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In this episode, we talk about the differences between Gen Z and millennials when it comes to work.

Some say Gen Z is lazy and entitled, while others think millennials are always burned out.

We break down where these ideas come from and if they’re really true.

How does Gen Z feel about older generations and traditional office jobs?

Why do millennials struggle with work-life balance?

And is working long hours the only way to succeed?

We go over all of this and more in a conversation about how work and careers are changing.

0:00 - Intro

2:22 - The "Generational Warfare"

5:23 - What Creates the Conflict in the Corporate Context

8:56 - What Drives the Boomers Crazy

11:11 - Boomers vs. Younger Generations

11:40 - Gen X - The "Cynical Survivors"

20:42 - Millennials

29:33 - Gen Z

42:41 - How Do You Manage a Team With Generational Diversity?

45:33 - Which Generation’s Work Ethic Do You Agree With?

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Some people are accusing Gen Z of being lazy and entitled. Gen Z, they've got their opinions of boomers. Are they really harder working or do they just love to be in the office all day? Are millennials really the snowflakes or are they just first to realize that selling your soul for corporate success isn't really worth it?

Alright. Let's let's talk millennials. The burnout generation?

I'm not

sure where the burnout generation came from. Gen z, stop crying about your student loans. What irritates the boomers? Oh, I I think one is a millennial working. Email comes in at 09:00 at night.

you know, three hours later. Can I add one more? I had a client who was in his eighties and he's actually not a a boomer. He's part of the greatest generation. Right?

That generation before. He would get that email, book a flight to come talk to you in

person about it. Boomers are definitely respect the hierarchy. Chain of command. Yes. Titles matter.

When your boss says jump, you say how high. And you notice that is I wouldn't call that a lost art, but I think there's a lot of challenge of, like, why should I jump? Just because you why why why ask me to jump? Why why there's more challenge to the hierarchy these days.

I think that there's something cynical about the Gen Xers. Gen Xers, they have conflict in both directions, towards the boomers and towards the Gen Z and millennials. One of the primary conflicts is just looking down on the millennials and thinking they're soft. There's a swing away from, you know, be the corporate man, be a good good company guy to more of a work life balance. Right?

Like if if you've seen your parents give forty, fifty years to a company only to be laid off because of a financial crisis, that's not a game I wanna play. And so I'm going to make sure that I enjoy life rather than sell out for a company that isn't gonna protect me when times get tough.

Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast.

Alright, Ryan. Let's talk about work ethic because I hear this a lot from different friends, different clients that one of the biggest challenges for them right now is employing people from multiple generations at the same time. Up to four generations are in the workforce today. And that creates kind of this generational warfare where some people are accusing Gen z of being lazy and entitled. Gen z says, you know, they've got their opinions of boomers.

Are they really harder working, or do they just love to be in the office all day? Are millennials really the snowflakes, or are they just first to realize that selling your soul for corporate success isn't really worth it? So wanna talk about each generation's approach to work, why they hate each other's approach, and how this makes work not suck.

I like it. I like it. So I know I've talked a lot about millennials, Gen z, and or gen gen x and boomers in the past. And now I gotta come up with a new phrase because I don't know I gotta incorporate Gen z into this. Because you used to say, you know, a a millennial working, you know, email comes in at 09:00 at night.

Hey. Can I add one more? I had a client who was in his eighties, and he's actually not a a boomer. He's part of the greatest generation. Right?

That generation before. He would get that email, book a flight to come talk to you in person about it because he was terrible at texting. Email was okay, but he wanna do everything face to face.

Okay. So the the the older generation would just book a plane, plane ticket or Right. Just get in their car and drive to you.

Just just get in their car and drive to you.

Yeah. They wouldn't send you an email at late at 09:00 at night. They'd drive to your house, knock on the door, and start talking. Right. Okay.

So then where does that put Gen z? Because, you know, my story there, I think Gen z and millennials are much closer. I don't know. I think the zers might just use, like, totally other different language.

Well, Gen z doesn't have email to begin with. Sending an email to Gen z is not gonna get through. So after three emails, you might call or text them and they would say, you know, why were you sending emails? I don't I don't have email.

I guess you better tweet them or make a make a TikTok video or something to get in front of them.

Right. And they would just, reply with with some, with a string of emojis that you're probably not gonna be able to decipher.

