all age. My GenXer is a lazy tool who would rather do anything but work and uses every excuse in the book. My Millennial is a workhorse.

It is a non-profit though so I think that's different. It's not working for the sake of the Man, it's for the lovely clients.

I also have a very high expectation. "If we aim for excellence, we will always achieve good" is phrase I use. No cool mum here. But mistakes are worked through with a learning mindset. Lying, laziness and just being shit, not the same.

Not Millennial. Whatever 20-somethings are.

I feel this, there's a huge difference between feeling anxious and nervous about delivering a presentation or speaking to clients as an "expert" and true anxiety / stress.

The ironic thing is if you don't deal with it when it's at the early stages it will develop into full blown anxiety but I think a lot of the younger generation(s) have realised its an easy way to get out of doing things they don't like.

I remember the first time I has to give a presentation for work. It was to 15 managers from one of our clients on a subject I was familiar with theoretically but had had little practical experience and that they had zero knowledge of. It was literally a intro into a topic and no more.

I was bricking it to say the least, barely slept the night before, couldn't eat that morning, was at the toilet god knows how many times, and was sweating buckets. It was meant to last 40 mins with some time for introductions and a Q&A and I'd prepared detailed notes and practiced to make sure it lasted that long.

When it came down to it I blitzed through everything in 25 mins, barely coming up for air, and as were no questions at all so we were all out within 30 mins.

There's no way it was a good presentation but it was over and I'd made it through.

Now I can deliver much more detailed presentations to subject experts, just last week I spoke to 150 people on a subject that most of the audience had been involved in for longer than I've been an adult, without too much worry at all. I still get nervous but not night before ruiningly so.

If my manager had bailed me out of those early presentations I genuinely think I'd have developed a full on phobia that would have put me out a job in the end.

FWIW, no core hours , we are 100% flexible working by default.

Then why can't someone schedule a PT session at 2pm?

If you're this flexible, I'm surprised you can't hire better people who won't take the piss.

Gen Z.

Millennials are late 20s to early 40s now. Are we finally seeing an end to being constantly lambasted as the lazy, stupid, feckless, snowflakey yoof of today who can't afford houses because we spend all our money on avocados? It's been about 15 years, ffs.

For example 1) I would look to move the meeting to a mutually agreed time slot.

Really? You'd inconvenience several people during the standard working day and cause more work for yourself, rather than telling that employee that they need to re-arrange their PT sessions? Why?

Thanks @ReneBumsWombats that's the one!

I recognise alot of this. You need to let them fail. Team meetings during core working hours are mandatory. I have had to become tougher, its not in my nature. But I have had to.

I would micro manage the shit out of them and then do my best to manage them out tbh. The only thing you can do is don’t bail them out when there no cost to you, set out expectations (no smiling, they’ll think you are like their mum if you smile at them). Tell them what good looks like and tell them how they are falling short.

I love gentle parenting, it’s definitely helped me improve as a mother but I feel sometimes theres a generation of kids who were brought up with this technique and their parents forgot about the enforcing boundaries, authoritative parenting bit.

Because the OPs company operates a fully flexible working environment, so it’s not unreasonable for this person to have booked their PT session in for then, and shouldn’t be expected to rearrange

how have posters missed this?

Yes I hear what you’re saying in that I’ve carried ridiculous workloads because it was ‘expected’, but I fear the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Working to dropping point was ridiculous, but ‘boundaries’ can be excuses for entitlement and self absorption. That is also problematic for individuals and does not lead to happiness.

I am late 30s working in HR and recruitment and the entitlement of those in their early 20s is mindboggling.

Straight out of uni and unable to construct a formal email, an expectation of high salaries, high responsibility, and perks from day 1, no emotional intelligence, and generally no idea how to conduct oneself in an office environment.

I don't understand this post. You're a manager. Getting people to do work they don't always want to do is literally your job

I think the anxiety issue is very real and needs to be addressed.

I went from blushing, shaking, high heart-rate mess facilitating to now being the person who gets asked to do two sessions at the conference because I'm so good at it. For that read; I've practiced and now know how.

