Last week a friend sent me a video from A Life After Layoff blogger Bryan Creely entitled “Bosses Are FIRING Gen Z Workers Just Months After Hiring Them”. The TikTok clips he provides as examples (especially the two ladies) are priceless, but sadly not unrealistic. I can confirm having similar experiences with my Gen Z employees.
The entitlement of the Gen Z-ers is amazing. Mistakes are never their own fault, they have excuses for everything, and expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter. They do a terrible job, but when confronted feel no hesitation blaming bosses who were “out to get them” or co-workers who were “snitches”. We’re dealing with people who are now in adult-sized bodies but who mentally never matured past about age 5 (with an added does of instant gratification thrown on top, thanks social media!).
Of course I’m generalizing here and there are always exceptions. I have found some excellent, hard-working, responsible Gen Z employees, but they certainly appear to be the minority. Far more Gen Z-ers are closer to those examples in the video.
My Experiences With Gen Z Employees
Over the last 2 years I’ve mostly been hiring high school grads (ages 18-20) with no college experience, and often times no previous job experience. This is for entry-level work so the lack of experience is not important to me. Mainly I’m looking for people with good character, and good personality fit. We can train anybody with the skills they’ll need to work for us, but we can’t train somebody to have good character if they don’t already.
One girl I hired — Ally (not her real name) — was bright, outgoing, and full of potential. Everybody loved her and she did a great job — when she bothered to show up. She was always coming in late for her shifts — 15, 20, even 30 minutes late. We had been really patient with her and given her lots of warnings. She always had an excuse (usually family drama of one variety or another) and we were trying to be sympathetic (big mistake!).
One day Ally sends a message in our company’s internal group chat — in a channel where everyone could read it — that she was going to be late because she “had to run some errands for her grandfather” on her way to work. Nothing urgent, no lives were on the line, just some “errands”. When did that become an acceptable excuse to be late for work? My patience for Ally was already wearing thin, but her public message really forced my hand. At this point I had to fire her, or else everybody would think they could show up whenever they wanted and it would be tolerated. So we let her go.
(Side note: during the termination conversation, Ally seemed to take it well, even admitting “yeah I have been late a lot”, but in the months afterwards apparently began badmouthing our company to various people. Or at least that’s what reliable sources tell me. I don’t have any direct knowledge of what she’s said, but I trust the people who told me. We’re the bad guys for firing her — no personal responsibility on her part.)
Another employee — I’ll call him Linus — once told me that he wasn’t going to come in the next day because he was planning to be out late that evening and probably wouldn’t get enough sleep before his shift. It wasn’t framed as a request for time off — he was just casually informing me. I told him to show up on time or he would be fired. He seemed shocked, but he showed up on time.
I’ve fired a lot of employees because they lack initiative, don’t care about their work, can’t get off their damned phones, and other problems. We had one guy who was particularly lazy — I’ll call him Ethan — who was always on his phone and barely working. We put him on a Performance Improvement Plan and banned him from using his phone while he was working. What did he do? He started taking really long bathroom breaks. A lot of them.
One day, one of my managers clocked how much time Ethan spent in the bathroom and wrote it down… it turns out this kid spent 25% of his entire work shift in the bathroom. The one place we couldn’t control if he was on his phone! (Ethan was of course fired… but not before his dad had come in to complain to me how unfairly we were treating his son. Yeah, I think I see where the problem started.)
Like I said earlier there are always exceptions, and I’ve had some fantastic young workers — serious, hard working, diligent. They are the minority for sure, but they are out there. Right now I have 1 or 2 good workers in this category.
There is also a middle group, and I’d say the rest of my Gen Z employees at the moment fall into this category. I would characterize them as genuinely good people, with good intentions. They care, and they want to do a good job, but they lack common sense and critical thinking ability. They have to be supervised CONSTANTLY. They have to be told what to do, or they end up doing something “fun” rather than the important work that needs to be done. They have to be kept on task, or else they drift and socialize and don’t get anything done. So I have a cadre of “adults” (my managers) whose job it is to keep all the younger employees on task. Basically they fill a parental role and tell the kids what to do.
One other thing I’ve noticed about Gen Z-ers, and I don’t know why this is, but in general the girls I’ve hired have far outperformed the guys. Again there have been exceptions, but generally speaking the men have been worthless. Very lazy, very unmotivated. Almost always the girls work harder than their male counterparts. I don’t know if that’s a societal trend or just a fluke where I’m located.
Okay, So What Can We Do About It?
I’ll preface by saying I don’t feel I have all the answers on this one. (If any of you, dear readers, have some thoughts on this please tell me in the comments, I’m very interested to hear what you have to say!)
My gut feeling is that it really comes down to hiring the right people: being very selective in the interviewing process, and exiting people quickly who don’t live up to expectations.
I strive to build up a team that works well together, performs at a high level, and generally contributes to a pleasant working environment. I do this by hiring people based on their character.
In my business we can train anybody to do what we do, but we cannot train someone to be honest. We cannot train someone to be respectful. We cannot train someone to have a strong work ethic. We cannot train someone to have a good attitude. Either they have these qualities already, or they don’t.
Now, I don’t always get things right. Sometimes people fool me in an interview and I hire them, but it never lasts long. Once you actually work with someone, you find out who they really are. Those who don’t measure up are exited quickly.
Once I’ve hired someone, I have 3 fundamental rules:
1) Show up and do your job.
2) Don’t steal from me.
3) Don’t lie to me.
We’re all human and I know mistakes will happen. As long as people own up to their mistakes, and learn from them, I’m okay. When people try to avoid responsibility or make excuses, they put themselves on a path out the door. When people lie to me, they are gone immediately. (I have had to fire a couple people who I otherwise really liked because I caught them lying. Word of advice: it’s always better to own up to your mistakes and accept the consequences, than to try and avoid it.)
If someone is honest, respectful, and genuinely does their best, I’m incredibly forgiving and understanding with whatever comes up.
That said, it is also possible to be too nice, and I think I have been guilty of this over the last couple years. When you are a nice boss, some people appreciate it and value their job, while others may take advantage. I’m not saying its time to be an asshole boss — I’ve worked for too many of those myself and vowed never to treat my own employees that way. But it IS time start being more strict, by adhering to rules and policies. Tell people what is expected for them, and figure out how you will measure success.
Those employees who perform well get their pick of shifts, increased hours, increased pay, and any other perks we can offer. Those who don’t perform well, no matter how much I may like them as a person, get less hours, decreased pay, and potentially shitty assignments. I’m sorry to have to say it but that’s just how it is. It’s not trying to be mean to anyone, but simply rewarding the people who do the best job — i.e. meritocracy. This is not school where everyone gets a gold star just for showing up. This is a job where real work has to be done, and either they do it well or they don’t.