I'm guilty of that too. And I'm not Gen Z.

So what I think is interesting is is that each of these generations, right, we could poke fun at them, but I think they each have a different set of values, a different set of expectations around work and life. And I think that those unspoken expectations create a lot of conflict in corporate contexts. I know a lot of the the baby boomers that I have worked with really place a high value on button seat time. Right? Being in the office, being seen at your desk, in in their mind translates to, well, this person is committed, they're hardworking, they are doing what they're being paid for, and they're not entirely wrong.

I wouldn't say they're entirely right, but that's kind of their their viewpoint is this value of FaceTime, and that's kinda how how they work. And I think COVID and distributed workforces and remote work and all that kind of stuff has been really challenging for them because I think it cuts across the grain of some of the things that they really value.

Right.

So

we're going right into the boomers. Right? Sure. Why not? Alright.

So well, they are the OG hustlers. Right? Early in laid out, you know, they saw overtime as a badge of honor and work was the identity. They stayed in the same job for decades because of loyalty was everything.

Maybe we needed to find this, right? Baby boomers, I think, were born in '19, probably in the mid 40s to mid 60s.

Right? Let's see. We're looking at, 4046 to '64.

Forty '6 to '64. Okay. They're 80 they're probably in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. Yes. Yeah.

Yep. Sixty five

to 80. And remember, these aren't hard and fast rules. Right? The the kid born in December of nineteen eighty doesn't think radically different from the kid born in January of eighty one. Right?

They they their kind of general range is, but you gotta draw the line somewhere.

Yeah. You you might lean one or the other. You know, you identify, if you will, one or the other. But, But it's more of more of a continuum than a hard break. I also find it interesting that these, year ranges have moved a little bit over the years because a millennial used to be from, like, 1983 to, like, February.

And now millennials are from 81 to 96. Yeah.

I saw that. I saw that. I don't know why '96 is a cutoff point, but I'm sure that's another episode for another time. And then Gen Z, 19 90 seven through 2012.

I'm just gonna tell you, it's gotta do something with Taylor Swift, I'm sure. Because I'm sure if you're born in '97 or later, you love Taylor Swift. And if you're born in '96 or earlier, you probably just like her. You know, you're not in love with Taylor Swift. So I

I think it's gotta be something about the Swifty effect. Probably. So long tangent kinda defining our terms, but let's go back. So baby boomers in their sixties and seventies really kind of valued work as an identity. I think they valued tenure.

Right? So you get promoted because you've been here for a long time, not because you're doing a good job, but just because you've been loyal to the company, so we're gonna promote you. And there's good and bad about that. What irritates the boomers? What is it that that that that drives the boomers crazy in a corporate context?

Oh, I I think one is, especially if you got a boomer that's hiring a Gen z, the job hopping. Oh, yeah. They cannot stand. They look at somebody, Oh, they're not loyal to a company. They don't they can't stick to a job.

And the job hopping, I think, is one of the most biggest annoyances for a boomer.

Yeah. I I've heard a lot of, boomers get really annoyed at the expectation of progression. Like, I've been here for a year. Why haven't I gotten promoted yet? Yeah.

And so it's it's almost the inverse of the tenure. You know, I've been here for a long time, so I deserve to get promoted. It's like, I've been here for a short time. I still deserve to get promoted. I've shown up.

So where's my trophy? I think one of the other things that has bothered a lot of boomers is the kind of remote work. Right? If if you really value FaceTime, time in the office, then people who kind of think remote first, who might sleep all day and code all night, that's that's hard for them. They just they don't see that as being as fitting into the corporate culture.

Even if they're very productive, it's it just kinda cuts against the grain and, you know, honestly, really upsets them.

So you're saying the, back when we had the the government jobs episode, you're telling me the boomers were the only ones in the government buildings working while everybody else was remote?

Yeah, probably. They were the ones looking forward to going back, going back to the office.

You know, this is another interesting one. Boomers definitely respect the hierarchy. Chain of command. Yes. You know, titles matter.

When your boss says jump, you say how high. And you notice that is I wouldn't call that a lost art, but I think there's a lot of challenge of, like, why should I jump?

Mhmm.

Just because you why why why ask me to jump? Why why? There's more challenge to the hierarchy these days. But I don't know if I'd necessarily say that's a negative thing. I just think from the Boomer's perspective, you know, it's not respecting the chain of command.

