Managing Gen Z

[Amy8]

I’m an experienced senior manager who took some time out to work as a consultant – partly to avoid exactly these kinds of situations!

Something happened last week that’s made me question my management style, which I’ve always thought was fair. The CEO asked me (quite urgently) to get something done. I was in a meeting, so I asked a junior team member to help out. It would’ve been easier to just do it myself, but I genuinely needed the support.

He replied that he needed to check with his line manager first because it wasn’t in his work plan (I manage his manager), and then added that he was logging off shortly for a long weekend which had been pre-agreed.

I stayed polite on Teams and explained that sometimes we have to be reactive to senior requests — but honestly, inside I was thinking, just do it! At his age, I’d have just cracked on.

It’s not the first time I’ve had this kind of pushback — others in the team (same age group) have also been quite firm about working from home and not wanting to come in when asked.

I’m genuinely wondering: is this just how the workplace is now — a generational shift and new boundaries — or is it a bit of a disregard for authority and should I be adapting better ?

@DogPawsMudFur why do you think poor productivity is a new thing though?

Seriously I wrote all that and that’s all you’ve got to say? It’s not even the point of the discussion.

I didn’t say you were ungrateful outright, you made a snide comment about not wanting your children to be in the military so I retorted that you can be grateful they have a choice because other people are willing to join. As a military spouse and parent (to be- child wants to join) you get really sick at the superior digs and judgement of choosing it as a career (especially on MN where it is rife), yes I am chippy about it. We’ve made a lot of sacrifices as a family and honestly it wears you down some of the things you read. (And is why it is so frustrating when people are joining up and making the job even harder to bring it back to the point).

@rzm Why are you inferring things I didn't say? I think we treat the military badly which is what I said & that's why I wouldn't want myself or my dc to do it. How is that snide? I'm sorry you aren't happy with your life but don't take it out on me & accuse me of things I haven't said.

hit a nerve

I know you’re not senior by that response and have no decision making prowess that really contribute to anything of that importance - because seniority caries responsibility and getting things done , for me - for patients and those in most need

In this particular situation....yeah that's frustrating.

But generally speaking, as a line manager, at my company all requests outside of the normal day to day would be cascaded through the SLT, to me and then I'd choose which member of my team to go to for support on it. Even direct requests from clients would go to me/my colleagues and then we'd take it from there, they'd not go to our team directly.

Reasons:

We know, as team leaders, who's skill set suits tasks better. For example:
Richard has 30 years experience of the role, but is awful with tech. Whereas Nigel has 3 years experience but can build a database like a demon....so I'd go to Nigel for that but ask Richard to do an hour session with a new starter to download knowledge.

Demands on time: we know who is scheduled leave/needs to do a quiet leave early that we're not advertising to anyone else /who already has pressures elsewhere that even a fifteen minute decistion from could be too much

Development opportunities
Ego management

Etc etc etc

Just like my boss would be pissed off if her boss came directly to one of us on the team, for the same reasons as above. My boss prefers to lean on me over anyone else on my level, not because I'm better...but because I always have the tools needed with me, I have clearly stated I'm looking for progression, im doing a training course which needs me to have more exposure to things, so it supports her in developing me...whereas if Nick was asked...nick just wants to do his day job and go home...

It's all nuanced.

If it was genuinely a 15 min task (and I had the 15 minutes before leaving) then yes, I’d have done it and not mentioned the line manager. But I’m a LOT older.

As PP’s have said, though, my willingness to be flexible hasn’t translated into any sort of meaningful recognition over the years. And I’ve seen a lot of senior managers who’re very prepared to take credit for work they’ve not done. I take pains to recognise contributions from others.

Some of all generations have wanted CEO pay while doing minimum wage worthy work, then complain(ed) why they weren't being given raises after performance reviews. It's pretty easy to figure out that if you do the minimum work, you aren't going to skyrocket your salary to high double/triple digits. That is fine if the person is happy that way, but many want to do the minimum then complain they can't buy a house or do any of the other things people with a higher wage do.

I think your request is reasonable and would be pretty usual in my organisation - my team has quite a few Gen Z staff who would have no issue doing what you asked (although would say if they needed to leave - which I think is something a lot of people could learn from)

I wonder whether you could have pre-empted any push back by explicitly saying “please drop whatever else you are doing and I’ll clear it with your line manager when they’re back”, but I think the request itself was fine.

Why would you slate an entire generation for the actions of one person? I hate this so, so much.

This is actually a conversation I was having with DH. Last week, he had one day of holiday booked off to go out to spend the day with, and go out to lunch with, our teens during half term. Shit hit the fan at work and his CEO told him to cancel his AL and come into the office to put out the fire. Since DH didn’t have anything booked (like Taylor Swift tickets, etc), he went in. DH said that the Millennials or Gen Zs in his office would never do this. As far as I can tell, in 20 years, when Gen X are out of the workforce, one of three things will happen:

1. People in C-Suite roles will say no to working over lunch/on holiday/more than 37 hrs per week, etc. Their output will be less, as the hours people work in those roles now is a lot.
2. There will be some who finally accept the level of work required and do it for the money and career progression (although the pool of candidates willing to do this will be smaller than it is today).
3. Nobody will want to rise to the top, and these roles will remain vacant.

