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Perhaps the most defining reason why Gen Z might be finding themselves out of jobs is their rejection of traditional work culture, which emphasizes long hours, constant availability and immersion in one’s job.
Meaning that they don't have to succumb to antiquated rules and social paradigms.
Kudos to them. I am (a very late) GenX, and I always hated that mentality. I work to live, not viceversa.
The kids are alright.
The problem they're ignoring is the employer's rejection of traditional work culture themselves. I'm Gen X and even back then the very first job I got, I was trained by a computer rather than an actual human. It took me quite a while to teach myself a lot of basics about how to behave in the workplace, never having proper hand on guidance from anyone, and things have only gone farther off the rails since. Now with Gen Z work is far more impersonal, on top of having almost no prospects at all for starting/raising a family with their income from it.
Employers really need to look in a mirror when they complain about 'kids these days.' We're already a solid 3 generations deep in abdicating responsibility to actually teach the next generation personally, and those in charge just keep pushing harder on solving their problems with more and more technology.
rejection of traditional work culture, which emphasizes long hours, constant availability and immersion in one’s job
That has been my philosophy as an older millennial. Life is meant to be lived, not slaved away helping grow someone else's bank account. Older folks really hate being told nah, I'm not going to come in for unpaid work. Sorry for ya. Pay me.
Also around your age. I don’t know what to do without work. I love long hours and being on call. I enjoy being reliable, and needed. That said, I don’t expect anyone under me to do that. I’ll never call them on a weekend. Maybe a text?
I was a pseudo-manager of a small team, and my only problem with the Z’s was his inability to focus on work—at work. Like, I want to take his phone away. I want to block video sites. His work ethic was atrocious. He was, however, a likable guy and since I wasn’t his actual manager, I only complained upwards.
A few months ago my company did a round of layoffs and, to my surprise, I was the one who got the axe in my department. They cut the only person who cared about working?!
So this has put me in a bit of a tailspin. I’m now pretty pissed about putting in any kind of effort. When I look for jobs now, I’m pretty hesitant to go for the jobs I normally would, ones with great responsibility. I feel like this situation has stolen something from me. My desire to work! And as I said… I don’t know what to do without it.
Probably had a lot to do with how much each person got paid.
You’d think for $130,000 USD he’d put in some work. Or is that not enough for a Junior developer?
Damn 130k for a junior? What I meant was the layoffs were probably aimed at getting rid of higher paid employees.
Unfortunately, people running those companies are draconian figures.
Yeah, but how do you think all those nice things like a house, a car, food, etc come into existence? A fairy? The wish of a child in full moon light? A a djinn? Or just, you know, people having a job and doing work?
I don't get this part of people who reason like this and think it'll work. There are plenty of crappy or dirty tasks to be done, and someone's gotta do them. How do you think your garbage disappears, or how things get cleaned?
Actually a decent read with some thought behind each statement.
Im a border Zillenial so I get to see both sides of this.
I recognize the older way of thinking, and I'm willing to go above and beyond because I personally love my job, but my younger cousins and siblings aren't so lucky. But the article is right they don't put up with any bullshit.
Rude manager trying to power trip? They gone.
Horrible inconsistent part time hours that won't provide stability? They gone and aren't willing to go through the system, work for years, only to get a promotion to AM and limit themselves that way.
Boss putting new responsibility's and expectations without performance acknowledgment or a raise? They gone, they didn't sign up for that without being paid for it.
They don't want to waste their life strggling and hating employment.
Life is worth living.
Gen-Z are, for the most part, the children of Gen-X. This article, and your assessment of Gen-Z is almost a copy/paste of what was written and said about Gen-X exactly thirty years ago.
Gen-X ended up doing their own thing and creating some really cool shit. My hope is that by refusing to conform, Gen-Z, like their parents before them, will forge their own path.
I've just started watching Hacks. They do a great job of highlighting the differences between Z and boomers.
The things that were just plain terrible in the workplace the boomers just lived with and worked around like sexual harassment horrified and shutdown the Gen Z character, while the boomers just figured ways around it best they could being woman without much say in their times. They were laughing about it in retrospect, especially rejoicing in the sexual harasser boss being dead.
Those women put up with a lot of sh8t and trail blazed for their time. That's not to say any of it was right. As a Gen X it's interesting the different worlds we all have been raised in.
The article is not half bad at all, and definitely makes some good points. One thing I would like to point out (and the reason why I tend to object to pigeonholing titles of articles such as this one), is that out of the three points made in the article, only one of them is somewhat unique to GenZ:
2. They Are Speaking A Different Language
Another issue that may be contributing to Gen Z’s workplace challenges is communication. While members of this generation are often hailed as digital natives, that doesn’t always translate into strong interpersonal skills in a traditional work environment. Growing up immersed in social media and text-based communication means many young employees may struggle with face-to-face conversations, especially those expected in professional settings.
A 2022 article from Harvard Law School explains that Gen Z workers entered the workforce during the pandemic. This generation began their careers when it was acceptable to send a quick text — something they are very comfortable with — instead of having a team meeting. They missed office facetime at a crucial point in their career development. This potentially created a gap in their learning and left them unprepared for industries where meetings, presentations and in-depth collaboration are the norm.
The problem arises when workplaces expect Gen Z to conform without offering any middle ground. This communication gap can easily lead to misunderstandings, mistakes or even the appearance that these workers are not engaged — when in reality, they are just using different methods to communicate.
The other two points (and I suppose I will let you decide whether to read the article and make this determination yourself rather than quote it all) are entirely being experienced by many, if not most, of the rest of us, in the toxic waste pit that is this timeline’s current corporate work culture.
The last thing I would point out is that over the last seven years, I have absolutely observed more misunderstandings and inadvertent, undesirable, and unfortunate, shenanigans and miscommunications, resulting from the ever-increasing dominance of text-based communication between everyone in a given organization. I would posit that for those of us who are fortunately permitted by our corporate overlords to remain remote, or at the very least hybrid, this is a challenge that we are all dealing with.
Implicit conflict created by screens and asynchronous communication is actually a well studied subject. It's not imaginary or some conspiracy to get people to the office. Microsoft, Oracle and IBM all studied this in depth in the late 90s and early 2000s during the dot com boom because they wanted to get rid of office overhead.
Remote teams can work, but not for every situation, or for every team, and it requires a specific management skill set which is not widely taught in management school. Basically right now everyone is wrong about this. Executives are wrong in thinking that everyone needs to be in the office, and workers are wrong in thinking that there is no value at all to co-working in person.
Your last paragraph is on point. At some point you have to realize that text doesn’t convey context and people can take what you say wrong. Text has its use but calling is often a lot faster to convey info when it gets more complex than one single point.
Live meetings are very valuable when done right. Flying the team in for regular face to face onsites is hugely valuable. Forcing people to do stupid commutes for some arbitrary amount of days, with no set meeting schedules or other legitimate reasons, is monumentally stupid. Many of us will not take those kinds of jobs again. I’d rather manage a Wendy’s that’s close by.
On the one hand this is fake news clickbait.
But on the other hand this is why we gotta ban TikTok!!! \s