I think the Boomers also had more of a respecter value of the institution and and the corporation. Right? Being a corporate man was viewed as a good thing, whereas I think younger generations, being a corporate man is a sellout, and they're more suspicious or skeptical of corporations. Whereas I think older generations were more willing to kinda buy in and support what the company was doing for the good of the company.

Let's move on to to x.

The cynical survivors. Are you a cynical survivor? I am. If you draw the line at nineteen eighty, I I am, but I'm I'm close to a millennial. So, I think I've got a little bit of the millennial in it, but probably more Gen x.

Raised by boomer parents, that's me, I think saw many of them saw their parents kinda give everything to their corporate jobs and said, you know what? I'd I'd rather have a different life. I'd rather have, more work life balance than just, you know, selling myself out for forty years just to get a gold watch at a retirement party. I think that there is something cynical about the the Gen Xers. I think there is this kind of reaction to the corporate BS, you know, kind of give give the finger to the man.

And I think, you know, looking for ways to escape corporate life. And I think there's, you know, there's a lot of great movies, a lot of great music about, you know, coming from the, you know, probably the nineties and early two thousands when these people were coming of age of just not wanting to be part of that system.

Gen x was the rebels. Yeah. The absolute rebels. They wanted nothing to do with the system and to challenge the status quo and

Right. Yeah. Their their our soundtrack is Rage Against the Machine and Green Day and, you know, just kind of a give the finger to the man type music. The Gen x was allergic to BS. Mhmm.

Yeah. That's good. Which which can see you can see where a Gen xer and a, and a boomer will not fare well, especially in a sales environment because what were the boomers great at? They were great BSers in sales.

Right. Right. The the other interesting thing about Gen x, and and I've actually seen this, they created a new category called the Xennials, which is the bridge between Gen x and millennials. So I think they defined it as, like, 78 to 84 or something like that. And and what they pointed out in a couple of articles that I read is that that group is a very interesting group.

And I happen to be a part of it because they were part of both the analog and digital world. I remember a world without the Internet. I remember getting my first email account assigned to me as a freshman in College, but I remember using phone books as a kid to look things up. And so I've got an analog life prior to the Internet and then obviously had to learn everything with the Internet and came up in that. I was in college when all of that was exploding.

But it's funny because boomers, I think, generally struggle with the digital because that's came in later in their life. And the millennials only knew digital. Like, they never had any experience in the predigital world. And there's that small window of people that grew up bilingual in both the digital and analog world. And I'm kinda proud to be in one of them, but it does make me cynical of both the other groups because I think that all the millennials don't know how hard life used to be, And then all the old people don't know how to adapt to technology.

So I like to just kind of piss on both of them.

Hey, it's it's, you know, I'll give you a little bit of that. But it's Gen Z that's the worst because they don't have a clue what dial up is. Right. And if you've suffered through the age of dial up, then, you know, that's a hard life.

Yeah. Yeah. And and there's so many things now that just happened that were just so painful. Like, I look at coding languages today, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. How easy it is to write code now versus when I was writing code and that you've got one syntax error, and you've gotta go find the missing comma in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lines of code, and there's no direction.

It's just compile error. Start over. So if you've never suffered through that, it's really easy to look down on people and all the tools that they have to make life easier. They're great, But there's a lot of people who have spent a lot of blood, sweat, and tears doing things the hard way before all the, the digital tools have come out that have made life so much easier and and just everything so much faster now.

Again, I think you're right. There's just that level of of no pain, no gain, right? Like, we went through the ultimate. I mean, I guess you could say like the boomers, you know, they had punch cards. And, you know, it was even harder than that.

But the the days before the Internet when you actually had to, you know, drive somewhere.

So I think Gen Xers, I think, have conflict. Maybe not strong conflict, but I think they have conflict in both directions, towards the boomers and towards the the Gen z and millennials. One of the primary conflicts is just looking down on the millennials and thinking they're soft. Like, they're just not willing to put the grind in. And I'm not saying that's entirely fair, but when you look at what a lot of Gen Xers had to do to get to where they're at, it's easy to look down on the Gen Z employees and feel like they haven't really put in the work and they haven't earned it.

I love the line here. Gen z, Gen z, stop crying about your student loans.

