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'm the same. The sheer number of students who get alternative assessments as it is too stressful to do an exam (provokes their anxiety) is gradually increasing. I have anxiety but I also know when there is a situation where stress is a normal response (i.e. when I am expected to perform and therefore biological stress mechanisms are actually beneficial to my performance) versus when my anxiety is building over various situations and I'm reaching a peak point and about to crash. We warned that this would be the consequence of all these adjustments to assessments - it doesn't help the student find coping mechanisms and so it is going to replicate again and again in future work contexts beyond uni.

This is one of the many reasons I'll never go back into a management role. I don't think the tiny financial incentives are worth the aggro...and I also don't like the way you now seem to have to suck up to senior managers, or the fact that management jobs now consist mainly of staffing issues and teams calls.

When I joined the workforce 30 years or so ago all this nonsensical meaningless paperwork managers now have to do didn't exist; it was maybe an annual appraisal, leave and sickness and payroll records and that was it. Now you seem to need to record every loo break, bowel movement and (unpaid) coffee break.

And as anyone who's ever tried to access those endless, pointless bits of paper for a new job, say, can tell you, nobody apart from a couple of managers looks at them before they get put in the virtual equivalent of File 13.

I genuinely can't remember when HR became simultaneously so zealous and so unsupportive but that's probably when the rot set in.

If someone is requesting specific accommodation for a health condition and/or disability, it is absolutely the job of HR to carry out assessments and work out a reasonable accommodation plan. The key word is reasonable.
If an employee is approaching their manager to say, "I can't do x because of [health issue]" then it's something the manager should forward to you for a proper assessment and accommodation plan. Managers cannot quiz people about confidential medical issues and then make up solutions on the fly.

Absolutely! I am not really sure how one can expect managers to be specialists in their field, team managers and therapist at the same time. HR should offer guidance on how to approach the issue and what accommodations are acceptable from company's policy POV. Not mentioning a very real possibility that the accommodations won't be enough to guarantee the work is done, and tricky legal process will be required to let go such an employee.

My workplace is full of pisstakers but they aren't young people. One is constantly off sick, the usual reasons being that she just wants more free time and it hasn't been possible to reduce her hours as she requested, so she just goes off sick instead. One colleague works 2.5 days a week yet leaves work for the following appointments - car MOT, dentist, vitamin B12 injection, blood test, diabetes check, drs appointment. Apparently, none of these can possibly be booked on the 2.5 days of the week when she isn't at work. Others are constantly off for family related emergencies - literally every few days, looking after grandkids s the parents are ill etc. they are never asked to take unpaid carers leave it is always on full pay. This is not just my current workplace, my last one was as bad if not worse. If one colleague got told off he went off sick for weeks etc. I was a Nurse for 20 years and that was as bad - six months full sick pay and wow did people take the absolute maximum they could. One woman took six months of sick because her partners mum was ill and this stressed her out. unbelievable.

Well, HR are right that it's your job to manage the team, not theirs, but they should be supporting you to do this, and it doesn't sound like that's happening at the moment. I think you need to stop picking up the slack, OP, and starting to actually manage the people who are causing the problem.

Re the first issue with people being unavailable for team meetings - what do their contracts say? Are they supposed to be available during working hours? If so, then make it clear that that's your expectation, and discipline them if they don't stick to it. It sounds like they are taking the piss tbh, unless their contract allows them to do their hours whenever it suits them... in which case, you might have to abandon the idea of a team meeting altogether and explain to your own manager why it won't work.

Re the anxiety? I would be asking what reasonable adjustments are required in order to help them to manage their anxiety while also ensuring that they are able to fulfil the requirements of their roles. If they can't do the work even with reasonable adjustments in place, then I would be notifying your line manager and HR that you need to start a capability process for the individuals concerned.

