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.
OP, please re-frame your post title as a question with a “?”.
Why would I do that? The statement is in the not the imperative mood, not the interrogative mood. Am I missing some kind of Lemmy etiquette?
Rule 2:
- All posts must end with a “?”
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
Oh, ok.
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.
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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
If your employees are serving customers, let them take frequent 10 minute breaks to use their phone or be away from humans.
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.
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.
… 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
I think I’m suited to answer this. I manage multiple people, including Gen Z. I am also Gen Z. People are actively trying to work here.
One of the biggest factors is employee appreciation and respect. A lot of companies will half-ass that front through just giving their employees an occasional pizza party. The problem with that style of management, is that it removes the human aspect. It kind of just turns it into another thing to just “check off the list” for corporate. It’s something commonly thrown back at employees who complain. We’ve seen that happen enough to not want to deal with it.
It’s also important to focus on the little things. Small details are what make up the big picture. If you leave those out, the big picture will be incomplete. Congratulate them when they reach a new goal. Tell them when they do work that would make the company proud, within reason. Encourage them, and actually work alongside them sometimes. If you want to throw free food on top, maybe poll your staff for their opinions on restaurants/food trucks. Show them you care.
Regarding the human aspect, a happy employee stays, and a happy employee is also usually a productive employee. Get to know your staff a bit, casually. Try to give reasonable allowances for time off during stressful life situations, like when their home floods or their sibling dies. Most companies will only allow the legal minimum.
Don’t expect more from them than what you are willing to do yourself.
Accept their imperfections and work with them towards improvement. Instead of shouting, go straight towards the solution, and include them in the process. Allow them to learn how to avoid the mistake and learn how to fix it with you. Don’t baby step it, but maybe show them a cool trick for that process if you have one. Remember that they are human and that there was also a time where you didn’t know how to do it.
I’ll be frank with you. Many of us don’t see a great future over the horizon, so we’re kind of making the best with what we have. We want to enjoy as much of the time in-between as we can. We’ve seen our grandparents, parents, siblings, and other family members become burnt out and emotionally overwhelmed, and we don’t want that for ourselves.
The best way to not have that, is to not go along with it. So, hypothetically, I would go to the next job that treats it’s employees well, even if the wage is the same. Why would I waste my efforts and hard labor on someone who doesn’t value it? Why not spend it somewhere where I can learn, improve, and thrive?
These apply to all employees, not just GenZ. Its just basic respect. GenZ may just be the ones who dont accept unhappiness just for the sake of having a job.
I don’t disagree with you in the slightest.
In my mind, no one really asked to exist. On that basis, we should all be treated equally and fairly. You can’t pick your birth year, home country, etc. In my opinion, it would be wong to judge someone on those aspects, or to treat them differently. In ny workplace, we’re all just people trying to get by.
Exactly. Just wanted to point out that those arent points OP should use for treating GenZ differently but should treat all employees like that
Those all apply to any employee though regardless of generations. Gen z gonna look for another job after 2 years. Expect it.
I don’t disagree with that. For some reason, a lot of places think that Gen Z will put up with it like their parents and grandparents did. They treat them like crud, then they’re shocked when they leave.
Of course Gen Z might change jobs within 2 years. Most people don’t have their entire life plan figured out in their 20’s, which I think is fair. It’s even more understandable with the craziness of everything going on around the world.
One thing to keep in mind is that they’re young and have fewer responsibilities than Millennials and Xers and can afford to float between jobs. I’m not saying all GenZers, but there are ones that still get some form of assistance from their parents and thereby have a safety net. As they age and start families, they may be less inclined to do so.
Also, maybe they’re not being paid enough to want to stay and feel they can leverage the experience at your workplace to get a better paying position elsewhere.
Just my thoughts, I’m no expert.
GenZ is pretty aware of the doom and gloom of the world right now, being the most online generation yet. Even without meme culture of being sucked into vapid echo chambers of any political spectrum; they know the world is headed for decline, in their lifetime.
They want to be able to live comfortably while they can, and if there is too much work/stress and not enough pay, they’ll shop around. Considering what their living costs usually are to maintain a good job, they’re willing to shop around to find decent comfort. They don’t want to spend their best years stuck working barely making ends meet only to watch it all burn around them by the time they find something that allows them to prosper.
I would ask her directly, say that you want to know why you lose gen z workers.
Just remember that they’re still early in their careers, changing jobs is about the only way to get a raise these days.
