Gen Z Getting Fired Left and Right?

I find most of the articles on differences between generations cheap clickbait, but this one at least had some numbers, and some interesting ones: “6 in 10 companies had to fire a recent college grad hire this year“

They just hired them, and they fired them a few months later. 

Why?

Top Reasons given by hiring managers:

• Lack of motivation or initiative 

• Lack of professionalism 

• Entitled

• Offended easily 

This is not about who’s right

Most people who talk about this, talk about it from a “what the right way?” approach.

Hiring Managers talk about “You need to be more serious and professional at work!”

Gen Z is like “But we want to express ourselves and let our precious individuality shine through!”

Hiring Managers “This is not about what kind of unique flower you are, we’re here to get the work done so just do your job and shut up!”

Gen Z “That’s exactly the problem, you got used to work being bad, but we won’t accept it!”

Hiring Manager “You’re just a spoiled …”

And on and on the comedy goes. 

I’m joking of course, because neither Hiring Managers not Gen Z are such a uniform amorphous mass of sameness. I know it’s hard to believe, but both managers and Gen Z’ers actually have individual personalities and they’re not all the same. 

But roughly, if you’re to believe the stereotypes, including what this articles has found, this is about it. 

It’s like the hippies vs “the establishment” all over again. And just like with the hippies, nobody gives a shit. 

Nobody cares that whatever manager has a certain idea about what being a professional is, and nobody cares that the particular Gen Z-er happens to believe in whatever kind of self expression that happens to clash with their manager’s expectations. 

Let them hire and fire each other all day long if that’s what they want. 

This is a large scale, decentralized negotiation in a free market 

While not always true in all specific cases and in the short term, on a medium long term and in general, businesses needs Gen Z and Gen Z needs businesses and, generally speaking, they’ll end up together if they want it or not. One side needs the workforce, and the other side needs money to pay the rent. That ain’t going to change. 

Whatever friction is happening right now as they start to meet each other will be overcome due to the sheer tectonic force of countless millions of older workers exiting the work place, and the need for countless million new ones to enter it. 

And to whatever degree this melding of different attitudes and expectations will change the norms of the workplace, I suspect it will be more than the managers think it’s right and less then the zoomers hope it will. 

Thinking about generations doesn’t pay the bills

If you’re a manager, stop worrying about Gen Z. Whatever it is, it is, and your ruminating about it won’t change one thing. 

If you’re a zoomer and you’re thinking about how the workplace is like and should be like that instead, your nuggets of revolutionary wisdom on TikTok aren’t going to change it. 

If you’re the manager, build your team. Hire the best people you can find for what you need. Lead it in whatever way you judge it to be the best. 

If you’re a zoomer new to the workplace, find the best job you can that matches your expectations, whatever they may be. Once there, decide how much you are willing to change yourself to adapt to it versus how much you expect them to change to accommodate you. If you want to quit, quit.

Nobody cares. That’s why we have a free market, so we don’t all have to come together in a 8 billion people chat room and agree on what is “the right way” to do things. That’s impossible. You’re all adults so hire and fire each other as you wish, it doesn’t matter, in the end equilibrium will be reached.