Yes. I think Gen Xers also I know for me, I really love making fun of corporate BS. I think about the movie Office Space that was just a mockery of all the horrible things that exist in a lot of corporations. I can't recommend the movie. There's definitely some language in it, and I think think a little nudity.

So this isn't an endorsement. But, if you've, if you've ever felt like you just wanna quit your job, that movie will actually it feels like therapy.

Well, let let's be honest. Like, that is, like, the work theme of Gen x.

Right. That movie is the Gen x works mindset. Yes. It's BS. It's meaningless.

It's purposeless. It's unfair, and it is yeah. It's killing it it's basically killing your soul, and the only way out is to burn the whole thing down. Right? And that's, I mean, like, that is the epitome of work sucks is it's meaningless, it's purposeless, and the the only way out is to burn it all down, which is a very Gen x cynical

attitude. And don't forget the stapler.

And don't forget the stapler. Anything else that you've seen really causing conflict between Gen X and some of the other generations?

No. I think again, I think Gen X is a little bit of a bridge between, millennial and boomer. I think there's depending on which side you're on, I think you can identify with, some boomers a little bit easily er. Mhmm. And I think, again, I think some of the later, Gen Xers can relate to the millennials a little bit more.

But I think at the same I I think there's still that where the bigger gap comes in is is to Gen z.

Yeah. I I would say maybe the last thing I've noticed is a a lot of Gen xers just figure stuff out. Right? There wasn't a lot of, you know, coming up in the digital age as it was evolving. There wasn't a lot of mentoring.

There wasn't guidebooks. There wasn't dial up for dummies. Like, we just had to figure it out. And I think that became became a skill set that we've taken, but that that's not always fair to assume on other people.

Well, it, isn't Gen X the generation that basically just like grew up outside just roaming the streets while their parents were all working?

Yeah. The latchkey generation. Both your parents are working. So you get home from school and you're on your own for a couple hours.

So I think that that whole that whole generation, even in the workplace, is just figure it out. Yeah.

Survival. And I think it's really frustrating when people when I've worked with people who expect to be spoon fed, that really I'm like, dude, just figure it out. Like, Put it into Google, go read Reddit, watch a YouTube video, go freaking figure it out. Don't ask me how to do it. I've got too many other things to do, but I think that's probably a function of my upbringing and a little unfair to do to people who didn't have the same experiences I did.

Yeah. All right. Let's talk millennials. Millennials. The burnout generation?

I'm Not sure where the burnout generation came from.

So here's an interesting thing. There's a friend of mine. Actually, you've, you've worked with him as well. And when I realized what what his birthday was, somebody pointed out to me they said, you know what? In his life, he has only known bad things.

It's like 09/11 was one of his first memories. Right? Then the two thousand eight financial crisis and the impact that had on his family. And it, it's just kind of one thing after the next. There there wasn't a lot of wins for society, at least here in The US.

Right? The US society, there wasn't these hurrahs. You know, we did it. We put him in on the moon. We, you know, won the cold war.

Like, those things all happened before he was born or before he was aware of what was going on. And so from his perspective, like, it's just kinda one kick in the teeth after another. And I think that's what this burnout generation is talking about is is if you were born in '81, you probably weren't really aware of what was going on until the nineties, and then it's like war war. It's just there aren't really any good mile markers in your life experience that say life's getting better, and I'm gonna make it.

Well, I mean, I'll go with with I was in this age range. You had a the financial crash of the eighties. Mhmm. You know, I didn't know much about it. I was still too young, but it had an impact.

Then you had, what, the first Gulf War in, like, what, '92? And so Ninety ninety two? Yep. And then, you know, shortly after that, somewhere in there, we had OJ Simpson. Oh, yeah?

Don't forget that. That consumed all the TV, the airwaves. Yeah, the February. And then, yeah, nineeleven following right after that. And then the second Gulf War.

And then, yeah, it's been one tragic event after another.

Yeah. And so I think it's very easy for this generation to be disillusioned. I feel like the game's rigged against me. And it's not that I don't wanna play. It's just that I know I can't win.

I like that hardworking is disillusioned.

Yeah. There's a swing away from, you know, be the corporate man, be a good good company guy to more of a work life balance. Right? Like, if if you've seen your parents give forty, fifty years to a company only to be laid off because of a financial crisis, that's not a game I wanna play. And so I'm going to make sure that I enjoy life rather than sell out for a company that isn't gonna protect me when times get tough.