Gen Z software engineer here. From what I can tell my generation doesn’t care that much about company loyalty and all of that jazz. That’s true for me as well. Companies have a soulless aspect to them. I can’t put my soul into that. If another place is willing to throw more money at me, I will take it. Sure, if my workplace is extra nice I will think twice about it, but most of the time it isn’t.
Then there’s the lack of investment in the younger folks on the part of the company. No mentorship programs, a lack of workshops, etc. Our input isn’t taken into account and is often overlooked. That’s not the right way to show young people that you care about them or their future. In turn they won’t care about you or your company’s future.
Also the fact that people tend to bring their politics to work is a big problem for me. This is especially true with the boomers in the company. They love to stroke their right-wing, often bigoted political opinions in front of us at work. Mostly in the form of complaining about whatever they saw today on Instagram or Facebook. Now this isn’t inherently a problem that can be brought up with HR, mostly because they do it in a subtle and veiled enough manner that there’s not much you can do about it. But I’d say that personal politics is another big factor for me. It makes me not care that much about the workplace/company as a whole.
Milenial here. I was taught to not care about company loyalty by my father, a boomer.
I’m as loyal to my company as they are to me.
If big boss is cranky that day, I might get fired. If I make A mistake I might get fired. I am payed as little as they think they can get away with. My benefits are the vert least they can give me.
They will do very very minimum they can. Make no investments in me that are not going to be immediately beneficial to them…
I get payed pretty well concidering everything. But I Know that I am just a name in a spreadsheet to these people. If I get in a car accident and can’t work for a few months, the company and management will not care. They will just be annoyed that they have to struggle to fill my shift.
Why in the world would I have any loyalty to an organization like that. Why would I have any loyalty to management like that.
Same here. My mother worked all her life at one place until she retired. She told me it’s not a good idea and to only care about myself, not the company.
You just gave me insight into why my company isn’t bleeding GenZ software engineers.
We have a 1-year program for people fresh from CS degrees or coding boot camps. They have an assigned cohort to build relationships and go through the program together. In it, they have mentors and meet with people across the company to learn more about the business. And while doing this they are fully integrated members of teams. I’m in Product and I know my team takes them seriously and listens to their input.
We also have a year-long program for anyone new in a manager role (either new to the company or promoted), we have a career coaching program people can sign up for, and it’s easy to get an assigned mentor (if you show any competence and interest).
And at least my networks don’t have any of the shit heads spouting politics. Politics rarely come up (except in a small vetted group of like-minded people).
I am approaching 9 years here, and when I took the job I fully expected to leave at 2. Instead, I’ve had five different roles or titles, I didn’t have to ask for 2 of the 3 promotions I’ve gotten, and my pay is almost 2.5x of my first job. I’m not loyal to the company, but I have a hell of a lot of loyalty to the people that make it up, and they’ve earned every bit of that.
Damn, are you guys hiring? I’m going back to school for this and looking for this exact sort of thing!
Yep! One of my devs was out at a college recruiting day just this week. I do believe living in the Kansas City area is a requirement though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Damn! If there are any remote positions, HMU. Your company sounds pretty great :)
We actually do hire lots of remote positions in general! Only the new software engineer program require being there. What kind of work do you do?
Mostly IT work, stuff with power BI. Going back to school for a certificate in computer science!
Damn, are you me? I’ve made recommendations to our teams, totally ignored. One year later, a more senior team member brings up the same recommendations and gets huge praise. My raises are like, maybe 4%, roughly $2-4000, if that.
No workshops. Some training, but not enough to really do much. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t even bother with the minimal training we do get, because I’ll probably move jobs before it’s useful / the senior guys are reaching their 60s, and I’m not sticking around when they retire and take all the knowledge with them.
And, as you said, one of my coworkers likes to air his grievances about LGBTQ people somehow making Ukraine an inside job while I uncomfortably try and work/be professional. I never talk about anything that could potentially raise tensions, and volunteer very little about myself so that they can’t start bad conversations in the first place.
Generations aren’t a monolith. It’s reductive to say “these people are leaving because they’re from a different generation.”
The best thing you can do is perform an exit interview and ask them why they decided to move on. If they’re good people they’ll give you an honest answer.
And remember, young people in the workforce now have had adults in their lives who were likely laid off during the 2008 financial crisis. Those adults were, correctly, teaching their children that companies are not loyal to their employees, so do not be loyal to your company.
They are probably leaving for more pay, better benefits, or a promotion of some kind. The only way you’ll know for certain is if you ask.
They are probably leaving for more pay, better benefits, or a promotion of some kind. The only way you’ll know for certain is if you ask.
