Starting a career has increasingly felt like a right of passage for Gen Z and Millennial workers struggling to adapt to the working week and stand out to their new bosses.
But it looks like those bosses aren’t doing much in return to help their young staffers adjust to corporate life, and it could be having major effects on their company’s output.
Research by the London School of Economics and Protiviti found that friction in the workplace was causing a worrying productivity chasm between bosses and their employees, and it was by far the worst for Gen Z and Millennial workers.
The survey of nearly 1,500 U.K. and U.S. office workers found that a quarter of employees self-reported low productivity in the workplace. More than a third of Gen Z employees reported low productivity, while 30% of Millennials described themselves as unproductive.
Millennials finally realized that working for soulless corporations is a necessary evil for many of them and shouldn’t rule their lives. Then they passed that news on to Gen Z. The Boomers who thought they had to put their entire lives into working 40 hours a week for shit wages in order to increase shareholder profits don’t get it, especially when they were able to do things like buy houses on their salaries.
Yeah man my boomer dad gets a fucking pension! Blows my mind, except it doesn’t because he was in a great union. I actually remember being on vacation once when they were doing contract negotiations and my dad calling his buddy each night to see if there was news. Kind of put a damper on the vacation but he only has that pension because he was in a union who was willing to strike.
What my boomer dad doesn’t get is that so much of corporate enterprise, like even the thing they are ideally making or doing in the world, not just the working conditions or profit sharing, is not unquestionably good for us. He’s an engineer from a time when it looked like technology would save the world. My zoomer kid feels conflicted just starting a hobby thinking of the consumption and waste it requires. If they could believe the companies they work for shared their values I think it would go a long way, but i don’t see that happening very quickly.
If they believed that these companies shared their values, they would be believing in a lie. The sad truth is that corporate america doesn’t share their values, nor their ethics.
Our options are to either submit and slave away to capitalistic greed, or find alternative sources of income.
I like the first half but reaching an agreement with your employer for your labor doesn’t have to be slavery, there is a balance that can be struck
Idealistically, yes that would be great. Very few will ever achieve that though.
And then came the mass layoffs, and everybody that came after that knew that long term loyalty was gone. Long term promises and careers didn’t mean anything.
Then the budget for raises dried up suddenly, and the only way to get more wage was to change company. Any short term loyalty was gone, and putting in the hours for something that wouldn’t come by the end of the year is now considered foolish. A career was a sequence of hops.
These are the kids that grew up seeing how this works and what it did to their parents. Now companies are shocked these kids don’t want to play the same game.
These are the kids that grew up seeing how this works and what it did to their parents.
I was half-raised by my retired grandparents because my parents worked so hard. I have done everything I could to spend as much time with my daughter as possible. Which means not bothering with extra job shit.
Gen x: “we got ours but we didn’t know the truth until it was too late.”
Speak for yourself but I’m Gen X and I’m gonna need to work till I die. No retirement unless you count hospice
Many Gen x were able to get while the getting was good. Cheap housing, cheap education, benefits, and a fat inheritance.
Obviously it didn’t apply to everyone.
Story of our generation.
Smallest generation bookended by two massive cohorts and yet we are expected to pay the brunt for everything because we are the “adults” as our parents get older and need care and our kids and grandkids need support.
All we want is to put our heads down, do our work and check out when it’s all done. All everyone else does is bitch about eachother.
FML.
I fucking feel this in my DNA dude. Well said.
I didn’t get mine but I was at least able to see the floor collapsing before it happened and adjust my life accordingly. I won’t have to work till the day that I die, but my home has wheels.
Nobody ever mentions Gen X in these articles/posts, I wonder why?
Gen X
Its a silent X
right of passage
…
“They’re like, ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10:30 a.m,’” Foster said of her younger colleagues in an interview with The Guardian.
Every single generation has thought this about the younger generation. Every single one.