At the moment, you are essentially masking the problem and making it unimportant to your manager. I would explain that you have been picking up a lot of extra work to cover for your team's inadequacies, that you realise now that you should not have been doing this because of the impact on your own workload and wellbeing, and ask your line manager and HR if they can support you in developing a strategy for addressing the underperformance in your team as the current situation is clearly unsustainable.

There are a lot of pisstakers out there. Sorry you’re getting the brunt of it OP.

I must say (as one of the dreaded gen zs) I have cried quite a bit at work. I seem to have fuck all control over it. It’s a crappily paid high pressure hospitality job though, and I’ve never phoned in sick or skived off or made excuses or any of that.

@ExpectationManagementCharm want to employ me? Or any other teachers? We regularly work very late, weekends, evenings and suck it up. Anyone refusing to do things when they are already allowed flexible hours and wfh is taking the piss. I'm serious. Many teachers work so hard and would surely be good employees for this sort of situation. What area are you in?

No one has to be grateful for a job. They do have to do the job they're paid for, if they're bothered about keeping it.

I agree with this! Obviously not all but of them, I am shocked at the level of 'baby sitting' some of the recent graduates at my work place and my direct reports need.

Attempts to give constructive criticism or guidance are met with tears and/or claims of bullying. Anxiety and stress are buzz words which seem to have our HR team backed into a corner when dealing with absence etc.

I would hate to be micro managed but that's what I have to do to make sure they are getting on with work and meeting deadlines. Entry level admin tasks are treated as though they are being sent into the Hunger Games - absolute drama queens.

We do have/had lots of very sensible and hardworking young people however and older people who are hard work so its not just that age group.

Sorry, OP, just reread your initial post and I see that you're already doing performance improvement plans with some of your team. It is time consuming to do that, no doubt, but hopefully there is an end in sight, in that the staff in question will either start meeting the expectations that you have set for them or be moved on?

Id suggest jamie diamon biography

Ah, another bloody thread dragging gen z and younger people through the mud. Manage your team better, honestly. That colleague is allow to be anxious y’know? Count your lucky stars you’re fortunate enough to not suffer from MH issues. You moaning about them on the internet just shows how little empathy you have and they probably know this. How did it go when you sat them down to talk? Yes there can be piss takers, but it’s tiring to see older gens slagging off others because maybe they don’t devote their entire lives to work! Or maybe they chose to be vocal about their issues, or don’t put up with toxicity in the workplace. Fgs.

I feel like there has been a definite change in the last few years, hastened by the pandemic and now low unemployment figures, for employees to hold more of the upper hand. In the past it felt more like you were lucky to have a job, would need to work hard to be recognised and hopefully promoted and that people understood and took on the necessary responsibility required - an inherent conscientiousness. Now I sometimes feel colleagues do not understand the extent of their responsibilities, the implications of not keep their end up, whilst at the same time no one is forcing them to. Its all very well to say you need to manage your team better but its HR policies that are handicapping that, e.g. if there's all this stuff about wellbeing its difficult to then be really harsh.

To be honest I'm not sure the old way was the best way since people took things too far the other way, too seriously and were taken advantage of. Now people seem to do pretty much what they please and you are reliant on them having an inbuilt conscientiousness and commitment and desire to do a good job. For the average employee that's a better life. But indeed not for their line managers.

Whenever I read about Gen Z employees supposedly taking the piss I just think, I wish I'd had their boundaries, their awareness of work/life balance, their awareness that their employer is not their friend and their vocabulary to articulate their needs at their age. More power to anyone prioritising their mental and physical health in the one life they have to live

I agree, but unfortunately for some it also translates to no resilience, zero work ethic and hugely unrealistic expections

During the final lockdown in early 2021 I had a breakdown at work for the only time in my life.
I think it was a combo of two things:

1. loneliness, due to WFH, living alone, having no family, partner or pets during lockdown.
2. Being asked to lead on a project using a skill completely new to me (SQL) to a deadline for a government department.