I’m going to second this. The best way to retain workers is to be pay the most in combined pay and benefits. work is transactional- it’s always been transactional, really. Employees are starting to realize that, and are going to be job hopping more.
Work is inherently transactional. You pay employees for the work they do. They do work for the pay and whatever benefits get added to it. Ultimately, if people are leaving, its because they feel there’s a better transaction to be made elsewhere. (and no. Donut Day and free coffee aren’t ‘benefits’… looking at you Clay.)
In any case, the way to retain individuals it ensure their pay and benefits keep pace with the demands of their current skill set. this means raises, increases in benefits and promotions. (Also, generally respect your employees, and stuff like that… but I’m assuming that’s not really the problem.)
What do you mean by low engagement? Are they not doing their work in their given hours?
I’m a millennial but I imagine it’s the same issue.
Work isn’t something I want to do. It’s something I have to do to for money. If someone offers me more money I’m going to take it.
So first thing to check is are they just leaving for better pay. If so paying them more is basically your only option.
In my industry (software development) the average length at a job for younger people is two years because it’s the only way to get a decent pay rise in many cases.
The idea of loyalty to a company is dying a quick death.
If it’s not that the only to find out is to talk to them. Ask them if they’re willing to do an exit interview and see if there’s anything you can improve on.
Work isn’t something I want to do. It’s something I have to do to for money. If someone offers me more money I’m going to take it.
GenX here. Same for me. I take pride in what I do, but the moment the clock hits 17 the whole company can burn down for all I care.
Just curious, but is your job or industry that much in demand that you know you can get a job the next day if your company were to burn to the ground?
I work in IT.
Some people here are posting with rather wishful thinking. I think the most cost-effective actionable advice I can give is that Zoomers don’t buy into the whole “we’re a family here” thing. They understand that their success and their company’s success are not necessarily correlated. You can act on this by expressing an interest in your team’s improvements on the basis of the personal goals they’ve achieved rather than with corporate metrics.
This implies that millennials haven’t come to the same realization. Company loyalty more or less ended with millennials, I think. Though helping employees reach their personal goals is a great suggestion in general. Their personal improvement aligns with company improvement anyway.
Yeah, millennials and Gen Z are very similar in their thinking on corporate culture
Except gen z are more marketable so gen x tends to stay (not out of loyalty)
I don’t think that’s it, I think it’s moreso what others mentioned along the lines of gen z having a lot less responsibilities tying them down to a certain job.
I know many millennials who own houses, I don’t know any Gen Z that aren’t like… Influencers or kids who had wealthy parents who own houses.
Also kids
This is what my Zoomer son said when I asked him as well.
way to give 0 context, what do you want us to say?? Gen Z means fuck all it’s such a wide umbrella term.
how about you give some actual examples of behavior and maybe the pay scale and you’ll get some actual answers
No need to phrase it so hrashly but youre basically right. This post is pure ageism
Not a very big sample size, did you perform an exit interview? Why not just ask their thoughts on the way out?
Many won’t answer honestly and just make up a polite excuse. Still worth a try.
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True. Even if you hate the job, it’s not worth potentially burning a bridge by being too honest
Exit interviews can be a goldmine. Some people who don’t want to burn bridges might hold back and tell you what they think you want to hear but others will tell you exactly what they think.
As a more “typical” zoomer I’d say that we’re a bit skeptical of exit interviews compared to other generations as a result of the whole “not buying into corporations being a family” thing & not appreciating a checkbox approach to employee wellbeing… I know personally if I was leaving a job where (not even because) I felt like any feedback I gave fell into a void and any I received was on rare occasions and only from my direct manager then I’d consider it a bit of a waste of my time to say why I’m leaving, so just try to get through the interview faster
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Just pointing out that we didn’t invent that mantra for ourselves. I’ve heard that same thing incessantly from teachers and professors which were gen x and boomers over the years.
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because retaining long-term employees is generally expensive, so companies do things to make sure job hopping is the only way to earn what you’re actually worth. this is 100% a response to companies own policies and not anything labor is doing.
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usually the savings are in benefits, and the expectations of raises. You’re also assuming they’re hiring from similarly qualified and experienced. They’re not. they’re hiring inexperienced people with lower qualifications… and frequently, the new people will be low balled as well.
And I’m not arguing that experience is valuable, but the large companies don’t see it that way. large corporations are quite literally only concerned about short term profits- the get rich quick schemes. they’re not not concerned at all about producing quality products over the long term, or developing healthy work environment sore anything else. strictly what yields the highest profits in that moment.
