Around a third of Gen Z and Millennials report low productivity, and it's their bosses' faults.
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.
It is often said that the younger generation of workers, namely Gen Z and Millennials, are not as productive as their predecessors. However, the blame for this is often misplaced. It is not the fault of technology or lack of motivation that is crushing the productivity of these workers. Instead, it is their sense of self-entitlement that is causing the problem.
The rise of the internet and social media has led to a culture of instant gratification, where everyone wants everything now. This mindset has spilled over into the workplace, where younger workers feel entitled to promotions and recognition without putting in the necessary effort. They expect to be rewarded simply for showing up, rather than for producing quality work.
This sense of entitlement is not limited to promotions and recognition but extends to the work itself. Younger workers often feel that they are entitled to interesting and meaningful work, without having to do the grunt work that is necessary to get there. They are not willing to put in the time and effort required to develop the skills and experience necessary to take on more challenging work.
Furthermore, this sense of entitlement often leads to a lack of accountability. Instead of taking responsibility for their mistakes or shortcomings, younger workers are quick to blame others or make excuses. They do not see the value in learning from their failures and instead expect to be coddled and protected from any negative consequences.
To address this issue, younger workers need to understand that success is not handed to them on a silver platter. They must be willing to put in the necessary effort and take responsibility for their own success. Employers can also play a role by setting clear expectations and holding younger workers accountable for their actions. By doing so, we can help the younger generation of workers become more productive and successful.
Considering the minimum wage (in modern dollars) is about the same as it was in 1945 and now is 5 bucks lower than it was in the 70s, I'd say the economy was pretty different.
Rage more, grandpa. Hopefully you'll rupture that huge AAA you smoked yourself into, inbetween beating your kids with belts and sleeping with your secretary.
Isn't the entitlement on the part of the companies? You are not entitled to hard working staff. You make an offer: "give me 40 hours a week doing this thing and I'll give you x salary" and people can accept or reject. If people reject that's up to them. Unlucky, Mr Company.
And if you pay a low salary with very few benefits, you are not entitled to a loyal, hard working employee. In fact you get the employee who accepted your offer and it's on you to make sure they meet their contractual obligations. If they do, you are not entitled to 100% or their effort or any overtime, sacrifices or anything else not written in the contract.
The fact that millenials and gen z aren't as willing to stand and take this is a problem for the companies, not us. If you want better employees, treat them better. The days when you get undying loyalty for providing the bare minimum are gone.
And this is before we even look at, say, average salaries vs property prices for boomers vs millenials. Why aren't we working as hard? Well what difference does it really make anyway?
I can find any number of sources showing that productivity has been on the rise for decades, and has continued to rise as Millenials and younger entered the job market. There is no "crushing the productivity".
The rise of the internet and social media has led to a culture of instant gratification ... This sense of entitlement
Millenials and younger have gone through their entire school life being told "you need to do well this year at school, to get into the top set next year, to get into a good university to get a good job". We/they have been told this by every generation above them, for their entire lives. The have followed this, listened to their elders, worked hard through school, sat meaningless exams, gotten good meaningless grades, they have gone to university. They have worked hard their entire lives ...
Just to be told, "culture of instant gratification" "you're entitled" "you've not done the grunt work". It's selfish of the previous generations to not recognise this.
Your entire comment rings as "needs evidence" to me. To the point I'm not sure if it's satire or not. You've failed to put in any grunt work, evidence anything or source it as anything more than conjecture.
They expect to be rewarded simply for showing up, rather than for producing quality work.
This is the opposite of how I see the world, as it stands. Look at the people calling for maintaining or increasing working hours. Look at the people calling to work in office. It's the previous generations expecting people to turn up, in office and sit there for hours so they can be paid. They are expecting people to be rewarded simply for showing up.
Look at the people calling for unlimited holiday and reduced workhours, where failure to deliver is a disciplinary issue. Look at the people calling to work from home, and have the quality of their work assessed, not their dress sense or punctuality. Look at the people driving quick delivery, rapid review and peer appraisal of work. These are the people who are focussed on delivering quality, and not getting paid simply for showing up.
Instead, it is their sense of self-entitlement that is causing the problem
Comments like this have always sounded so much more entitled to me than a worker expecting a paycheck. Boomers and C suites bitching about their employees' desire to adequately support themselves on their wages doesn't strike you as being just a little entitled?
No, you made a series of claims above without evidence. Let's start with your claim that instant gratification has spilled into the workplace and is a cause for the problems as you see them.
Yeah it doesn't read at all like a normal interaction on here would. Checked their profile and sure enough half their posts are AI generated images. Trolls will troll.
should've just admitted to chatgpt. That paragraph makes you look old and disconnected. You made a lot of assumptions about people you don't know, and clearly don't know the current age you're in. It's not entitlement or some need for instant gratification. People are actually getting less than they got when you started working. And generally a lot of jobs are also expecting more, especially now that computers allow for deeper, more analytical, and less empathetic tracking of employee activity.
It's overly wordy and bloviating to say little. Brevity and conciseness show intelligence. Typing paragraphs with absolutely no new ideas or analysis makes you look conceited and aloof.
It's pretty bad when you type an essay and it reads like AI wrote it.
Boomers who bought their house for 20k working part time as kids complaining about the most debt ridden generations in existence.
Its almost like the spending power wages today are so much lower now than they were and therefore so is productivity.
But hey TVs are cheap even though essential goods like houses, food, and school are higher than ever, so fuck them kids right? Its a good thing boomers sacrificed good paying jobs for cheap imported junk.
Lol what? So many things have changed since the last two generations entered the labor force. None of which is their fault. First, older generations cashed in their kids futures for a second house and boat in Florida. Second, labor today is vastly different than it was 40 years ago. 80% of work today in the west is services not production. Add in the lose in union protections, and you have a whole generation working at Walmart and McDonald's type jobs. Third, the purposefully crippling of education. Those in power knew education needed to be wage gated or made so expensive that no one could dig out from under it in order to force educated individuals to work for lower wages. I can go on and on, your take is uninformed. Gen Z and Millennials will change this because we suffered through it and it's all a lie.