Companies Are Learning That Gen Z Isn't the Easiest Generation to Work With

[brooklynite]

WNBC New York

As companies continue to grapple with an uncertain economy, layoffs, and the push and pull of return-to-office plans, they're facing another, potentially larger challenge: figuring out how to engage and manage new Gen Z workers.

By 2025, Gen Z will account for one-third of the workforce, according to the World Economic Forum. Yet attracting, managing, and retaining these younger workers will take a different approach, according to Tara Salinas, a professor of business ethics at the University of San Diego. While this generation has well-honed technological skills, she said organizations will need to accommodate a decided lack of other competencies that are necessary to be successful.

"Gen Z are digital natives and they've always communicated online, so their interpersonal skills, or soft skills, have suffered," said Salinas. "They took an even bigger hit because of Covid-19, and it has shifted the way that we need to interact with them in the workplace."

Companies need to refine their approach to working with Gen Z, Salinas said, and tech tools like ChatGPT and social media like TikTok could help make them successful. Mentorship programs and organizational culture will also be important.

[ruet]

1. Translation...

Gen Z doesn't put up with shit that the rest of us have been going along with for centuries. They shouldn't and I applaud them.

[Trenzalore]

3. It is mixed

Probably the same with all generations. Mostly because they didn't work in high school or college a lot of them are entering the workforce with their first job being the one they get right out of college. Basic things like showing up to work on time, understanding how PTO policies work, dress codes, and deadlines are foreign to a lot of them.

Again, it is impossible to paint a broad brush with an entire generation but my experience managing them has been they are rather naive and don't understand the basic processes that are required for a business to operate. If that is bullshit we have all been putting up with I don't see an alternative for that bullshit to run an organization or accomplish goals.

They also expect to be rewarded for doing their job. They don't understand the concept that meeting expectations does not guarantee a promotion or the top raise tier.

Again, you can say this is all bullshit but I'd be happy to hear your alternatives.

[Hortensis]

5. I've read this stuff, and heard comments personally that suggest it,

but you're on the front lines. Very interesting, and hope to hear more on this subject.

[Phoenix61]

7. I've worked since I was 17 and I've seen corporate culture

get nothing but worse. It’s all about the bottom line while expecting dog like devotion from employees. Pensions turned into 401Ks taking millions of dollars from employees. Separate sick leave and vacation turned into PTO. You can forget about a vacation if you get the flu. There’s the ever increasing gap between worker and CEO pay. Right to work laws cover way more jobs than union. So yeah, GenZ has a different attitude towards work.

[Bettie]

8. There's also that workplace culture thing

where if they have vacation, Gen Z are more likely to use it...in the last office I worked in, you were considered to have a poor work ethic if you took more than a day or two of vacation time, ever. Yes, it was part of the "compensation package", but most people didn't take vacation.

[Celerity]

9. That's incredibly fucked up. It's bad for both mental & physical health, not to mention productivity

It also is illegal in many parts of the EU.

Americans, on balance, far too often seem to have a predilection for living to work, whilst on balance, over here in the EU, we simply work to live.

[Bettie]

10. There is so much talk about "Quiet Quitting" by Gen Z

which is basically doing your job, but not doing all the extra work that you usually get...the expectation in many workplaces is that you do your job plus extra work, to prove that you are worthy of the smallest amount they can get away with paying you.

[ProfessorGAC]

23. For The Year?

Zero to 3 days? That's awful.
At the company from which I retired, in the early days, they'd pay for each day not taken.
After about 5 years, they changed that so that only an EVP could approve pay in lieu of vacation.
The reason, totally true, was they WANTED people to take that time off.
And, it wasn't money because among the unionized employees overtime covered the 24/7 operations when someone was off. It actually cost more for someone to take vacation time, but they didn't care. They were more interested in preventing burnout.

[Bettie]

28. This was salaried people

the hourly people could use a week or so, because they would only pay out five days at the end of the year, no carry over.

The salaried people also had a base expectation of a minimum of 50 hours a week. Most pretty much lived in the office. It was a place where a lot of people were hired right out of college and burned out in a couple of years.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. Same With Us

Union people don't get pay in lieu of vacation. If they're working, they're getting that hourly wage.
The pay in lieu applied to salaried people (like me) until the company decided it was unwise for people to forego free time.
In fact, about 25 years ago, they added 3 no excuse needed personal days per year to EVERYONE in the company's free time. Also, fortunately for me, when I hit 25 years, they added a day for every 4 years beyond 25. By the time I retired I had 28 vacation days & 3 personal days.
There was, truly, no expectation for people to work until they dropped.
Had a turnover rate of 5-6% including retirements, for 20 straight years. That was in the upper 2% of the industry.
Probably a strong driver in how they went from $200 million in revenue to $5.4 billion in the 38 years I was there.

[Bettie]

32. Sounds nice

I haven't worked at an office in a long time though. Stayed at home with kids once we moved to Iowa, since DH's job required a lot of travel.

But, being in contact with people who still work there, it has changed since Covid, since they learned that they got more work and less burnout from people who worked remotely. The company gets to pay for less office space and most people get to work from home.

I hear from a few I used to work with (I was their admin) that it is a lot more pleasant, but they are still expected to be available via phone and email 24/7/365, even while on vacation. Ah well.

[Trenzalore]

14. My company doesn't have any of that except the 401(k)

And the 401(k) has been there for 20 years.

[LisaM]

18. The pension, PTO, and 401(k) issues go back decades.

Most boomers don't have that.

