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.
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?