DH thinks the outcome will be #3, especially once RR releases her new budget later this month. “It’s not worth it—the benefits after taxation don’t make it worth my time” might be the mantra.

See now, you're attacking again.

YANBU.

GenZ are weird. I sadly had a colleague who didn't pass her probation, mostly due to get attitude to work.

I also manage a GenZ and had to extend his probation. They're just different

There will be some who finally accept the level of work required and do it for the money and career progression (although the pool of candidates willing to do this will be smaller than it is today).

Because the money isn't so good and the workload is larger?

What happens in my business area is other managers at my level try to delegate work to my subordinates (of varying ages from gen z and older gens). My role is to be in charge of our team’s workload and by sneaking in extra work here and there, I don’t have the full picture of my team’s workload and when an urgent task comes in via the proper channels, the last thing I need is one of my staff being held up by some other workload that I had no prior knowledge. So it comes in via me full stop.

I also recently had someone senior above me but in another business area try to hand over work. I spoke to my boss and said I am not doing this request unless he wants to find someone else to do my role for everything else, as it would take hours, maybe days, to complete the (useless) task that wasn’t a directive from my business area. My boss backed me up. The sky didn’t fall in my head. I was happy I had the guts to say no.

I read several things from your post. First is the title, which is inflammatory. I don't know if this is deliberate, but you are tarring an entire generation, in several age brackets, with the same brush.

The second thing I noticed is your insistence on adhering to "hierarchy" and "just getting on" with things you have been told to do by a senior member of staff. I find this argument just as uncompelling as your first.

Finally, I notice you keep changing the parameters of the situation. First, this staff member wants to run it by their direct manager, which you say if on leave, which, if true, would have been known by this staff member. So either this staff member was lying about checking with his direct manager, or you were lying about the manager being on leave.

You later claim that this task would have taken no more than 15 minutes and would not have cut into agreed leave time, but you can't be certain about that. You don't know what other tasks you staff member still needed to finish before his leave. You then claim that this task has priority. I don't know on what basis you claim that or how this staff member could have verified this and you again make a claim to authority and that he should just have done it.

Throughout this thread you have also been quite defensive.

All in all, you are not helping your case.

I would side with the staff member and an adherence to their boundaries, which from the entire situation you describe seem more than justified. I also suspect that your relationship with this staff member is not that great. You might want to work on that rather than throw your weight around and just tell people what they need to do for you at a moment's notice, because people don't take kindly to that.

They're not different based on the examples you used.

Like I said in my workplace it's the older generation who do a lot of pushing back on "not in my job spec" & our departments have all noticeably shrunk over the years despite the growing workload as newer entrants are expected to do more for less.

Stop assuming who is replying, just because they don't share your view.

I like working with different generations and love that gen Z know boundaries and how to set to them. Good on them, having spent decades working with toxic management and I look forward to this new generation.

They're not different based on the examples you used.

Perhaps @JamieCannister meant one is far more adept with technology

No, your attitude isn't acceptable.

It sounds like a failure of communication TBH. If it was really just a short 15 min task that could be completed before the end of the day, did you make that clear? Was it urgent? I would expect someone to be able to pick up a short urgent task with little quibbling, however I do admire his abilty to manage up and set boundaries. Firstly it is good he protects his pre planned time off and secondly it is simple good practice to check with your actual line manager before your take on new work or projects.

I have a colleague at the moment who always drops everything in favour of senior managament requests and it causes a lot of issues and resentment. My approach to your request would be to outline the time I have available, when I could reasonably produce the work and check if it was very urgent.

That said I am not sure why a senior HOD is speakig directly to a very junior member of staff (who is not their PA or admin assistant) and asking them do to short basic tasks for them.

£200k+?

Now who’s inferring things, I love my life, the military has opened a lot of doors for us and it’s why we’ve chosen as a family to stick at it. To bring it back to the point the job has massively changed over the last 20 years and I think generational changes has impacted that, that’s what I was wanting to discuss, not whether you would be happy for your kids to join up or not- but I apologise if I took the comment the wrong way, as I say, I’m chippy about it!

I’m assuming your point is that it’s an unpleasant working environment and perhaps that’s why people aren’t doing their job very well in it anymore, I certainly agree it’s a factor, but I think modern day expectations has added to that. The military lifestyle is no secret, why are people joining and not doing the fundamentals of the job. Would you join the medical sector if you didn’t like blood or childcare if you don’t like children?

I just think the generational aspect is interesting in a military context as it is so reliant on authority and hierarchy, and it’s really changing as society and younger generations push back on authority in the way we are seeing.

Are you on a wind up?