I am an Xer who manages a small but crucial team at my workplace (in an EU country). I had a lady resign last week, and I have another who may be about to resign or I may have to let go due to low engagement. They are both Gen Z. Today it hit me: the five years I’ve been managing this department, the only people I’ve lost have been from Gen Z. Clearly I do not know how to manage Gen Z so that they are happy working here. What can I do? I want them to be as happy as my Millennial team members. One detail that might matter is that my team is spread over three European cities.
Happy to provide any clarification if anyone wants it.
Edit. Thanks for all the answers even if a few of them are difficult to hear (and a few were oddly angry?) This has been very helpful for me, much more so than it probably would have been at the Old Place.
Also the second lady I mentioned who might quit or I might have to let go? She quit the day after I posted this giving a week’s notice yesterday. My team is fully supportive, but it’s going to be a rough couple of months.
I’m a millennial but have insight. Think about the 90s. Didn’t even have MapQuest yet. No cell phones.
Okay, now you’re at work, and your sister miscarries her pregnancy. When do you discover this? 6pm? 8pm? Later that week?
Gen Z finds out between customers. Or emails.
In the idle time you used to spend daydreaming about your girlfriend or lackthereof, gen Z is learning about wildfires that will reduce their air quality. They’re googling rent worldwide to figure out if it’s time to seriously consider moving somewhere cheaper and colder.
What am I getting at?
We as a society get ever more connected. We are therefore ever less present from our 9-5. There is so much going on that is relevant to us, and an 8 hour chunk of my day is really asking too much to sacrifice.
If your employees are at a computer, let tell them outright it’s totally okay to watch Netflix or YouTube, or reddit, or lemmy, whatever as long as the work is getting done on time.
If your employees are serving customers, let them take frequent 10 minute breaks to use their phone or be away from humans.
Let them know you understand they have WAY more going on in their lives than your job which barely pays bills. Then, act that way.
But also, gen Z knows that no one gives raises like new bosses. So, don’t expect them to stick around long.
When do millennials find out?
A week late from someone you haven’t talked to in years even after talking to your sister twice since then.
Same time but we had a transition period, smaller time frame depending where they slot in that generation. Gen Z has had since/before they entered the workforce.
Explaining the transition of technology to my boy sometimes reminds me of when I was a kid and heard adults talking about a full room computer.
Back in my day, phones were connected to the house! And all they did was make calls!
Get off the phone, I’m on the internet!!!
Exact same, but we’re conditioned enough to still wait until after 5 PM to go do anything about it. If anything, I admire gen Z for this.
I agree with most of this, but this bit
Is comically absurd.
GenZ are not the first people to have things they’d rather be doing than work, or to be tired due to human interaction. The latter is called emotional labour and has been a thing across all service industries for literally a hundred plus years.
I’m not saying that people don’t need breaks, everyone does, especially in jobs which are physically/mentally tiring, but to say people need frequent breaks solely to check their phone is derisible.
Fine: People need frequent breaks to do whatever the fuck they want
Absolutely - or as I generally phrase it, to relax and think about things more thoroughly.
… seriously? I cannot imagine ever watching YouTube or even Netflix on the job
Actually my two most senior people are permanent WFH and I’m quite sure they do this (and I do not care at al).
The ones in our offices, yeah that would not go over well with their colleagues, you are right.
This is a very convenient trick for some with ADHD. A known distraction can drown out the noise that would otherwise be very distracting. When I listen to podcasts, I work about 3 times faster. And my current boss was so pleased with my work that he put a TV in my shop, for me to use while I work. I don’t use it because, these days, I prefer podcasts and audiobooks, but I do put on sports games because that’s what he likes to see. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s really not an crazy prospect.
Personally I’m going into Healthcare, and the career I opted to go for has jobs which you absolutely might be bored out of your mind and literally sitting. That’s not for me, Personally, and I’m going towards more of a high adrenaline environment.
Always nice knowing I have a potentially relaxing fallback option.
Lol, night shift in the lab, we watched the shit out of youtube.
I work on a helpdesk, my phone rings around 8-12 times per day, and most calls are less than 10 minutes. I work a 7.5 hour shift, and at most am on the phone for an hour or so total on an average day. I’m also in an office cubicle farm, not working from home, or behind a series of closed doors.
Lately, between taking calls, I’ve been reading books, looking at my phone, practicing French, and watching episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on my iPad. The upper management knows I, and my coworkers, kill time this way between calls.
We’re efficient problem solvers who get our jobs done with no issue, so the downtime is spent how we see fit.
This is an amazing rundown of the significant differences, and more importantly, similarities between these 2 generation, I think you did a really good job of explaining it clearly, and I found it very illuminating, thank you.
Isn’t it insane how managers (and professors for that matter) tend to act like you’re not a person with a whole life and personality outside your job
TLDR they won’t stick around no matter what you do op