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 ?

If you don't go the extra mile fine = you also won't get the best bits of that job, that career,

If this employee had said sure! happy to help -and bounced off to do it - OP would have remembered when she had a more interesting opportunity

I see this all the time in my industry (and to be fair its always been the case) there will be some young people who sit being dismissive of boring stuff and waiting to be given interesting stuff.

If you do everything asked of you and more, and then suggest all the great stuff you also want to do - everyone will want to help you.

I'm 1st year GenX and I think the OP is BU. It's odd that people are berating the junior for not doing what his boss asked him to do when the OP tried to do the exact same thing. She was asked by HER boss to do a task and she only did it because she couldn't get anyone else to do her job for her. As PP said a simple "just a minute and I'll get that data up for you" would have done the job (although ideally she should have anticipated that data would have been needed and got it before the meeting as it was apparently "important"),but instead she expected one of her "subordinates" to drop what he was doing immediately and get on with it, with no thought as to how it would impact what he was doing. I doubt very much that this is the 1st time this has happened (given the OP's tone on here), and maybe the junior employee had had enough.

Massive drip feed that it was a 15 min task.

Yes, he was a tit not to just crack on and help if this was clear.

But in the case "I will not do my job in my work hours unless told to by my boss who is on holiday" is lazy and entitled and the request doesn't involve OP breaching any reasonable boundaries.

@itsmyturn yes subordinates are meant to drop what they are doing to help more senior people - that's how work works!

These are also opportunities - that's how I always saw them. I remember being so excited when I was given little moments like this to catch the eye of people senior to me. Now - perhaps the difference is I loved what I was doing even when I was junior - maybe this particular young man hates his job - if he does like it he is making a mistake in being sniffy about what he does for others.

sorry my message was actually for @Dontcallmescarface

But the OP didn't do that when the CEO asked her to did she?

This

@Amy8

YABU. I am glad the younger generations are pushing back, and refusing to give their whole life to work. I started work in the early 1980s, and in the 1980s, 1990s, and noughties, (and even the 2010s,) people were expected to give everything to the workplace, and God forbid you have a social life, or want to spend time with your family.

People who worked 8.30am to 5.30pm, (their contracted hours) would be scowled at if they left the workplace on time. And people who stayed back til 6.30pm to 7.00pm (or even later) were the ones who became the employer's favourites, and cliques formed containing those who really gave their all, and those who had the audacity to leave ON TIME were cold shouldered.

I remember vividly, people being called a 'fucking part timer,' when they left at 5.30pm, (their finishing time!) Workloads were piled on me so heavily that I sometimes had to take them home to do them. Targets and goals laid upon me, and one-to-one appraisals done every 3 months, where I was told all the ways I could 'improve myself!'

So glad to be out of the rat race now. Working part time (16 hours a week) in a very cushy work-from-home job. Been part time for some years, (went part time - 24 hours a week, when I had DC at around 30,) and gradually dropped the hours over the years, and I could never go back to full time once I dropped my hours. They is WAY more to life than work!

That is a strange interpretation. A senior manager, two steps up, needed to be in an important meeting to discuss patient care - a job that no one else could do - and instead had to leave that meeting to do a task that some one else could do, which is literally his job, which would have taken him 15 minutes, well before his finishing time that day. His immediate response was to put up barriers and say no.

And we wonder why productivity in this country is so low...........

That will include the self important bosses too though.

Why do we have a culture that follows your first sentence? It's unhealthy.

The fact that the 15 minutes task wouldn’t have impacted anything is an assumption both you and OP made.

I think it’s pretty shit. Fair enough if you don’t have the resource to do the task. But then anyone would just say to team x needs y urgently. I can’t pick up. Anyone available?

Cut the crap out of the back and forth on teams and save you the details. Just reply I am leaving at n. So x has volunteered to pick that up for you.

Where is the proactiveness?

a disrespect of hierarchy

Just reading your replies and I think you've hit on where you are going wrong here. With Gen Z you need to earn their respect through visibility, fairness and consistency, and it sounds like you've failed to do this. If you're a good leader then that shouldn't be an issue, but if you rely upon your position within a hierarchy to manage people you are going to have to evolve in order to survive this generational shift.

AI will hit everyone, sure. But if someone is hardworking, flexible and productive (whether or not they are a self important boss) they are much more likely to retain one of the remaining jobs than a self righteous employee whose priority is working to rule and asserting boundaries.

It's never 15 mins though
Something else usually pops up
My time off is my time off
I hate being blind sided by "urgent" requests.
You sound like you were trying to take advantage
I'm not gen z but fair play to them for refusing to be exploited

Why would she have to leave the meeting? There are such things a laptops which she could have used to access the information required. Clearly the OP was able to do that as she states that she did the task herself in the end. The Op was asked to do something and her immediate response was "I'll get someone else to do it" then got pissy because a junior dared to say "no" to her.

And we wonder why workplace morale is so low.

Threatening with a performance review because he won't bow and scrape
Sounds like a tribunal waiting to happen

Fair play to the lad I say!

If he had pre-agreed time off, then I think it's only reasonable that he make you aware of that, so that you can adjust your plans and expectations accordingly.

Personally, I also work with quite a lot of Gen Zs, and I think it's great that they have, and will enforce, much stronger boundaries around work, work expectations, and work-life balance.

If I were him, I'd be thinking along the lines of, "your sudden work drama is not my problem, and above my pay grade."

There's a reason why you're a senior manager, and getting paid accordingly. These sudden, annoying requests are your issue to sort out, not dump on a lemming.

#TeamGenZ

I'm another one who is genuinely astounded by some of the replies to this thread - I'm Gen X and would fully expect him to have just got on with something quick like this rather than pushing back. It totally smacks of not wanting to do it and in the time he spent pushing back and arguing about it he could have been half way through getting the task done.

I'm all for respecting boundaries and pushing back against needless presenteeism, but there has to be some flexibility.

He said he was going on leave, presumably meaning he hadn't time to do it.

In my work the Directors of the team above ours used to ask me to help with 'urgent' 'little' jobs all the time, with no notice.

I nearly always did them and just dropped my work and hoped my own project manager wouldn't notice I was off their job for a few hours.

It ended up getting quite chaotic and the seniors were basically told they can't just grab me and use me at their whim. They need to book me in advance.

Agree
Going the extra mile in my experience gets you mugged off
As it becomes expected and it's "Sure Gina will do that ".. tobsome dogs body task that isn't in my job spec
I'm an elderly millennial.. I no longer go.. out of my way.. above and beyond or the extra mile

Hardworking, flexible and productive, within normal contracted hours and with respect for your work.

I have managed people older than I am as well as people younger than I am.
I really hate last minute "fire fighting" from very senior management, because that suggests to me that they are not in control (like forgetting they need to give a project update to board level, which has been in the diary for a couple of weeks - luckily for them, the project had very strict governance, so pulling together finance and progress slides took about 30 minutes).
If something like this comes up, I would call a team meeting, explain what needs to be done, by when and get the team to divvy up tasks - if appropriate.
I have also been known to push back to very senior management on the basis of a) how long they have known there was an issue and b) what would their input be
Sometimes you do just have to put everything else aside and crack on with the request, sometimes you do not. Case by case basis.
As for your team member, who is presumably quite junior, they may not have the experience to execute what you ask and are afraid they won't cut the mustard or they may just be short-sighted and entitled and not actually realise that their progress depends on willing to be flexible, when urgently required.
I have no time for clock-watchers, but normally plan activities so that they are achievable in the time available, with a bit of contingency.