Many of the things I did early in my career were arse-clenchingly terrifying. Getting through them was how I grew. Actual anxiety, not situational is very different. Young people need to be eased through that, taught that feeling nervous in situations which are new and difficult is normal and good.

I know a few who are 'self-medicating' their anxiety with cannabis which means they are both stoned a lot and making things much worse.

I feel your pain which was the primary reason I stopped being a manager when I changed jobs

If Gen Z youngsters in the team I now work don’t deliver, they know they will have to explain to Senior Management

One Gen Z tried to blame me for something not getting done, pity my admin was top notch and I could show Senior Mangers that they had been asked to do something in plenty of time

For some reason, the Gen Zs in the office know their admin had better be correct if they try to blame me for something not being done

Works for me 👍👍👍

Brutal at times but a strong dose of reality works every time 👍

Dept meetings "our team meeting is on X day every week at X time. Please ensure you block out this time in advance, so that you know when to fit in personal interests"

Play the "anxiety card" too. Whatever they don't do, dont do it yourself and say to your bosses that you were feeling too anxious about it.

This is the culture of the UK now.

Absolutely disgraceful to say can’t come to a meeting 2pm on a weekday as running with PT. These wasters are getting paid to pamper themselves whilst a manager picks their work up, staying all night.

Have you got the option to sidestep into client work only, without responsibilities of managing lazy narcissists?

My db used to work in a similar role. He asked someone to do something for a client. It didn’t get done so my db chased it up, colleague said that he’d get it done by another agreed deadline. Deadline came and went. Not done. Client cross, understandably. Db then tells colleague that the failure to deliver has upset the client and asks why the work wasn’t done. Colleague then tells HR that my db was mean to him . HR gave db a shit performance review as he’d “failed to get on with a colleague”.

well db now works for himself and the clients come directly to him, rather than the company he used to work for. Db has no employees so does the work promised when promised himself. And has a lot more money.

i have my weekly run with a PT booked then- but this is within normal work office hours e.g. 2pm on a Thursday

I cannot believe anyone has the balls to say this! At least lie and say it's a GP appointment or something.

I worked with someone who was regularly late and didn't appreciate being pulled up on it because 'I was only 8 minutes late' (job at a school mind you).

It baffles me how some people have been raised to think certain behaviour is acceptable

Yes and no.

I agree that its good that we've moved past an era where companies feel they "own" employees and that people pay attention to wellbeing at work.

But the output of someone deciding not to do something at short notice because of their "mental health" or "anxiety" is always that someone else with more robust mental health or less anxiety has to pick up that work.

Genuine problems with mental health are serious and need to be addressed seriously and holistically. And if that means leave, or time off for counselling, or more support, so be it. But what they should not mean, is that commitments get dumped at short notice and workload transferred, without proper planning, to people who happen not to be struggling with their mental health.

A good analogy might be a broken leg or chronic back pain. Everyone agrees that these are serious matters which need to be treated. But if someone routinely agrees to attend meetings and then cries off a half an hour's notice all the time with back pain or a broken leg, leaving others to deal with the work, resentment will build up.

For the two examples given (I presume two different members of staff?) what is the usual quality of work they produce like? Is this a work performance issue or an issue of them not prioritising work over anything else they have going on in their lives? Are they working their contracted hours or are they only available a few hours a day to fit around runs/anxiety attacks?

Unfortunately this is the joys of middle management. You have staff you line manage - and are therefore responsible for their workload, mental health at work and any performance issues. But you also have your own workload. The upside is you’re earning more than junior staff. The downside is you have more responsibility.

@ExpectationManagementCharm DH and I are university lecturers and sympathise. Anxiety is automatically pathologised for young people today and it is not helping anyone. Those with genuinely severe and disabling anxiety are struggling to access CAMHS etc, staff and employers are suspicious of it's validity so they struggle to access the adjustments that they are legally entitled too and we have a generation more generally who cannot cope with any discomfort or pressure because they have been led to believe that this is always abnormal and dangerous. Couple that with the rise in SM use and the effects of lockdown and we are headed for disaster

But if some of the staff are taking the biscuit, what options do hr have to backup the manager ?

But this place apparently has no core hours. So on what grounds can this employee be pulled up?