In this case, I think the whole issue is exacerbated by the fact that giving sincere effort at work is so clearly a mug’s game. It used to be that being disciplined about showing up and doing your job was difficult, but at least there was a reason to do it and develop the skill over time. Now? Unless you have some sort of unusual job where the management gives a shit about you, why would you?
Hard work gets rewarded with addition work. Im half assing for my own sanity. If I was paid enough to be comfortable things could be different.
I’m in the highest paying workplace for my field in the country and it’s still not worth putting in any extra effort.
Capital just fundamentally doesn’t understand that monetary incentive has an inverse relationship with performance and that you can’t hire 9 Women to have a baby in 1 month.
I was late to work last Friday, intentionally, because my cat fell asleep in my lap while I was eating breakfast. That moment meant more to me than making sure I was there in time, no matter what it may have impacted. Working to live, not living to work, is the rallying cry upper management needs to come to terms with.
Every single generation has thought this about the younger generation. Every single one.
I think you’re right. My guess is that as companies get greedier and work offers fewer and fewer benefits, people are less and less willing to work as hard as their parents did. Employers that don’t understand this are either genuinely ignorant or just pretending to be ignorant.
I sincerely doubt the idea that people are working less. I worked at a college with a lot of boomers. Great people, but I was radically more efficient than any one of them. The woman who had my job before (college print shop), would complain about the work load. I only really worked until lunch and caught up on every single thing I needed to do. Watched YouTube and coded the rest of the day. Helps that I had a boss that didn’t care as long as I was caught up.
Alas, the whole campus shut down last August.
Strategic ignorance. You can exert more pressure on someone if you genuinely believe the crazy self-serving things you’re telling them with a straight face.
I’m easily fooled into productivity with a median wage that adjusts with inflation and quantified growth goals.
What? Ridiculous. You want fair pay and non-arbitrary, non-shifting performance metrics? Cold day in h*ck when that happens!
The survey of nearly 1,500 U.K. and U.S. office workers found that a quarter of employees self-reported low productivity in the workplace. More than a third of Gen Z employees reported low productivity, while 30% of millennials described themselves as unproductive.
“In a given week I maybe do fifteen minutes of real, actual work” - Peter Gibbons, 1999
All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.
I’m Gen X, and I recall similar complaints about us from the Silent and Boomer generation employees as we were coming up. So, it just seems like more of the same, with the added benefit of more awareness of what’s happening.
I’m hoping with the rise of the internet, millennials break the cycle for Gen Z. There’s a lot more awareness now and Gen Z are pretty alright
I’m a millennial and I straight up consider Gen z the same as us.
I hope this doesn’t offend anyone if we’re like considered boomer af, but I just see the same social views and the same issues. The generational divide feels dead post Internet.
I tried explaining this to my gen x dad, about my gen x brother and I’d views, and dad got stuck on “but you guys are 10 years apart!” 😂
My sister and I are both Gen X, her late 60s and me late 70s. When she got her first digital camera, she took the memory card to CVS, got her prints made, and deleted the digital files to take new photos. It’s funny that people think these generation labels are actually meaningful blocs instead of a useful statistical tool for policy makers.
Coming up? I’m Millennial, and 43.
It’s just news shitting on a group and not realising who they are.
If you’re born in January 1981 then you’re basically Gen X and therefore, a boomer. I bet you remember the first Gulf War.
This has always been the case. Socrates talking about children “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
I don’t know about gen z, but it’s probably a similar story. Millennials are better behaved, better educated, more intelligent had less teen pregnancy and less violent crime than any recorded generation before them. The kids these days aren’t getting worse, the seem to be getting better.
Millennials are also more productive, especially productive relative to inflation adjusted cost. Productivity has been rising and real wages have been stagnant. Millennials make up the most productive part of the workforce right know. The prior generation are retiring and the younger are still junior/eduction.
All I need them to understand is to pay me a fair wage and don’t fucking talk to me on my days off and just let me do my job.
