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 ?

I'm a millennial and I find managing Gen Z both refreshing and challenging.

Some of the attitude, firm boundaries and expectations, is great. Lack of initiative and resilience is much more challenging.

However, Gen Z aren't going anywhere so as a manager it's on you to find a way to adapt to get the most out of them.

At it's simplest, people work best for people the respect, rate highly and those who acknowledge their contribution. You appear to have no social capital with this generation. Without understanding them, you'll struggle to manage them.

You really need to review your own management system to be more effective with the younger generation.

Whether I think he/you were right or wrong, isn't important. It appears there's fault on both sides but if you don't adapt, you'll continue to get the same outcomes.

I read the very long and detailed op. You’re right, I didn’t bother with the rest of the drip feed AT ALL.

Ah the NHS, that explains it.
Sure as hell wouldn't fly in most private sector organisations.
He'd have his arse quickly handed to him.

I sincerely hope you challenge his behaviour and report it.
He is not fit for purpose with such an attitude, certainly not in a critical medical setting.

This attitude is on his manager, especially if they have been covering for him.

He has exposed himself and made your job more difficult.
Completely unacceptable.

''@Chelseap26 · Today 12:27

Working in corporate as a senior manager, I am seeing this more regularly from the younger generation, they ask for pay raises every 3 months for doing the bare minimum of their job. I’m late 30s and was brought up to go the extra mile to move ahead in life and that’s what I’ve always done. Those that work their exact hours and stick to their exact job description are still good employees, but they will never be promoted to manager and senior roles.''

Nonsense.

I am a senior manager and I have always had good boundaries such as sticking to my hours and refusing to answer work emails/calls over the weekend or when I am on leave.

I am 54, so not generation Z, and I have long understood that work is not the only thing in life and that ultimately no matter how 'hard'' your work you are just a name on spreadsheet for companies and you could be let go at any time if it suits the organisation.

Also I have seen so many people being promoted way above their actual skills and experience/talent not because they ''work hard'' but because they had the right contacts and spent their time sucking up to board members and senior management that I have become cynical about the idea that ''going the extra mile'' is rewarded anyway.

Are you sure he was working?

This sounds to me like someone who was "working from home" but had actually already gone off for the weekend.
I can just imagine them thinking "my line manager isn't here, I'm already cleared for an early-ish finish. I could just leave now. I'll respond to any messages or emails from my phone. No-one will ever know."

And then your urgent request comes in and he's in a jam because he doesn't have access to what you need.

That's what I would be thinking as a manager. Otherwise why on earth would you refuse?
Especially if you are working from home. In my organisation a refusal like this would have your manager questioning if working from home is a good idea so you would DEFINITELY be all over an urgent request from the boss.

I've found this thread quite eye opening in the number of posters who think not doing the job you are paid for during your working hours is somehow showing good boundaries!

OP I'd be very displeased if I were you and I would definitely be having a meeting with his line manager to make it known and to discuss further action.

Wfh and difficult to get hold of and then can't do an urgent task that has clinical priority with some half-arsed excuse about needing to check with his line manager who is off?

He's totally clocked off early to get away and accessing Teams on his phone and doesn't have access to his computer. May well have worked through his lunch/ started early so in his head this isn't an issue right up until the point someone needs something urgent.

This suggests that you, and your attitude, is a bigger issue than he is

@Beachcomber Ha - great minds think alike! I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought this!

She explained later that she had to leave the MDT meeting in order to get access and do it. She had no access at the time of the request.

This.

I thought it’s jut common sense that if the more senior manager of your team has a request that you accept it without saying you need to check with your line manager first. As a courtesy, obviously you’d let your line manger know so they could then manage any of their own competing priorities.

I agree that the ‘needing to finish early’ if it’s been pre agreed should still be honoured and it would be wrong to pressurise someone to stay until the job is done. That said, however, the colleague should have agin just exercised common sense and accepted the work item with the caveat that he had to leave shortly so it was unlikely to be him actioning it but he would discuss and leave it with another suitable colleague/manger immediately (in the absence of his own) to ensure it was taken care of and get whoever ends up being accountable to let her know of progress.

Simply pushing back as the person did is a bit of an unprofessional way to behave but I guess some people need it spelling out in which case OP should do to his line manager. Not to chastise the worker but just advise of protocol to urgent reactive work from senior managers.

Yes, it's very difficult when people think they're ENTITLED to take extra time from you for free, isn't it?

All good until you realise that other countries with far stronger work ethics take the lead. The future is looking pretty grim financially so I’d be encouraging the younger generation to work hard as their future may well depend on it.

