“I would be happy for you to just take over dealing with my early career employees. I just got called in to HR because one of them said I was brusque and mean when I spoke to her. All I did was tell her that her assignment still needed work. This group doesn’t know anything, and they are way too demanding.”

This is as close as I can remember to a conversation I had with a manager recently about the company’s gen-z early career professionals. And many share his opinion. 75% of managers Intelligent.com polled said that they are unhappy with the new crop of workers. And it gets worse. That same report found that 60% of all employers they spoke with had fired one of their new college grads less than a year after they were hired.

Some common complaints about gen-z were:

• They have less experience than entry level employees in the recent past — but they keep asking about being promoted.
• They are lazy and unprofessional — they show up late to meetings, not wearing office appropriate clothes, and sometimes just don’t show up to work. They are hyper-focused on work -life balance.
• They do not know how to communicate — they only want to text — not have face to face conversations; they are demanding transparency.

Ironically, when these leaders, who are predominately gen-x entered the workforce, similar criticisms were leveled against them. Regardless of their own rocky entry, the fact remains that those in charge are not happy with this new crop of workers.

Fifteen percent of the employers in the Intelligent.com report said they would stop hiring gen z workers. But, pretty soon that won’t be possible. Statistics show that gen z is the largest generation in the world; and by 2025 gen-z will make up ~30% of the talent pool.

Meanwhile, gen-z hires are not enamored with the leaders either. They complain about: “micro aggressive feedback, blatant double standards and making colleagues feel isolated”. One specific example of what gen-z is calling toxic boss behavior was a CEO who congratulated a worker for selling their dog so they could come back into the office full time.

Clearly there is anger and mistrust on each side. So that means to ensure that companies thrive, organizations are going to have to address the issue. Most of the suggestions offered so far, tell leadership what they must do to “give gen-z what they expect”. This one-sided approach is not fair. Both sides must be accountable for their contribution to the problem, and each group should make changes and compromises. Here is how to go about it:

WORK LIFE BALANCE VS. SENSE OF URGENCY

Gen-z is more likely to prioritize personal time over nonstop work. They may push back against working overtime and not want to adopt the rigid work schedules to which their parents adhered. Leadership often interprets this behavior as lazy and lacking the same “hustle” mentality that fuels them. Different thinking is needed from both groups.

Employers Can:

• Set explicit deadlines for completion of work and pay less attention to where and when the work gets done. Flexible schedules, hybrid offices, remote work are all possibilities if the focus is on the output and not the place or manner in which the work gets done.
• Express clear guidelines on office hours and the reason for them. Many young career professionals are in their first jobs out of college where schedules were flexible, and attendance was not mandatory. A solid work-related explanation of why employees are needed in the office may go a long way to resetting expectations.
• Everyone knows that life sometimes conflicts with work so let people know that there are times that it is appropriate to be out of the office or come in late. These will be different in every business, but some are true for all. For instance, we can all agree that time away for doctor’s appointments, and key personal events are acceptable as long as there has been upfront communication.

Employees Can:

• Work with their managers to set performance metrics and agree to meet on a regular cadence to review them. Solid performance against these goals should make managers feel more comfortable relaxing schedules and face- time in the office. Once work is completed well, having managers recognize and reward individuals for their efforts and outcome reinforces the work.
• Embrace the idea that the current corporate system is built around the idea that advancement is tied to accepting increasing responsibility which often requires additional work hours. Google for instance, has a portion in its manager training materials that explains this concept to managers and encourages them to offer stretch assignments to all employees.

Why These Will Work:

There is a behavioral science concept called effort justification. This term refers to a cognitive heuristic where we attribute greater value to accomplishments that require more effort to achieve. If employees work hard and achieve their goals, effort justification results in both job satisfaction and company loyalty. Conversely, effort justification can also be a form of self-deception. Educating managers that the connection between long hours and good outcomes is not immutable should ensure that they are not operating under an effort justification bias.

DIFFERENCES IN INFORMATION SHARING

There are several differences in viewpoints about workplace communication between gen-z and leadership. For instance, gen-z are resolute that leadership transparency is necessary. The current leadership was trained that information is shared only on a need to know basis.

While currently, most workplace information is shared on a limited basis, research shows that performance actually improves if companies are more transparent. Not being candid creates distrust between employees and management as certainty and fairness are threatened. Moving towards the middle on this topic would greatly benefit the organization.