[Phoenix61]

20. I was born in 61, a baby boomer and I had all the those when I started working. nt

[LisaM]

22. I didn't.

I didn't have a 401(k) until I was in my 30s, but before that, I worked retail and at a childcare center.

My point is, don't make this generational against boomers. It does back to Reagan and it's more about corporate greed than anything.

[yardwork]

27. This boomer agrees with you.

When I was young it was possible to support a family doing blue collar work. Even restaurant and other service jobs offered 40 hour weeks with regular hours and benefits. Factory jobs paid well, thanks to unions.

All gone now. No corporate loyalty to workers. Why would the workers feel loyal?

Those of us who were fortunate to launch careers without having to take on enormous debt, who bought houses before prices went sky high, are doing ok. Im grateful. But I'm worried about my kids. They don't have the same economic breaks as I had, and we both have way fewer than my parents had.

[Hestia]

11. There was an article a week or so ago, that one major reason Zed's don't want to go into the office

is because of ringing phones and that they are expected to both answer calls and place them.

Also read about if boss doesn't give them, what they think should be a large part of their jobs, is props for actually doing their job. They then start working behind the bosses back to get them fired, up to and including #metoo-ing them. There was one case in UK last week where worker filed a lawsuit over her boss' initials - AGP - were him actually bragging to her about his anatomy and that he was sexually harassing her. Instead of his initials, she said it stood for A Gigantic Penis and he was coming on to her. Case was thrown out after second attempt and she now owes him money for legal fees. Much more to that story...it's in either The Guardian or Telegraph.

The Atlantic has a great story in trying to work with millennials and early Zed's. Entire day seems to be filled with passive-aggressive behavior that should be firing offenses. It was a buyer beware article for bosses and these 'new' workers.

[LisaM]

19. The in-person thing seems to be the biggest issue.

I know it's been said over and over, but the ear buds and headphones on the job is one of the biggest things. I have been WFH for a while, but looking forward to getting back into the office two days a week one our new digs are finally ready.

Trying to approach support staff for help is an issue. It seems impossible to impart to people wearing something in their ears that it makes them unapproachable. They always have reasons -anxiety, background noise - but it's one of the single biggest disconnects I have had with Gen-Z. And I get that the workplace has its own challenges they aren't used to, but having to listen and talk to coworkers shouldn't be one of them. When I last worked in the office, walking through what used to seem like a bustling, cheerful, and collegial workplace seemed like walking through a morgue.

[Calculating]

29. Everyone is on their phone now with headphones or ear buds

It's an actual awful experience sometimes, it's like being surrounded by unresponsive addicts 'taking one more hit'

[Trenzalore]

4. I also say this is dependent on how they were brought up

One of the leaders that reports to me is Gen Z and due to family situations, she had to grow up fast and take in her younger brother and grandmother because her parents had substance abuse problems. She is probably one of the best employees I have ever had.

[Polybius]

16. Or a different take:

"Let's hire Millennials and above."

[Trenzalore]

25. If you have a pulse and a college degree you will be hired right now

Companies can't afford to be selective so that twist is out

[ananda]

26. My thought exactly. Good for them!

!!

[Tetrachloride]

2. Maybe the story has it wrong. Maybe their social skills are better than the rest

But can they write cursive?

[treestar]

6. they would not remember pre-internet

and pre-cell phones.

Then COVID and the possibility of working from home. They are going to want to set their own schedules.

[Hestia]

12. and real life prevails...

[GenThePerservering]

13. Gosh, I recall the so-called "greatest generation"

trying to figure out how to deal with these lazy, upstart, radical, dirty boomers in the office who don't know how to dress and don't know how to act. I used to get lectured myself.

It just never stops. Every single damned generation.

(I'm related to quite a few Gen Z'ers and they're all hard, self-motivated workers, as are the young workers I encounter every day).

[treestar]

15. Yup

If was ever thus.

I'm just glad to see the over perfectionist, demand-your-whole-life Silent Generation is retired. As a baby boomer in the 80s, I recall how you had to prove their company was your first priority!

Once we could file legal documents electronically in the courts, we had until midnight to file on a deadline date, which seemed like a break, giving you a few more hours than when you had to have the piece of paper physically in the court by 4:30 p.m.

But then, in this state at least, the younger generation wanted to get home to their families and got the deadline moved to 5 p.m. At first that was a bummer, but then I got that they did not feel they should work 24/7 to prove they were good employees.

[Johonny]

17. The things that kept workers in a place their whole career

Like pensions are gone. There's little reason for young workers to have any loyalty to companies that lack loyalty to them. They communicate with their feet moving job to job in a gig economy set up by the previous generation. Soft skills is just BS talk. What they lack are good benefits and they know it.

[ismnotwasm]

21. +1

[Yavin4]

24. This new generation knows that they will be at another job in 4 years or less.

This is the culture that corporate America has created. There's no such thing as loyalty. There's only get the job, get the experience, get the professional connections, bounce, and repeat the process. There's no reward for staying in a job for more than five years. In fact, you will be looked at suspiciously if you do.

So, put in as little effort as necessary and move on.

[Calculating]

30. This

We need to revamp the concept of employer/employee loyalty these days. My longest lasting job up to this point has been 3 years before the company went bankrupt, the other jobs were 2 and 2.5 years and I basically got screwed out of both of them (downsizing)

How am I supposed to full commit to a job and plan on spending a decade or more there when they've historically all gone bad>?