I was crippled by anxiety, slow at the work, insomniac. Work sorted out a therapist for me, and I paid for another. I was on antidepressants, having suicidal feelings due to shame.
I never took any extra time off during this period. Didn't go off sick. But my performance was very low, with a big impact on the team. Three weeks after being put on performance management I resigned.
Something like that has never happened to me. I still don't really understand what happened. Was it just poor jobfit, exacerbated by isolation? I did get better at the tasks, yet slow and anxious.
I do know that I made my line manager's job very difficult during that time. I still feel guilty. And I've done low-level jobs since, with the hope I can apply for stuff that plays to my strengths soon.
It was a weird experience and both my manager and I suffered a lot.

This just doesn't hold with my experience of middle management. It's the middle aged men that are the challenge - egos creating poor working relationships that then have to be smoothed over, unable to take advice on board, and lack of big picture wasting lots of time.

By contrast amazing recent grads on the team, bright, hard working, performing better than others! Yes young people do have anxiety - understandable with the pandemic, climate change, cost of living and state of rents (no wonder they need a pay rise!). But with support and flexibility in place I have never seen this impact performance.

Also - HR type tasks are part of management jobs.

Wfh can be so hard. Work should support you and give you sick leave to recover, really hope you feel you can apply for jobs you enjoy again - and get a more supportive employer.

Presumably your company has policy for expected working hours or core hours. Time to put your foot down and underline what these policies are.

As for anxiety, unfortunately there's as lot of that around and people take the piss.....which should trickle down into their annual pay rises and bonuses.

It might have to be gently does it but you need to make the point that this is classed as poor performance and can't continue.

Time to be less laid back and stick a boot up collective bums.

Time to put your big girl pants on & get firm with those individuals who are clearly taking liberties. Who the fuck goes for a run with their PT during contracted hours? That’s a different world to me. If I were that person’s boss I’d be coming down on them like a ton of bricks, sorry.

You don’t have to turn into a megalomaniac to get results here. But you do need to start using your authority to draw lines in the sand. You, as the manager should absolutely not be picking up work which should have been done by them. No way. Push those deadlines & expectations back, and be clear about when you expect it in by. No more accommodating their laziness. Their behaviour is entitled & quite frankly, unsustainable.

But we've allowed this to happened, no-one is ever fed-up, pissed off, hungover these days, they claim MH 'issues' and the world rolls over to appease them About 30 years ago I recall the start of the Autumn term, after a 6+ week break, a colleague didn't return, she was off with stress until, after half term.

I'm also middle management and I can relate to this. Got one team member on informal performance management atm. Carefully treading the line between wellbeing and trying to get improvements in performance is exhausting, and ends up with my wellbeing being impacted, or the rest of the team having to absorb the extra work. HR line is that we need to make workplace adjustments to support good wellbeing and then we will see performance improvements. At some point it is just taking the piss though. I have had no support from HR for starting formal performance management.

Either your policies are ridiculous or you're using them wrong. Flexibility for personal reasons means allowing staff to go to sports day/take their mum to the doctor, it doens mean regular PT commitments.

An employer can and should recognise anxiety as an illness and be supportive but ulitimately if any illness makes a staffemebr unfot for their job, the sickness management policy needs to deal with that.

It's not millennial who are doing this! I'm a millennial (just) and am in my early 40s, have been in senior positions at work for 10+ years now. It's gen z you're referring to.

@TomTraubertsBlues I'm Gen Z and not like this either but I've worked with people at all life stages who are. I don't think it's an age thing, but an attitude/personality type thing.

Whenever I read about Gen Z employees supposedly taking the piss I just think, I wish I'd had their boundaries, their awareness of work/life balance, their awareness that their employer is not their friend and their vocabulary to articulate their needs at their age. More power to anyone prioritising their mental and physical health in the one life they have to live

That’s fine as long as you’re not jeopardising other people’s mental or physical health. If everyone “prioritises their mental and physical health” at will without considering the impact on others it would mean there was no one available to do any of the work.