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.
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.
I don’t come from a generation that could pay for college with a summer job. I had a summer job, and worked during the semesters as well, and it wasn’t enough to even touch the tuition costs.
I think the companies are an issue too. They should do more to keep workers, as it’s better for them in the short and long term, imo. I don’t know why they don’t. Workers also seem to be ok with job hoping, which I also don’t get.
For those co-workers who have boats, you likely don’t have the full picture of their finances. I have a co-worker with a boat, he’s had several. That co-worker once told me I live like a poor person and has often encouraged me to buy big stuff like that, but I don’t. When he broke up with his girlfriend, the truth started coming out. Every dime he was making every month was going right out the door. He was basically broke, and with loans on his house, 3 cars, 2 motorcycles, boat, etc his net worth was well below 0…. But it looks nice from the outside. Meanwhile, I live a more modest life. It doesn’t look like much, people apparently think I’m poor; put my life next to his and his life looks better… but I have a completely paid off home. It’s not worth half a million dollars, but it’s all mine. I’d rather have that than a boat and a life that only looked nice for people passing by. The best boats are friend’s boats. Trying to keep up with the Jones’ is a losing battle; you only see what they what you to see.
You also have to keep in mind where they’re at in life. Of course someone who’s been working for 20 years has a better shot of having a solid foundation built than someone who’s been working for 5 years. It takes time. I rented for 16 years before buying a home, but because I waited until I was ready, I was a lot more secure in my ability to handle it. I’ve heard a lot of stories from my baby boomer parents growing up as well. Their lives weren’t as picturesque as these stories I see floating around online. People’s standards today are much higher from what I can see. My parents didn’t even have a shower in the first place they lived. And my dad’s “affordable degree” was from a city college no one had heard of, which got him laughed out of interviews. People thought he made it up.
And yes, that guy trying to give you $150 was either out of his mind or trying to pay you to go away.
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. 🙄