Yes, but also some fucking healthcare so I can get medication for ADD is necessary. I felt like a horrible human being for twenty five years for having a terrible work ethic. And then I went on meds and suddenly I’m productive and motivated. Made me realize I’m not a shitstain on the drawers of humanity, just someone who needs help regulating brain chemistry and is capable of great things when I get that help.
That gives me great empathy when people are crying about laziness. I suppose some folks are lazy, but I wonder how many of them wouldn’t be if they could get help.
I’m actually off meds right now for various reasons (job change and related insurance fuckery) and I can’t wait to be able to resume them because I’m a tenth of the person I can and want to be.
Ya when I’m not on my meds I can’t even function like an adult and it fucking sucks.
Okay, as another person with adhd- THIS. but also maybe I shouldn’t have to regulate my brain chemistry. What if we could just fucking be allowed to exist unproductively, what if we didn’t have to take pharmaceutical grade meth to function normally? Why is that pressure there? Considered reasonable? Why is this acceptable? Gods it’s unfair, and it makes me want to watch the world burn tbqh
I also have adhd and while I get where you are coming from and your experience may be different from mine but if I’m not on my meds I can’t even keep up with my hobbies or have fun doing them. I love macro photography and I’m pretty good at it but if I’m not on my meds I just can’t do it.
Yeah no dig at that, obviously these things should be available and destigmatized and while it’s great these meds work for you- I was put on high-dose concerta against my consent as a teenager and suffered terrible side effects so I just wanted to explain my bias and offer these additional thoughts on this; it’s not for everyone and it especially shouldn’t be so quickly pushed as a solution when schoolchildren are disengaged or underperfoming. Moreover, consent is fucking important. I stayed up until 5am almost every night of 10th grade that shit was not normal or healthy.
On 100% your experience and feelings on it are valid and real. I personally think if kids are underpreforming in school then they should just make school better and more engaging.
Yeah. This was my realization about a year ago. Which prompted me to finally get tested. Apparently I am a pretty severe case too. I think she was very curious about a lot of aspects of my life and how they functioned. The answer was not good. Haven’t even attempted to date in 7 years a cause I can’t even function
Yeah same, and the whole song and dance with a shrink to get amph is just so disrespectful after everything
don’t forget hiring more people when the workload increases instead of just dropping it on an already overburdened team and then get shocked when they just quit
Better yet, hire more before the workload increases so you aren’t training newbies during crunch time.
Starting a career has increasingly felt like a right of passage for Gen Z and Millennial workers struggling to adapt to the working week and stand out to their new bosses.
What the hell does this even mean. How is starting a career considered a “rite of passage” when the average American works 50-60 hours a week between 2 or more jobs? A career in a single field is straight up considered as unattainable as buying a house is by Millennials (46% of whom own a house, compared to the average of 65% for other generations). Plus Millennials have been in the workforce for multiple decades now. We’re in our 30s and 40s. And nobody has “struggled” to adapt to the work week since the 40 hour week was created after unions fought for the right to 2 days off a week. Children are indoctrinated to this cycle in kindergarten! And it’s a lie anyways with the modern culture of bosses demanding people be available to call during nights and weekends. The average corporate work week was closer to 47 hours even 10 years ago. Do they mean working at a single company for more than 3 years? Because that’s often a loss in pay compared to changing companies.
We’re off to a bad start before even hitting the paywall…
The 50 to 60 hour week over multiple jobs does happen. However that is not the average nor the norm. Though I’m sure you were using it for effect more than an actual data-point.
According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, for 2023, the average American works 38.5 hours per week. If you drop part-time workers (<35 hrs / wk), a full-time worker does an average of 41.9 hours.
I forget where exactly the 50-60 hour average comes from, I wanna say the Census Bureau’s reports from 2021, but it was specifically pointing out that the average American works part-time at several jobs now. But, yes, it was mostly for effect rather than accuracy, as full-time employment has been becoming less common as people are replaced by contractors.