He didn't disrespect you ffs, get over yourself.

He advised that he would need to double check his workload and advised he had timescale limitations.

There may be a generational issue here, but its not his generation that's got the problem

Just to give a different perspective, what is the line manager who is off usually like?

I was on annual leave once when a request from the most senior individual in our directorate came in via email to myself alongside a staff member who used to report to me. The request pertained to the interpretation of some historical data for a legacy project that we had recently closed. As the project was a legacy project, myself and the my ex direct report no longer worked on this project and had new lines of reporting but still in the same overarching reporting structure.

They used their initiative to answer the question, taking an hour to collate all of the information etc, having sensed the urgency of the turnaround.

When I came back from leave, I logged onto a tirade from the persons new line manager suggesting I shouldn’t be tasking them, they don’t work on the legacy project anymore, etc, etc. Turns out they had had a massive bollocking - despite the request coming from top. Sometimes staff have to protect their own interests if they have an overpowering line manager.

This type of comment is why you’re getting flack.

Really? No other doctor , meeting, patient etc could have possibly been more important than you and yours?

Your first mistake was undermining your direct reports and approaching their subordinates directly.

It undermines them by disrupting how they are managing their team. The fact that you’re clueless to this is astonishing. You seem to have zero emotional intelligence.

Your condescending retort to the colleague who told you correctly that they needed to speak with their line manger and informed you of an agreed time off - you were completely out of order. I’m not GenZ but the hell if I would tolerate that either.

The next time you require additional resource, speak to your direct reports and ask them to identify a suitable person to assist. They are responsible for managing their teams.

lol have you ever actually held down a job

Totally agree with this.

If someone has agreed planned time off you respect that. And it doesn't matter if it's not an overseas holiday. You might have a train booked at a certain time. Or be collecting someone at a certain time. Or be attending an event. There are loads of reasons to respect the time agreed. Even if it's only 15 minutes. If it were me, it might mean the difference between catching one train and another one 30 minutes later.

Was there nobody else to ask?

Back in the day I had a similar situation when I was meeting my mum for lunch in London. Someone asked me to do a task that anyone could have done that lunchtime. As there were others in the team I asked them to ask someone else. Probably didn't get any brownie points for it at the time but sometimes other things are more important.

I don’t work in Sainsbury’s

But he had a pre arranged leave and was heading off for that, I'm gen X and would have told you where to shove it and headed home for my holiday.

You should have got someone else who wasn't clocking off to help, or done it yourself.

Yet your insistent on reviewing HIM and have said a couple of times that his card is now marked

I don’t work in the nhs.

i did used to work in education.

an equivalent might be a child safeguarding situation. If a child discloses abuse then the person is expected to report it asap. This then needs to go to be assessed as to whether immediate action is needed or whether it’s a routine report.

However while a child abuse disclosure may well be the most important thing happening at that particular time the senior leading on it doesn’t actually have priority to pull people off other tasks.

they have priority to pull some people off some tasks.

they don’t, for example have priority to pull a teacher out of a lesson they are teaching. They do have priority to pull pastoral staff (who in general don’t teach or have lighter timetables) off other pastoral issues.

so you were in a meeting which was a matter of life or death. These are common in hospitals. I suspect there are procedures for getting the data you wanted - eg you needed a scan result or something for a patient? Historical data?

from the people I know in medicine it’s normal to have to chase around in person to get results/data etc and if this junior spends his whole time coding and entering such data he probably gets a million requests like yours a day.

in which case he’ll have a triage system etc that his bosses want him to use and which presumably you were trying to get around.

Who wags the dog?! isn't this why most job ads have a coverall req to be flexible etc. This person didn't want to do this task, they knew their lm was off but used running it past them as an excuse. They pushed back on a 15 min task requested by sm. Not a good look.

Had you read her words, she said she had to leave the meeting. Perhaps what she needed is only accessible where the poor lad was toiling away.

Maybe check what is written before changing the whole thing around to suit the "story" you want to tell, since it ends up being false.

No wonder productivity is so low. People make up whole misrepresentations and it becomes worse than the game of "telephone".

STILL SMDHAPS

from the people I know in medicine it’s normal to have to chase around in person to get results/data etc and if this junior spends his whole time coding and entering such data he probably gets a million requests like yours a day.
in which case he’ll have a triage system etc that his bosses want him to use and which presumably you were trying to get around.

The more I read this thread, the more likely I think it is that this guy had decided to start his holiday early and was making excuses because he could not physically do what he should have been doing. Who knows what he usually does. But the excuse that you are due to finish work in 2 hours time n a situation where you are literally making life and death decisions is ridiculous.