So what I find really interesting is we all know millennials are purpose driven. And, you know, what's driving a lot of purpose in business today is the drive from the millennials and reconnecting with why and and and whatnot. And the thing is is is they always said, I remember this going back several years, you know, millennials aren't loyal at all. They'll jump from job to job. And it's actually quite the opposite as Millennials are very loyal to a to a cause.

Now, when you look at, like, the boomers and millennials, boomers were they weren't driven by a cause, they were driven by a result. And they were loyal to that result. As long as it kept producing that result, it really was the same thing, but it was like the the the opposite side of the same coin. Yeah. As long as the purpose was the, you know, because because life sucks or work sucks.

Life sucks. There's all these disasters as we just went through. You might as well give me something worthy of working for. And if you give me that, then I will be loyal and work hard, etcetera. But if you don't, then I am going to just I'm disillusioned and gonna hop from one thing to another.

So it's interesting where it where the similarities are, but where where the different generations weren't seeing it because one was result driven versus one where intrinsic driven versus extrinsic driven.

Right. Yeah. Loyal loyal to an institution versus loyal to an ideal.

You know, that's probably a good a good, designation there is I think Gen X was just enough intrinsic drive and just enough extrinsic drive where it kind of bridged in between. Boomers were definitely extrinsic motivated. The second car, the second house, the money, you know, the things, right? And I think that's also where a lot of millennials they had they grew up in houses that had things. So they wanted more intrinsic drive.

So it just switched. Right.

More experiences. Less possessions. I've seen millennials be much less respectful of the corporate hierarchy, just not really kind of understanding that. And in some organizations, in smaller organizations, that kind of that kind of hierarchy is not, you know, there. It's not well developed.

It's not super important. But in a lot of larger companies, particularly older companies, companies that have decades, if not a hundred plus years of history, hierarchy is very important. And I think that's a challenge for millennials who, I think, value collaboration more and tend to almost devalue tenure. And I've seen that certainly create a lot of conflict where, you know, just just because you've been in the same job for thirty years doesn't mean you're necessarily better than me. In fact, I think it might mean that you're not as good as me because you've been stuck in the same way of doing things for thirty years.

And I'm young and I just got out of college and I've got a lot of great ideas. You should listen to me. And you can see how those two are gonna not play well together because they have a very different perspective on the value that they create for the organization.

It's always interesting for me to look at, you know, boomers, x, and and millennials. Because like you said, you know, x or, boomers didn't have the technology. Their careers were well established before technology came. I mean, there was levels of technology, but not Sure. To the extreme.

Right? And then you said Gen x, you know, kinda came from an analog to a digital. And then millennials were the first generation to actually have technology in their hands at birth. Now what I mean by that is, like, the little toy where you press one button and the red light comes on. You press another button and the green light comes on.

You know, you could you could push a button and things would happen, and you could interact with it. You know, that's technology. Mhmm. Those things didn't exist, to that degree. They're mechanical versions, but not digital versions.

And so I think one thing that came in is is there's that, you know, lazy or, you don't have a lot of great ideas. We came with technology. It's almost like, you know, back in the day, you would have you know, let's let's say if you're a corn farmer. You know, it's great grandfather, grandfather, father, son, and how you, you know, plowed the field and how you maintain the equipment and all that was passed down. You know, there was a form of even even how you harvest the field, you used a level of technology and tools to do that, but it was always passed down from the older generation to the younger generation.

And there was that social, emotional, psychological connection in that in that handing of experiences. And so with millennial being, you know, technology first, there was actually a gap there. The first time in history, the younger generation was teaching the older generation technology, and it made it very difficult because it wasn't so much that we came out of college and we just knew better than everybody else. It's we knew how to use this tool called technology better better, faster, more efficient than everybody else. And we could do the same job twice as fast because we use technology as opposed to the old way.

What the millennials were missing missing is they were missing the EQ side of the equation of handing it down, and it became very IQ focused. So it became you know, what what is it you always say, like, don't bring facts to a feelings fight?

Mhmm.

That's basically what would happen is you would have the older generations being the feelings and the younger generation being the facts, and that's where they're talking past each other. And that's where you got, they're just boomers just don't get it. They're dinosaurs. They're just doing it the old way. And you'd get the the boomers coming back, and those millennials don't understand how to build a relationship.

