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.

@PipinwasAuntieMabelsdog

This is absolutely spot on. The "pathologisation" is absolutely right. It's not about genuine mental health problems its about the idea that self-diagnosed "anxiety" (which should properly be described as "stress" or "having a hard day") is a valid reason to sign yourself off life and commitments at the drop of a hat, and if it inconveniences others, bugger them. Me and my "anxiety" always come first.

DH works alongside Gen Z employees. 80% of them have anxiety which prevents them from receiving deliveries outside because it's dark, being alone on shift because they feel lonely, working long hours. The list goes on. There is zero resilience in this generation and I've no idea why this is.

You're getting a hard time OP. Your team knows that your upper management won't back you up. That's why your team is taking this pass.

Book a meeting with your HR. Did you say that you tried to address the flake who caused your all-nighter, but HR didn't back you up? That's outrageous. Tell them that those conditions are untenable for you. You can't manage a team if there are never any consequences.

How are they taking the piss

the workplace has flexible working policies, they are merely using them as most would

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.

Who else did you think would be doing this?

I suppose OP thought the employees would be doing their own work, rather than her having to babysit them.

I have a new team member, in her late 20's. Her interview was impressive. However, three months in ignores important emails and constantly looks at her phone. I've pulled her on phone usage (Oh a friend's boyfriend blah, blah). Quite happy to take lunch, has become embroiled in gossip, jumped at the chance to join the works ball. Don't get me started on her slack appearance.
Now she wishes to work from home.🤔
Anyway, the countdown has begun, I'm upping her workload, and I expect her to manage, if she doesn't do it and continues her phone usage she is in the exit lounge. We seem to be struggling with recruiting, everyone seems to think work is a fucking jolly social event, fashion show, or whining about some medical problem, etc.

You’re struggling to recruit and don’t seem to see the correlation between your outdated views on work?

The OP said her direct report missed an important deliverable, resulting in a late night for OP. Nothing to do with flexible working.

That's the thing with some these days, and in the future it's understandable why some companies will prefer automation.

This is the result of opening up about mental health. As a society, we've bought into the idea that we're all mentally ill.
All that happened is the creation of a generation and more of mentally unwell hypochondriacs.

I’m sorry you are having such a stressful time OP. I completely empathise with feeling that all the pressure is being piled onto you and others are letting you down.

For those recommending to let under performing people fail, how would you go about this?

I have had a similar situation myself where senior management are not helping me in an individual’s performance issues because I’m doing overtime to fix things. Letting them fail would certainly get management’s attention. But I can’t help feeling that someone in my team fucking up completely will also reflect badly on me.

(Of course, I’ve logged the many times I’ve explained how to do the task, checked in on the work etc - but a livid senior manager hardly has time to listen to this in the heat of the moment when they’ve been let down.)

Genuine question! Would really appreciate the guidance.

Hello, “HR” here. You are the manager, so are responsible for people management. Just to note we are often not “happy” as you put it, quite the opposite - but unfortunately when someone starts talking about anxiety and mental health issues, this can often be the start of litigation if not handled properly. That will involve you on the stand at a tribunal, not us.
Whilst I understand it is frustrating and cause a lot of work as a manager, there is a duty of care to employees that must be followed. We don’t get to make up the rules.
I do actually agree with you that younger employees expect a lot these days, and there is no reason why someone with anxiety who isn’t delivering cannot be performance managed provided this is done in the right way. Sorry if your particular HR team aren’t advising you properly on that, I would recommend treating them like human beings (which managers often don’t) and pushing for their guidance and support.

So even if you know they may be taking the biscuit, from legal, you need to cover your honey, so to speak, ?

If people are unable to do their jobs because of anxiety you need to support them better. Arrange daily 1-1s, send them to occupational health, make them take time off, take the challenging/interesting bits of their jobs away from them. It also sounds like you need to read them the riot act/have an assertive discussion about what is appropriate and what is not - No core hours does not mean you can miss client meetings, having anxiety means you need to be signed off sick until you are well enough to do your job. It sounds like you, and a number of the team need to pull your boots up to ensure that everyone is clear about expectations.

It’s a complete nightmare. My management style has always worked well. High staff retention in an organisation with a high level of churn. Good productivity. Good feedback from my team and management. Until - gen z. The sick days, the anxiety, the flex working requests for the maddest stuff, the diversity agenda that is completely unneeded as we already support a diverse and vulnerable group. Applying for pay rises and promotions after a few months in the job. Just hired a new team member and she’s in her 40’s, I was so wary looking at applications of anyone young which really wasn’t how I hired five years ago.

