It’s not entitlement, it’s a call for change: What the rising generation is really asking for
(It’s Break Week! Just a reminder that as you read this, the team and I are resting and recharging so that we can start Q2 feeling our best. Learn more about Break Week here!)
I hit a nerve with my post about the four-day workweek.
(In case you missed it: I shared that our team will be experimenting with a four-day workweek this summer in an effort to create an even more flexible work environment.)
A majority of the people who commented said they are in favor of the four-day workweek and wish they worked in a place that offered it. But there were also those who shared that they were skeptical of or against the four-day workweek. The biggest reason? Some believe this movement is being driven by entitled young people—and Gen Z in particular—who lack a work ethic.
That’s the part I want to focus on: the “entitlement” debate. Are Gen Zers really just asking for handouts and less work? Or is there something deeper going on?
As a business owner, I’ve employed both millennials and Gen Zers, and I can understand the frustration with these generations’ attitudes toward work. And, as a millennial myself, I can also empathize with my peers. Our generations have recognized that our current approach to work isn’t working and needs to change.
I don’t like to put people in boxes, and I definitely don’t think everyone in a certain generation wants or believes the exact same things. In general, though, I see that Gen Z is challenging the status quo in three key areas: work-life harmony, career development, and holding leaders and organizations accountable to walking their talk.
I’m inspired by Gen Z’s drive to do things differently. In this post, I hope to share the other side of the coin and help you see why I think the rising generation is onto something.
Work-life harmony
I recently listened to a podcast where Jessica Zweig, an entrepreneur and CEO, described feeling extremely frustrated with her Gen Z employees for constantly requesting time off and holding to strict boundaries. She said she later realized that it wasn’t frustration she felt. . . . It was jealousy.
That hit me hard. My biggest area for growth as a leader has always been learning to take breaks and build a life that I won’t later regret because I worked too much. Isn’t it admirable that there is a generation that’s willing to advocate for themselves in this way? Isn’t it good that they recognize that life is about so much more than work? Shouldn’t we support the fact that they want to dedicate time and energy to other things they care about?
I understand that flexible work schedules, time-off requests, and strict boundaries can be frustrating . . . and also, Gallup just reported that more than 44% of people worldwide—and 52% of people in the U.S. and Canada—feel extremely stressed in their jobs. Is that the world we want?
In my experience, if we give people more work-life harmony, we'll create teams that are more engaged and willing to give to their organizations because their organizations are giving back to them.
How can leaders create space for more work-life harmony while also ensuring things still get done? Here are three ideas:
Consider allowing flexible work schedules: This was the reason Student Maid had such a high retention rate. At the time, we were one of the only employers in our area that allowed for this kind of flexibility. We empowered our team members to tell us when they wanted to work, and we held them accountable to those schedules. Yes, it made scheduling more difficult, but it allowed our team members to make room in their lives for all of their priorities, not just work or school. In my company today, we have complete flexibility on our team (which is easier to do now that we’re no longer a cleaning company). We care about results over hours worked.
Implement Break Weeks, Break Days, or Break Afternoons: Six weeks a year, we completely close our business and take breaks at the same time (we call these Break Weeks). It ensures that we all take at least six weeks off per year and allows us to truly disconnect. (By the way, this is in addition to our unlimited paid time off policy and our four-day workweek experiment.) I recognize this might not be possible for all teams, but could you do a Break Afternoon? Or a Break Hour?
Create communication expectations: Work together to create a “social contract” around communication. For example, what is the expectation around response times? Having this conversation as a team has allowed us to work in the ways we work best and not feel like we always have to be available. It allows us to have boundaries while still delivering for our team.
Career development
When I was leading Student Maid, more than one person asked me if they could open up a new location of the business after they’d only worked with me for a short while. Instead of chalking up this behavior to entitlement, I learned to see it in a different light: It was a sign that that person wanted to grow. And because Gen Zers grew up using technology and are used to things happening almost instantly, that also means many haven't learned the patience that is required to grow in a career.