And, you know, they're just about their technology and they're not loyal and they don't understand the, you know, how to connect with people.

Yeah. And and they don't respect the history of what what it took to get here.

Right.

Yeah. It's an interesting way of phrasing it, the IQ versus the EQ. I think that's I don't want to hold on to that one. All right. So Gen Z, this is the emerging workforce.

It's not an identity. It's a paycheck. They, I think, are very efficient. I think they really value their personal time. And so, you know, they'll they'll put in the time.

The good ones are hardworking, but they also recognize that there's a time to stop and go do what they would rather do. Right? Go go do something for their personal life.

You know what I've noticed with with Gen z? And this is mostly because maybe my kids are in this generation, and and my son is my older son is definitely in in the work workplace now. So I'm using him as my my, example here. But, man, they like to complain about everything. You know, like Okay.

Yeah. You're working at a working at look. I get I get it. Working in a restaurant is not fun as your first job, but it's one of those, like, suck it up, buttercup. Like, everybody's gotta start somewhere.

And it's just like, how was your day? Oh, this, customer was rude to me, and and it was horrible. Like, that's life. Welcome to it. Now don't get me wrong.

There are Gen z's that I work with in several companies that are, amazing. They're fast. They're fun. They're collaborative. The only thing that I noticed is they tend to get, like and and maybe this this just comes with the level experience.

Right? It's the lack of, it's like there's there's just that expectation. It's just instant gratification.

Mhmm.

I've I built a process. Let's deploy it. It's like, yeah. But Yep. There's it's almost like there's a lack of journey.

It and Mhmm. There's there's a kind of a Gen z has a little bit of boomer in them, which I find ironic. Yep. They're just like, they want that result, that result, that result. I want it now.

And now they have, like, the the EQ side of, you know, the the personnel or the the collaboration. Highly collaborative and

Yep.

Work with each other and go team. But, man, they want that, like, well, I clicked the button in Amazon, and I got it here in two days. Like, why can't this process be deployed in two days? I did this thing. Why isn't that happening?

And it's like, there's it's almost so tunnel vision. Millennials were very journey focused.

You could see the

processes and think through the journey, and and Gen z just wants to blow through the journey and get straight to the result.

Yeah. In their defense, Gen z has grown up in a world of instant gratification.

And so Totally.

They haven't had to wait for very many things. What I have found in my work with Gen z's and with people who hire Gen z's, it is really hard to get young people to realize that everything important in life is a function of compound interest. Good relationships, a good career, good health, good finances. None of those things are a function of intensity. They're all a function of consistency.

You can't get healthy in a weekend. You can't do a forty eight hour blitz and develop a great relationship. Right? Like, that stuff just takes time. And they've really been dealt a difficult hand because they haven't had a lot of those experiences where they had to do something for a long time before they saw the results.

They're used to getting to results very quickly, And I think that's part of the challenge of engaging Gen z employees is they're there for three weeks, and they're like, I expected to change the world by now. I haven't changed the world. Maybe this isn't the right place for me. I'm gonna go look at a different job. It's like, dude, you've been here for three weeks.

Like, chill

out. That's like eight job. Right. Holy crap.

But if you're if you're used to seeing results that quickly, you're gonna think something's wrong because you haven't changed the world in three weeks. And I think that that obviously creates a lot of of conflict with some of the other generations because Gen z can treat jobs like dating apps. Right? If they don't like the way it feels, if they don't like the vibe, they swipe left and they move along. I get that from some perspectives, but I can see why they burn a lot of bridges with their coworkers of other generations.

That's good.

And I've I've seen people do it. I've seen people come in. They have a hard you know, they get yelled at by a customer. They have a hard shift. Something goes wrong and they just walk out.

Like, they don't resign. They just walk out. And it is hard as an employer to staff appropriately when somebody can walk in, have a mental breakdown, and suddenly you're shorthanded because they can't deal or or they can't even.

Yeah. I know. This is a little bit of a an an older an older millennial talking here, but the the the fact that, like, people go, I need to make take a mental health day.

Mhmm.

Really? That's a thing? What? It's a thing. Oh, okay.

Cool. You know? But I guess I guess, you know, for us, we were just like, I don't feel like working today. I'm gonna call in sick.