They beat you at home and they beat you at school
Unemployment might be relatively low, but the job market It’s kind of sucking for skilled labor.
Unskilled jobs don’t pay enough to get the “American dream” Even beginner skilled jobs aren’t footing the bills anymore.
Rent is through the roof, housing prices are immense. Food is inflated, wages are not. I’ve been working 60 hours as long as I can remember. It shouldn’t need to be that way. Especially not for young adults in the workforce now, thinking about starting a family.
As far as the beef with managers The consensus here is not wrong. I’m a Gen x manager and it’s honestly a fight. I’ve been doing the job for 30 years and probably for the first 20 of them shit didn’t really change All that much. There was a good way and a bad way to do x. I’m inclined to ask you to do x and tell you to make sure you do it the good way. What I don’t know is that 9 years ago someone went why the f*** is there a bad way to do x and they changed it now there’s no bad way, but I sound like an idiot grandpa telling you to watch out for something that’s no longer an issue.
Sure I try to do trench work as much as possible but I’ve got budgets, reviews, and planning meetings. The best I can do on an average day is to remember that I’m not an authority on everything anymore and rely on my team. Hey do x, I remember the last time I did x you had to make sure that y and z weren’t an issue, that might not be the case anymore so please do x and use your best discretion if Y and Z are still a thing make sure that they are covered. Hopefully they give me feedback on y and z or I’ll just be crazy grandpa again in another decade. Worst case, their best discretion was a wrong choice and they waste their time we all feel bad about it and the work has to be redone.
Most of my career is showing how we could solve problems, being told not to because the morons above me don’t comprehend abstract, being thrown under the bus, finding ways to do what is needed anyways, and only after the fact, after proof is shown that it was the correct thing to do, getting some meager acknowledgement that perhaps I was right amd know what I’m doing.
But it still never causes these idiots to actually trust me the next time. It doesn’t seem to matter who is above me. If they are even slightly older than me, they don’t ever trust people like me.
I see this same thing happen to a lot of my peers my age and younger as well. The high quality individuals suffer because the world is full of idiotic managers.
Quite probably managers have ended up where to they are at due to the Peter Principle:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
They might have been great at their jobs at some point, and kept getting promoted until they couldn’t succeed any more.
This principle helps explain why any hierarchy will eventually be shit.
That happens all the time. But usually they don’t really want to give up the task that they were good at and end up a micromanager. Good management is hiring capable employees and clearing the deck so they can do their best with a minimum of BS and stress.
I think these last few years of geriatric rule is just going to be a lesson of what not to do for when we take control.
By the time these fucking boomers retire we’ll be geriatric too :(
My pay is barely enough to get by on, so I’m only going to do the bare minimum to get by at work.
Research by economists should not be trusted in matters of employee well-being.
Call me crazy but the fact that no matter how hard a millennial or gen z person works: they still lack job security, most of their wages go in bills/rent, they often act as a carer in some capacity, and are generally not doing work related to their studies might also have something to do with it…
I’ve been laid off 5 times since I started what was my career over a decade ago. After the second time I learned to always keep a second or third source of income, which meant I never had a day off or a vacation for years. After the 4th time I gave up on corporate jobs but still took a position when a friend offered it to me. This time I will not go back, thankfully my side work of being a handy person landed me a job in the solar industry somehow and the pay is even better than my senior position at the last “career” job.
Cool. What are you doing in solar?
New sun.
Honestly just the basic installer, I travel, which is paid for and put panels up and run wire on commercial sites. I also do residential installs but those pay less, but fill time between the commerical jobs.
bosses aren’t doing much in return to help their young staffers adjust to corporate life
I can’t recall when this was ever a thing. It has always been do or fail.