I get it: It can be frustrating when you are on the other side of people asking for more, more, more. I think it’s a symptom of a larger challenge, though. It shows that we are missing a transparent path for growth and realistic expectations for how long that growth will take.
I think people deserve that clarity. We deserve to know what path we’re on and how it aligns with our own goals. Without that clarity, we’re more likely to become disengaged and start looking for other jobs.
How can leaders channel that hunger for growth into paths that are more reasonable and realistic? Here are three ideas:
Encourage people to identify their sweet spot: The sweet spot is where motivation and talent meet, and it's where we are most fulfilled in our work. In order to find it, we must expose ourselves to a lot of different opportunities to learn, and we must have patience in that discovery. It could mean trying a lot of roles that turn out to be wrong for us in order to learn more about what makes us tick and what doesn’t. Over time, that “identity capital” (as Meg Jay calls it in The Defining Decade) becomes the currency that gets us the growth we want in our careers. Now that we have learned a ton about ourselves, we know what to look for in a role and what to avoid.
Have growth check-ins at least twice a year: Meet one-on-one with your team and get curious about what growth means to each person. Find out if they are more excited about an upward growth trajectory (which means they are a superstar, according to Kim Scott’s Radical Candor) or a role where they can dive deeper into their area of specialty (which Scott would call a rock star). Give honest feedback about what you think it will take to get there and if they can get there. The more open conversations we can have, the more we co-create the growth path.
Move toward compensation transparency: Show what the path for financial growth looks like so that people can have more realistic expectations when they ask for raises and promotions. At Student Maid, we were able to show the trajectory for compensation in the interview process, and we made the expectations crystal-clear upfront. It reduced a lot of the “When am I going to get a raise?” conversations because everyone already knew what to expect.
Walking the talk
Have you heard of “conscious quitting”? That’s what happens when people (predominantly Gen Zers) are willing to leave organizations that don’t live the values or promote the kind of culture they promise, even if they don’t have another job lined up. In other words: This generation wants to work for leaders who walk their talk.
Isn't that how it should be? How awesome is it that we have a generation that is willing to hold organizations and leaders accountable to being the best they can be?
And, at the same time, I know it can feel frustrating that the expectations often seem one-sided. I think it’s fair for leaders and organizations to also have expectations for those they lead. Culture and values are two-way streets.
How can leaders create a culture of mutual accountability? Here are three ideas:
Meet at The Line: In our company, we have a concept called “The Line.” The idea is that for the working relationship between a leader and team to be successful, we all have to meet at The Line every day and own our part of the equation. We clearly define what it means for each person to meet at The Line and commit to meeting there together. To us, no matter what side you’re on, standing at The Line means doing what you say you will do, living the values, owning your mistakes, giving and receiving feedback, building relationships, and being a team player.
Make space for humanity: I think we also want to give ourselves and others the grace to be human. At the start of our meetings, we do something called a 1-10 Check-In, where each person rates how they are feeling about work and their life outside of work on a scale from 1 to 10. It allows for each person to share where they’re coming from that day, creates context for their mood and behavior, and allows others to show up with more empathy. For example, if your leader is having a “3” day, you might be willing to cut them a little more slack for having a human moment.
Cultivate a culture of open feedback: None of this works without a culture of open feedback. It’s so important to give regular, consistent feedback and also to solicit feedback. We love the “Keeps and Considers” approach, where you share what you think is going well that you want the person to keep doing and the things that could be better that you would like them to consider doing differently. Each time you give Keeps and Considers feedback, ask the other person to give you some Keeps and Considers. This can help ensure that small issues don’t grow into larger ones and can help us become aware of potential blindspots.
I hope you found this post helpful and that maybe it gave you a different lens to look at these challenges through.
No matter what generation you’re a part of, there's so much that we can learn from each other . . . and we need each other.
Big hugs,