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Mostly it comes down to companies being owned by institutions like black rock or vanguard, who don’t really care about anything other than what makes money- and are perfectly okay jumping ship when it doesn’t.
This means that they’re controlled by shareholders that only care about steadily increasing profits over a very short period (quarterly).
Also just to point out that buffet doesn’t just dump everything into the s&p like he advised every one else to do. He utilizes a broad mix of strategies- including things like swing trading across opportunities his horde of fintel peeps find for him.
Warren Buffett will buy and sell quickly if his investment meets or exceeds his targets. Berkshire Hathaway has a stock portfolio in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
What he won’t do is act without a plan. He has a unique ability to see long term advantages, that’s why he holds over the long term. Short term opportunity exists too, but many people who look for it are impatient.
I don’t know why they just wouldn’t make it attractive to stay.
I don’t get it. I don’t think I ever will.
Every single job I have left is because I literally couldn’t afford to stay. I know you want to pin the phenomena on some obscure difference in generational ideology. It’s not that difficult. It’s not that obscure. We grew up in places we will never afford. You come from a generation that could pay 100% for college with a summer job, and you turned around and added a requirement for a college degree just to get that summer job which now days doesn’t even cover the rent.
Pay has dropped relative to cost of living year over year since the 90s. I couldn’t get my employers to give me raises just to match inflation. And still, I hear boomers crowing about how uncommitted millennials and zoomers are from their half a million dollar homes. My gen x coworkers owned boats and I was struggling to make the rent.
The problem here is not that younger generations aren’t capable of committing, it’s that older generations have grown out of touch with modern day cost. Some boomer rear ended me last year and was furious that I wouldn’t take his $150. He laughed when I told him his insurance would give me $2k easily. They paid out $2800. I am honestly still confounded how far out of reality you’d have to be to think that a bumper would only cost $150. You could argue that he was only trying to cheat me but that only proves my point more that us getting royally fucked by older generations is not from our own doing.
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For those co-workers who have boats, you likely don’t have the full picture of their finances.
Yeah yeah yeah, I get it. I mean, I promise it’s you who doesn’t have the full picture - I live in Alaska, there are no cheap boats up here, there are no cheap houses, there are no cheap hobbies, etc. - you don’t qualify for all of those things without the ability make at least the minimum payments. Nevertheless, you missed the point. I didn’t have the credit to get a single snow machine or motorcycle, let alone enough of them to also need a toy hauler to tote them around. There is a vast difference between struggling to make rent, and being able to acquire myriad recreational vehicles regardless of how “paper thin you may feel their outward appearing lives are”. And the difference in experience and skill was not that much. I had to teach those idiot x genrs how computers work and a few of them still today “don’t use email”. So I’m just not buying the “evaluation” argument. I know what they brought to the table, because I was the asshole fixing their sloppy ass work.
My god man, you are missing the point. You seem to only see my problems through the lens of your own life, which sounds like it has been mostly affordable. That’s my point. You have grown out of touch. Things are not affordable. I’m not talking about fucking jet skis. I’m talking about groceries and rent.
JFC, I had to live out of my occasionally running car for two years and I’m getting boomersplained about perspective. 🙄
Short-sighted behavior: People are incentivized to not stay.
The only thing that I have seen personally work is private companies doing a company stock program. You only share with the owners and other employees, thus you get a bigger piece of the pie. I have seen coworkers retire holding a $1,000,000 in shares (plus the same in their 4K)!
However, this was a large private company.
Definitely this - you can stay with a company and get a small raise yearly (maybe), or switch roles and advance quickly
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I think it works really well for some people, but personally I feel like you
Yeah, I wonder if pay is competitive with the market and they are getting pay raises to stay competitive. I am making less than new hires with less experience only because I got hired years ago.
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I’m also gen X, but the two year rule has been around my entire career, at least for tech jobs. In the first half of your career, in order to build experience and increase compensation, you need to change jobs frequently. Anything less than 2 years is a problem with stability, so change jobs every 2+ years. Anything more than you need to, and your pay lags your peers, and you likely are not gaining sufficient experience to advance your career
I had an interesting conversation with an interviewer about ten years ago - I’m in part of my career where I thought stability is desired, but they were concerned whether someone at the same place ten years could adjust. LoL. Apparently even in the latter half of your career, it’s important to switch jobs regularly
I’m also gen X, but the two year rule has been around my entire career, at least for tech jobs.
Same, and same.