Depends on the boss. Some can be good and actually try to manage, but most tend to be lazy and not care much about working with their staff. Figuring out how to get the most out of your employees is part of every management training course I’ve ever seen, but a lot of managers/bosses tend to pick the things they like and not necessarily the things that work best for their employees.
I like that more and more of the kids these days are willing to settle for shitty stuff. Most of the people in my generation (+/- a generation) just deal with it and shut down anyone that thinks things can and should be better, and that sucks.
Right, and this has been true for hundreds(?) of years.
I think it ebbs and flows. My grandpa liked his job and didn’t put up with shit even if that meant losing his house. But he was still able to manage. We’re in the roaring twenties again, hopefully after the coming financial disaster we get another round of 40 or so years of a strong middle class before the neo boomer summer children fuck it up for everyone.
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and shut down anyone that thinks things can and should be better, and that sucks.
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but you should consider if the person you’re listening to is legit, or astroturfing, before weighing their words.
Corporations have a benefit to their bottom lines to shape narratives a certain way.
You mean like a corporation got some coworkers hired and doing actual work at the place I’m working at just to tell me I need to deal with my shit job? That seems a bit on the paranoid side.
I have a good job now.
You mean like a corporation got some coworkers hired and doing actual work at the place I’m working at just to tell me I need to deal with my shit job?
Have no idea how what you just said can be response to this…
and shut down anyone that thinks things can and should be better, and that sucks.
Corporations have a benefit to their bottom lines to shape narratives a certain way.
I’m talking about astroturfing comments on forums that are pushing back against positive change.
Yeah, I gathered what you were talking about. But you’re responding to me talking about me talking to coworkers. I get that I didn’t specifically say that, but I also don’t say anything about comments on forums.
but I also don’t say anything about comments on forums.
But, you did say this…
and shut down anyone that thinks things can and should be better, and that sucks
I read that sentence and thought that you were not happy about the fact that people want to shut down conversations about things that could be better.
My thought process was to try and cheer you up (“and that sucks”), by letting you know that you should realize it may not be just regular everyday people who don’t want things to improve, but actual astroturfers who don’t want things to improve, for their own personal benefit reasons.
And by saying that to you, you would realize that more people potentially think the way you do, want positive change conversations, and cheer you up a little bit.
So, my response to you…
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but you should consider if the person you’re listening to is legit, or astroturfing, before weighing their words.
Corporations have a benefit to their bottom lines to shape narratives a certain way.
Yeah, get that. I get where you went wrong as described in my last post.
I am not happy with a lot of people in my generation wanting to shut the conversation down. Astroturfing doesn’t apply since the people that were doing it, were in person, face to face, coworkers. Not astroturfers.
What does make me feel better is that millennials and later seem to be more on board with me on this.
The survey of nearly 1,500 U.K. and U.S. office workers found that a quarter of employees self-reported low productivity in the workplace. More than a third of Gen Z employees reported low productivity, while 30% of Millennials described themselves as unproductive.
Couldn’t this just mean gen x/boomers feel more productive? Doesn’t sound like it really speaks to the output of the employees
Definitely.
I suspect many genx/boomers don’t feel productive either - BS jobs don’t discriminate - but they have probably seen enough layoffs to know when they need to appear busy - when a reporter asks is one of those times…
Millennials/Gen Z:
- Uses computer to finish day’s tasks in 4 hours, browses internet for remaining 4.
- “Wow, I feel like a useless piece of shit.”
Boomers/Gen X:
- Spends 2 hours reading every single email in full as if they are addressed specifically to them, getting angry that people are telling them useless information. Spends an hour printing & collating papers for the day’s tasks. Spends 5 hours doing the tasks because paper is less efficient. Stays 1 hour extra for scanning/data entry when the whole thing could have been done on the computer in the first place.
- “Gee golly, I sure am swamped.”
It’s almost like nobody is able to give 100% at all times.
if you have 30% and you give 30% you fucking gave 100%
I give 100% every week. About 10% on Monday, 20% on Tuesday…