Right. I guess Probably. We were

just maybe less less honest about what we were were doing and more so like a mental health day.

Yeah. But as I think about the conflicts between Gen z employees and other generations, you know, there's certainly some respect for history, paying your dues. Like, you know, as you think about Gen X and boomers, you know, many of these people were in roles for years before they got promotion opportunities. A lot of Gen z employees, they expect annual promotions. And that's just not really how the world works, but the you know, employers are having to figure out what to do with that because they do wanna challenge the way things have always been done.

They wanna challenge authority. And sometimes they have good ideas, but sometimes they don't know what they're talking about. You've gotta find a way to discern, is this an opportunity to improve things, or are they just running their mouth because they don't know what they're talking about? Yeah.

And I think one of the one of the issues they or where Gen z can either find themselves in a lot of trouble or find themselves, you know, leveraging the situation is that instant gratification, wanna move quick, you know technology, and you know how to do things. But too often, I see Gen Zers come up with a one x mindset. They can do this task, and they can automate it, but they've looked at it in this very narrow view. And as soon as you throw in a a a variable or reality like, we're humans. You're you're interacting with other humans and, you know, things break.

Then that process is really not scalable. And then what do they do? They make another one x and another one x and another one x. And then what you end up with is this overinflated SOP that's very complicated that takes five times more energy. But because you're just moving so fast, you don't realize you're not actually accomplishing anything.

You're just creating a lot of activity. And so I would say from a Gen Xer, if you can find if you can find that, but then you can figure out how to 10 x that with a 10 x mindset, like, how can I future proof this? How can I layer it? How can I look a little bit above and figure out how to actually 10 x the process? You'll go a lot farther.

But, again, that's where I see most of the headache, especially on a process side, is when I get a one x like, we're trying to 10 x a process and I get one x ideas. And then I you know, it's why didn't we just do the one x idea? It would already be done. If I just do that 10 times, that's 10 x. Right?

No. It's not it. It's x. It's that works

that way. I've also see Gen z employees want transparency, and that does not tend to play well with larger, kind of more bureaucratic institutions.

I like that one. And let's I think there's always been a level of scoreboard or scorecard, if you will. But I think I think as the paradigm has shifted, we've changed where the scoreboard needs to be. The the boomers would work for money. The money was how much money did I make?

How How much money did I take home? That was my scorecard. Right? Right. My sales quota, my check, you know, that was my scorecard.

Since millennials and Gen Z and I you have to tell me if X fits in this a little bit as well. Is is there's a level of just I need to make a living. You know, I definitely want more, but I wanna make a living. But I wanna know what I'm doing is meaningful, and so I want more transparency within the business to know that the business is making the right decisions and that my efforts aren't in vain. And by not sharing that scoreboard, you're actually hindering their ability to work harder or work smarter, if you will.

Mhmm. And that's creates actually a lot of a lot of, dissonance within the organization. And what, you know, the older generations here is I want you to show all the financial data because I don't trust you with it. Right. And it's like, there's okay.

There's a level of that too. Because if you're being shady, then you deserve it. But as as we've evolved our level of thinking, the scorecard has to evolve above what's my immediate paycheck.

Yeah.

And so I I almost

wonder if it's if it's question of vision for each generation. Like, I wonder if the boomers vision of work was this is, you know, it's a financial game that I'm trying to win. Right? And and whatever I've gotta do to win the financial game is what I gotta do. I think Gen X reacted against that and said the game's rigged.

The game's stupid. I'm gonna go be an independent contractor, so that I can have a little bit more control over my own destiny. I think Gen Z wants to work, but they want they want purpose. Like, they expect meaning and purpose from their work, and they wanna know how their work is making the world a better place. And if you don't have an answer to that, they're gonna go someplace that does.

And I think some of that is true for Gen z as well, but I think that they have much less tolerance for bureaucracy, for hierarchy and for just kind of B. S. Like, I don't think they are willing to tolerate much, and yet they bring a lot of technology and innovative ideas. I think that they that each generation has a different vision of what a good working relationship looks like.

Yeah. That's interesting. So is this is this the, the good old paradigm of, you know, everybody's got a spot on the wheel. Right?

Mhmm.

Each generation is probably, you know, you probably got some that are on one end of the of the, you know, the younger side of the generation on one part of the wheel and, you know, slightly further down for the older generation or older people in that category.

