Gen Z, please talk to me: what management works and what does not?
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.
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.