What Employers Can Do:

• Since increased transparency improves productivity, give some thought to changing the organizational mindset from sharing “only with those who need to know” to sharing the information unless there is a reason “not to know.”
• Help managers understand the value in being more open with appropriate information. See that managers regularly share obviously important information such as regular business updates, performance feedback, or pass-downs from leadership.

What Employees Can Do:

• Agree that there are many things that cannot be shared — especially at a public company. If given examples and explanations employees should accept this fact.
• Be accountable for asking questions of management when they do not feel they have enough data or understanding rather than jumping to conclusions or assuming the worst.

Why This Will Work:

David Rock, a prominent neuroscientist explains that the brain registers a threat when any of the following five domains are threatened. Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. This is called the SCARF model. Failure to share information with people causes them to feel less loyal and less motivated to perform. Some research suggests that motivation may drop by over 50%. The good news is this reaction occurs most acutely when people perceive they are being left out of the loop intentionally. Therefore, holding managers accountable to share, and employees accountable to ask for the information they need should increase the feelings of fairness and trust for all concerned. This in turn will lead to higher productivity and creativity.

CONFLICTS OVER SPEED TO ADVANCE

Many gen-z workers are very focused on learning and career growth. They are voraciously seeking knowledge online. They also expect their organizations to build programs to enhance their skills and ready them for quick advancement. This expectation can clash with traditional hierarchies, and the established model of learning on the job then performing in a way that demonstrates readiness to be promoted. In a word, gen-z is focused on accelerating their careers; leadership thinks they are not ready and overly optimistic. Clearly there is a difference in expectations.

What Employers Can Do:

• Provide managers with simple tools and talking points to engage individual gen-z workers in discussions about growth. Managers can be taught to meet with employees to fill out simple career development plans. Progress and opportunities to learn new skills can be discussed at regular intervals. Depending on the resources leadership wishes to devote, companies can also build more formal robust career ladders and career-path programs.
• Earmark some projects as open to bid. This would mean employees can apply for a chance to work on them even if they are outside the relevant department or have little experience with the topic. This is a much simpler and more delimited version of a skills training program. Including some learners amongst experienced employees allows for their career growth and some interesting outsider perspectives.

What Employees Can Do:

• Be encouraged to research industry norms for corporate learning and development programs and career progression. This way they will have data that reveals the typical amount of attention paid in other corporations to early career advancement. The data allows employees to adjust their thinking about what is common and how their company measures up.
• Seek out (or ask for help finding) a senior employee mentors who can help them develop both skills and realistic expectations about the role of the company in an employee’s growth.
• Take accountability for the fact that they are primarily the one responsible for their own personal and professional growth and development.

Why This Will Work

Behavioral Science teaches us about the theory of cognitive dissonance. This occurs when a person’s beliefs do not align with their actions. People are averse to feeling this clash so they will often adjust their thoughts to bring their activities and their mindset into alignment. Here, if gen-z is given both data and tools to understand how to drive their own careers, and they see what other companies are doing, dissonance should decrease. When norms are understood and tools are available, the conversation between managers and employees can turn to employees asking “how can I develop” rather than “why isn’t this company moving me ahead more quickly?”

DIGITAL VS. FACE TO FACE

Gen-z grew up with readily available technology and may prefer to communicate through texting rather than face-to-face conversations. This allows greater control over the interaction and is likely very comfortable. Relying too heavily on digital communication though, can make social cues hard to read and is ill suited to understand complex information. Accordingly, some leadership feels gen-z are hiding behind their devices and have neither the ability to interact in person nor write professionally.

What Employers Can Do

• Offer gen-z employees writing and communication workshops. These would need to be interactive to test progress.
• Insist that employees attend meetings with their manager and team meetings in person.

Employees Could

• Agree that at these early stages of their careers, face to face interaction is not only expected, but essential to their growth. Leadership can explain that a key part of success is building relationships with peers and superiors. This is much easier to do in person than online.

Why This Will Work

There is a psychological phenomenon called the exposure effect. It states that people tend to develop a preference for things with which they are familiar. Creating situations where early career professionals must meet in person enables a comfort with (if not a preference for) in person meetings.

I am a believer in coming together. Rather than both sides retreating to their corners and throwing rocks, I think there are practical and relatively easy ways to begin to appreciate an opposing point of view. Gen-z is here. It’s unrealistic for leadership to assume nothing will change. Likewise, its naïve for gen-z to assume everything will transform. Success is waiting where everyone recognizes their part in making it happen.