But, you

know, they're they're within the pillar. Right? And then is it the good old, like, the journey people saying we need to go, you know, left and the results people saying we need to go right, but at the end of the day, they're talking about the same thing?

Here's my read on it. I think boomers are results driven. I'm gonna go Gen Xers are more journey driven. Right? They're in it.

They're they're grinders. They understood the analog and the digital side. They they're willing to just roll up their sleeves and figure it out. I think the millennials are vision. They want to make the world a better place.

But Gen Zs are culture. They care about how it feels.

That's interesting.

Right. Because because if I have a bad day, I'm out. Like, I quit if I have a bad day. If somebody's mean to me, I'm I'm resigning.

See, I almost wonder if if it's do you put the boomers are at the cross of results and culture. I actually think you put the xers on culture and journey. You put the millennials on vision and journey, and you put the, you put z on vision and results.

So going backwards through the wheel. Mhmm. Interesting.

Because the reason why I put z at at at the the vision results side is they want that instant gratification. They think they've got the ideas. And there's a level of of culture connection to it, but they're disconnected from the bigger culture of everything else because they're so vision results focused. Right. The reason why I put Gen z at, culture and journey is there's the lack of vision component of journey, but there's very the social emotional connection to journey.

And then that's where, you know, boomers are definitely about the relationship and the results. There's no vision there.

Yeah. But there's no vision.

There's no vision. And then, you know, millennials are all about the vision and journey, which puts them a 80 degrees from the boomers.

Right. Right. They're gonna be sitting in each other's blind spots. I don't think that any one of these generations is right, and any one of them is is entirely wrong.

Not at all.

I think I think they all have valid perspectives and blind spots. So how do you manage a workforce with this kind of with generational diversity?

Oh, that's a good question.

If you had all four generations, boomers, Gen x, millennials, and Gen z's all working for you at the same time, how would you communicate with them? How would you manage a team like that?

I don't think I would I I'd answer this the same as if it was, like, an American, a Colombian, a Bulgarian, and a Japanese. Okay. Is I think it goes down to just understanding the uniques of each generation or each, you know, category of people and figuring out how you can leverage each other for what you're trying to achieve. I mean, there are relationship skills that the boomers have that the younger generations don't. If you can leverage those, you will make better connections.

There are processes that the millennials can make, that the gen xers can enforce, that will drive the business forward in a more meaningful way. And there are great ideas that gen z has because they can they can see it in a better way. And if you could figure out how they're trying to leverage it and take their idea and apply it with everything else with the experience, you'll probably move faster. So at the end of the day, it's it's everybody's got strength and weaknesses. Just leverage each other's strengths and don't focus on each other's weaknesses.

Yeah. I think that's good. I think it requires a workforce that is self aware, that they understand their strengths and weaknesses. They're humble enough to admit they don't have all the right answers and curious enough to be willing to reevaluate things that they, just assume. Right?

Whether it's assuming that this is the way we've always done things or assuming that because it's been done for thirty years, I've got a better way. That humility and curiosity, I think, pairs really well to create a healthy cultural dynamic even if you've got multiple generations working together.

So I'm gonna use an example real quick from sales. A boomer is gonna say, pick up the phone book and just start calling down the line.

Diamond for dollars.

Right? Which doesn't the phone book doesn't exist anymore. People don't answer their phones. It's, it's changed. But if you get in a room with that person and say, okay.

Okay. You call that person. What are you gonna say to get them to stay on the phone? Just take that to to to, today's current technology. That's Apollo IO with an email.

So it's not it's not don't you don't need to follow the old process of pick up the phone and start dialing. But it's it's why would you say what you're gonna say to get them on the phone and transpose that into a modern day standard?

Mhmm.

So that's that's where you, again, you can leverage the two components for a better result.

I like that. Which generation's work ethic do you agree with? Drop your thoughts in the comments. In the next episode, we will be talking about how each generation communicates, why they don't communicate well, why nobody's happy about it, and how that makes work suck for all generations, and what we can do to maybe make work not suck a little less. Thanks for listening.

Make work not suck. Our podcast that talks about exactly that, our process, vision, journey, culture, and results. We present real world business solutions that make the difference. Our goal is to make work not suck Hosted by Ryan Hodges, co host Daniel Steer. Join us each episode and make work not suck.