Is it because it difficult to hire that employers do sooo much to keep 'new hires ' happy.
I have noticed lots behavior like mentioned in this post. Most them working from home so don't have same connection with colleagues so not big deal if someone picking up your slack. Can just leave jobs start new job with minimal disruption.
A junior member of team got new pet recently now missing calles, sorry won't get that finished today ECT as the pet has needs. Pet being described as 'emotional support' so guess that means its needs get priority over getting work done.
I am trying to step away from mentoring & training new members as too difficult working around all the other important stuff they have going on they have very little time to actually work

I swear - it was 5 minutes ago people were just slagging off Millennials for being lazy, not working their way up, expecting top dollar, etc. Lets not forgot "Snowflakes"

Lovely to see Millennials now handing it down to the next Generation.

Step up and do your job properly OP - trying to hand off things to HR just makes you look like the lazy one.

People's attitude to work has completely changed and the government kind of facilitated this with the lockdowns. Work now for a lot people is just to get paid it's not a core part of their identity. They realise their employer doesn't really care about them if they died they would be replaced. I'm not sure how employers are going to put the genie back in the bottle.

Outdated views on work?…. You get paid to do a job and meet deadlines. Younger workers need to grow up and realise this.
Flexible working doesn’t mean working when you feel like it. You still need to meet your targets/deadlines etc. In many businesses the deadlines are determined by the needs of the client. The client is the one paying the wages. So you always do what you can to keep them happy.

I feel you. Am in exactly the same position

I had similar issues at a previous employer. Staff taking the piss, organisation saying 'be nice', flexible working, COVID, even paying people full pay to sit at home whilst others (me) tried to pick up the slack.
Management chain and HR were useless; advising against performance plans whilst also accepting voluntary redundancy requests from the good people in the team despite knowing they were leaving anyway.

It didn't get better, I stuck it out until the next redundancy round then left with a payout. It was a soul destroying 18 months though and left me quite bitter. I'm very wary of people management roles now unless I have real control.

There is zero resilience in this generation and I've no idea why this is.

Even though I despair at the entitlement I don’t blame Gen Z themselves. On the one hand, they’ve been told by parents (whose own parents may have been too harsh but also parents today are judged and lambasted for letting kids walk to school on their own etc), by schools, by governments, by corporations and businesses, by multi billion pound advertising campaigns selling them products they don’t need that they’re special.

On the other hand, they’ve had relentless messaging on social media about other’s perfect lives, or algorithms showing them grossly exaggerated claims about how awful the world, edgy misery bios and lit, misery films and music, endless bloody Netflix series on teen suicide, murder, and abuse or serial killer hotels, misery postings, rampant misogyny, along with relentless realistic messaging about the earth going up in flames. Topped off, in the UK, by an insane market driven school exam system and employers wanting graduates to have a first, have done multiple internships, lead university societies, done volunteering and start their own businesses as proof of being worthy for employment.

It is no surprise that they’re both anxious and entitled. We might despair but they are products of their upbringing and society that we have created. Much of the tech/social media anxiety is a deliberate project by men (and I firmly believe it’s mostly men) making obscene amounts of money in our late capitalist look at me societies.

No people don't feel loyalty to their employer, you are going to struggle to recruit because people no longer feel grateful just to have a job. They don't think they should walk over coals for the client. I've never felt like this I'm a HCP so I do my job for my patients. I can imagine working in a purely office based role to generate profit for someone must be quite shit sometimes..

We have a similar challenge in our company (and in fact whole industry), not helped by the fact that there are very 'good' (as in attractive) graduate training programmes that teach people about doing the job in a technical sense, but also talk a lot about their personal development and motivation, without placing much focus on professionalism and meeting responsibilities and expectations, behaviours and so on. A lot seem to come out of these schemes with the idea that work is some kind of extended 'band camp' or placement, where they get to play at doing a job, but only the good bits, and only until they get fed up then they will ask to do something 'more fulfilling'. But the whole time, they of course want to earn chunky salaries and be respected and listened to as if they had deep experience and expertise (I'm not saying their opinions are not valuable, they can be, but not as valuable as they often expect them to be!). It's frustrating.

We are trying to do more as a company to stick to performance management routes, be clear about expectations, be clear about career progression (what will accelerate it and what will hinder it), and also to expect that any health issues, mental or physical, are dealt with appropriately which includes best efforts to manage them effectively on the part of the employee, alongside adaptations from the company where relevant. We would now absolutely go through capability procedures if somebody's self-diagnosed anxiety led to them repeatedly failing to deliver important work with little notice.

I think it's taken about a year for the company to get to a place where we are prepared to be more robust about expectations.