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 ?

Ooh, touched a nerve?

It was literally my point that she's treating this thread like her workplace, and many of the posters in it as her underlings (and exposing her poor management skills in the process).

Yes, the attitude here is shocking. Post war generations did have strict hierarchy because they had fought wars where following orders was essential for discipline.

Overtime "follow orders without question" has reduced which is a good thing however if a senior manager asks you to take on a task YOU DO IT.

If you reach senior positions you become aware of the bigger picture which is why junior staff will, at times, have their tasks adjusted.

I can't believe the "I'm off to HR to report for bullying" comments. I now realise why my young adult DC do well in work because they don't have this attitude!

Those that work to rule, are you aware that you are likely to be paid less than your colleagues and you are more likely to be out of a job if redundancies happen??

No.

I wouldn’t expect a team member to push back on time off they had agreed. You should plan better in future. That’s part of management.

Is it really like that though?
Quite often they live with their parents and have lots of disposable income. They are not paid poor wages either.
They don’t have the confidence that hard work will pay off so they don’t even try, is that what you are saying? I don’t think we had this confidence either when starting our careers. It always is a gamble and you have to learn to work and put the effort in without a guaranteed outcome. That is the whole problem I see with that generation’s mindset - they want to know exactly what they are going to get out of each situation and then assess how little effort they put in, always trying to get away with the bare minimum and lowering the bar of that minimum. Obviously not the full generation but I’ve seen plenty of it at the workplace and it is staggering.

Those who are stuck in the 1980s, are you aware that people won't want to work for you?

Do they? So the way you communicate and conduct yourself on MN is an exact replication of how you communicate and conduct yourself in the workplace, is it?

I was daft to think I could have an intelligent conversation on this on MN at 10am on a Saturday. Best get back to my unhappy life.

If you struggle with comprehension and infer things that aren't said then you will struggle to have intelligent conversation on MNs regardless of the day or time. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I agree, let's leave it there.

Then why did he say he was logging off soon?
If he said that at 230 why did you not question it?

No, of course not, but it can indicate aspects of a person's character.

Living with your parents is part of the problem. If you lose your job—no biggie. You won’t get evicted, the lights will stay on, and there will be food in the fridge.

Quite often they live with their parents and have lots of disposable income. They are not paid poor wages either.

@Pancakeorcrepe wages are pretty crap in the UK, they have stagnated for years.

The OP has clarified that the task would not mean the employee had to stay late. As a senior manager, I would expect anybody in my team, whether or not directly managed by me to carry out a 15 minute task if I requested it in these circumstances.

Again, it was an hour and a half BEFORE they were due to leave. During work hours that they were being paid for.

Working in work hours is perfectly normal.

Especially when your manager is not even there and out on annual leave, which he had to have known so he copped out on a lousy excuse.

The person was not asked to stay late, it was a task in their job description, and it was a task from a boss. He had no reason to wiggle out of it, and I'd bet dollars to donuts he wasn't busy at the time.

Where do you suggest people live if there are no (affordable) properties? There's a crazy rented housing shortage where I live, even established families are struggling to find suitable accommodation.

I did one have a Gen Z tell me she had "a hyper sensitivity to feedback" and that it was "triggering to not feel good enough because of her relationship with her mother".

Both can be true at the same time.

1. Housing is too expensive.
2. Living with your parents is part of the problem. If you lose your job—no biggie. You won’t get evicted, the lights will stay on, and there will be food in the fridge.

I’d have asked the person I directly manage to find me someone to do the job, on the basis that I don’t know the workload or schedule of the people they manage and they are better placed to triage the job.

I think you’re in the wrong with this one.

I’m Gen X and I wouldn’t work late if I was due to go on annual leave. Though some of my colleagues would. They call into meetings on holiday and take work on the plane. I used to do that, but no thanks. At most, I might monitor my inbox.

I manage junior staff in their 20s and they are all far more ambitious and hard working than me. They’ll work late and on the weekends. They produce things in like 3 days that would have taken me weeks. So this doesn’t ring true to me at all.

Though no, I wouldn’t do a job for someone in place of my own work my line manager has set for me in the limited time I had before I was off for several days, probably not. It depends on the dynamics in the office though. If I liked and respected the more senior person asking, yes maybe. If I thought they were a jerk, no.

The reason a lot of people still live with their parents is because housing is now so expensive that their wages do no cover the cost to live elsewhere, whether renting or buying.

''@JamieCannister · Today 09:02
Yeah, because there are no stereotypes at all that differentiate (as groups) the kids who grew up with rationing post WW2 and the ones who grew up on iPads 4 hours a day.''

You are being obtuse.

The point was that as a manager you need to be able to successfully manage all type of staff, young or old, difficult or not, and see them as individual.

Making blanket judgement based on someone's age is daft and discriminatory.

Your post for example suggests that older people automatically will struggle with new technologies.

As someone who is 54, trained in web development and still leads digital activities for organisations I take offence at that type of generalisation.

Just like I think it is utterly silly to suggest that en entire generation wherever it is Z, W or triple A is lazy.

No, she's started a mildly controversial thread and some people have taken offense and decided to attack and pick at her, so she's pushed back a bit. None of it is any deeper than that.