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I was recently speaking with a restaurant manager about the difficulties of working with younger employees. She began to tell me about one particular employee who was very bright and a good worker, but she couldn’t always count on him to come in.
She liked him, but his absences posed a problem, and it wasn’t clear to her what was causing them. She wondered: Might there be medical issues? Were there personal problems?
One day when it had become clear to the manager she couldn’t continue this way with his erratic attendance, she decided to force the issue. Why hadn’t he been able to come in yesterday, she asked—was he sick? No, he assured her, he was feeling fine. Was there some other serious situation in the background bothering him? He shook his head. Well, she asked him, what was going on?
The young man was quiet for a moment, thinking, searching for the right words to describe his feelings.
“Work just didn’t have the right vibe,” he finally said.
Confidence and Resilience
The right vibe? I thought about my own career, and how some of my own managers, in a conservative suit-and-tie environment, would have responded, had I explained an absence that way. Let’s just say, beyond a likely initial lack of comprehension, it’s a fair bet the conversation wouldn’t have been pleasant.
But these are different times, and managers are routinely dealing with different kinds of issues. Younger workers, often defined as Generation Z (or simply “Gen Z,” born between 1997 and 2012), are widely recognized for possessing, in the aggregate, lower levels of resilience and higher levels of stress.
One survey on the topic “revealed that 33% of young adults rate their own mental health as ‘excellent’ or ‘good,’ compared with 48%, on average, of all other adults.”
Statistics show that finances (often driven by high costs of home ownership and uncertain job prospects) are an unusually large source of stress. Confidence levels in general are low, with only 27% of women and 40% of men considering their confidence and self-esteem “excellent or very good.”
Another survey noted that 27% of Gen Z workers “say their job has made them feel depressed at least once a week in the past six months.”
These problems can manifest themselves, as in the example above, in more absenteeism, lower confidence at work, and higher turnover.
A Positive Track
Given these emotional headwinds, what can managers do to keep young workers on a positive track when it may not take too much to throw them off their game?
The Society for Human Resources Management has offered a number of suggestions for managers, and several of them aligned well with observations I’d made during my own management career. Here are three:
Take time to try to understand an employee’s mindset and motivations. Many Gen Z workers feel their managers don’t “get them.” All too often managers see their role as just attaining results, with minimal interest in the personalities of those they manage. Sometimes the simple act of taking time to talk and understand can have a positive effect.
Offer professional development. In an age where management is frequently under pressure “to do more with less,” professional development is routinely neglected. Yet it’s greatly appreciated when offered, and Gen Z places a high priority on gaining new skills.
Emphasize purpose. Many younger workers are apt to want meaning and purpose in their jobs. If managers can help them find it (not always possible, it’s true), this can be a strongly positive element.
I often thought of management as kind of a jigsaw puzzle; it’s nice when the pieces fit, but at times they don’t. Sometimes “the vibe” is right and sometimes it isn’t. Helping young workers find that right vibe can be both a challenging and satisfying part of the management role.