I ended up making a lot more money in my career by moving around.
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Not just a path to advance, but a path that feels fair and is faster than changing jobs. A lot of places that do pay well still make it easier to go up a level as an external hire than they do for an internal promotion. In other words, it’s easier to get “promoted” by switching jobs.
Which is pretty weird. Companies would rather make the decision based off a few hours of interviews for someone who knows nothing about their company, over years of data for someone who knows the company well. I think it’s partly “grass is always greener” and also partly companies wanting to pay people less when they already employ them. They’ll pay more for external hires cause they want to get em, but once they’re there, there’s less reason to pay more.
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Or at the very least, lower level employees often don’t get to give big ideas. A big way to get your ideas listened to is to get promoted in the first place. Small ideas only do so much. Sometimes there’s big, systemic problems that need big ideas to fix.
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How long have they been at your company? A lot of younger people hold zero loyalty to their employer (for better or worse), and combining that with the guidance fo change jobs every two years for maximized income, you’re more likely to see increased turnover regardless of job satisfaction.
I have exactly as much loyalty to my employer as they have to me.
And that’s exactly how it should be. If a company is extremely good to you, be good back. If they’re shitty, you owe them nothing.
Hard agree.
A lot of younger people hold zero loyalty to their employer
Why be loyal to a company? I’ll bet you anything the company won’t show any loyalty when they decide to save money by laying people off.
I’ve learned this lesson way back in the 90s.
None of them were there long, but none of them moved to higher paying jobs either.
Out of curiosity, how do you know this?
Combination of LinkedIn and local contacts. The two cities where the team works are rather tight communities, and you either do what we do or you do banking or FX.
Edit: I forgot one left to become a personal trainer, so that one kind of doesn’t count I suppose.
Not to say that it’s not good to self-reflect and improve, and not to say that there’s nothing you can improve, but there might be other factors at play.
I don’t have the numbers to hand, but going off of my own experience and my memory, younger people are far more likely to leave a job than older people. You can try to find the stats - I’m sure they vary by country, for instance, but I changed jobs relatively often early in my career. As my career progressed (and changed from industry to industry), I tended to stay longer.
Basically, what you want to do is establish the baseline. Is it a you thing, is it a company thing, an industry thing, or just the natural process? It might be a mix, but until you know what you’re dealing with, it’s going to be hard to fix it.
Is there an exit interview? Or anyway to ask them?
Would be interested to know if there’s something in particular or not. Not sure if you do this, but some leadership places do 360 reviews, where you get staff anonymously give details about. It fucking sucks to get but it can be super helpful.
Loyalty is a two way street and when it comes to jobs the company’s loyalty should come first.
I often feel like my supervisors don’t respect my input or my time. I work in IT, our business is solving problems efficiently. Yet when I pitch ways to improve our methods, or when I call out dumb decisions, I get ignored.
On multiple occasions in the past couple years, my immediate supervisor has made bad calls that would lead to unnecessary work for me and my team. I point this out to him, and I am ignored. Last summer, we wasted a couple days fixing computers after an unnecessary BIOS update kept them from loading Windows. We also spent a whole day installing a firmware update on a new shipment of monitors, this update was to fix compatibility with the Mac Studio - we don’t use the Mac Studio at my work.
Since you’re Gen Z, it sounds like you may also be relatively new in your career, and this strikes me as a timeless problem of experience.
Young people come in with a fresh set of eyes and say “why don’t we just do X?” Then more experienced people know all the unfortunate reasons why it’s not that easy. Like in your example, it’s arguably a better policy to just run every patch that gets released, even if it’s not applicable. The alternative is to spend some amount of man hours evaluating whether each patch is needed or not; and occasionally dealing with the consequences of somebody mis-identifying a critical patch and deciding not to install it. The cost from that is greater than the cost of occasionally having to clean up a bad patch that breaks something.
I do agree that Gen Z seems to feel a greater sense of unfairness when they (as less experienced employees) get stuck doing more of the grunt work in a situation like that. I’ve had several issues with Gen Zers at my company feeling like they’re supposed to be working on bigger and better things than the entry level tasks we’re giving them, and becoming disgruntled about it.
Not really sure what to do to manage around that part of the problem though. With millennials in that position, I had reasonable success by giving them a bigger project, then reviewing it thoroughly and helping them see the areas they needed to improve in. The Gen Z’s I’ve tried that tactic with have then felt like they were being “picked on” any time they got critical feedback. I haven’t had it happen enough to know if that’s a generational thing or just those specific people though.
