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Gen Z is unhappier at work than any other generation. Here are the two things they want.
(www.businessinsider.com)
From the article:
- Salary
- Career growth
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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- Better and fewer working hours.
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Wow, its almost like companies have taken away all the incentives to work!
So that's why no one wants to work anymore!
Nah can't be the company's fault, could only be due to lazy workers now /s
I dong get it. We bought them a pizza just like 12 million dollar consultant suggested. They are supposed to make the green line go up now.
Beatings will continue until morale improves!
What is a totally reasonable demand. Ask a CEO if he would do his work if he would get paid peanuts.
Assuming the CEO does any real "work"
The career growth is really amazing. I work at a unionized place that is required to fill positions internally before outside hires. When a senior employee retires from a top level position it will be filled by someone at the company. Typically someone in a mid level position. Then there's a chain effect where now that mid level position is open that will go to entry level workers. The only outside hires tend to be for entry level jobs.
It's great because when you talk to the senior staff, almost all of them started at the bottom and worked their way up. This gives them better knowledge of how the whole operation works since they've done the jobs below them, and also a little empathy!
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Compromise: I can do mandatory work outings and a ping pong table.
Unrelated of course, but Gen Z is also paid less and have fewer opportunities for advancement than other generations.
Corporations are baffled, and will consider having more pizza on layoff days.
will consider having more pizza on layoff days.
And they will only order two pineapple pizzas and you will like it!
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Which is funny, because we millennials ALSO had fewer opportunities and we’re getting paid less.
I know, right? It's almost as if an entire generation decided that they would mortgage future generations and the environment in order to have nicer things than their parents and their kids.
Worse: it’s that they leveraged four entire generations (and counting) and the environment in order to have a higher degree of nicer things than their parents had over their parents. Up until our generations (gen X is included), every generation had it better than the previous. But thank ol’ Ronnie Reagan and the culture of deregulation that literally jump started the beginning of the end of late stage capitalism.
Even in the EU, where things are “better,” the culture of deregulation changed the course of history. European citizens do have it better, but when comparing against the US, it’s like, hard to be much worse. Now, of course this is all relative and from a hugely biased ethnocentric perspective, but being the “leaders” of the world, the decision made in the US have a huge ripple effect across the world. We exploited more people, and the resulting explosion of profits led to more power for money in politics, which led to worse exploitation across the world, which led to higher profits, ad Infinitum. We’re only a few decades on from the deregul-eighties and the effects have only grown exponentially as they amass more power via more wealth, and more wealth via more power.
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Adequate pay and basic human kindness?
No, it's the workers why are our of touch.
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Another dumb-ass op-ed that starts with a stupid premise and gets worse from there. Look how desperately they try to make it seem like workers are different by generation. watch them desperately thrash and twist to avoid the truth, that conditions are their fault.
They sampled 18-25 y/os then skipped straight over the rest of the workforce to workers 65 and older.
No talk about compensation differences between these groups. No talk about 26-64 year olds.... I want to find the author and personally tell them how disappointed i am in their work, but it was probably ai or one of those gig word count jobs and they wouldn't even care
Yeah, I'm a millennial who has hated those same things since probably around the same time gen Z started joining the workforce. I bet the only real difference is that gen Z didn't join the workforce with the illusion that it wasn't so bad because millennials were already talking about it. And gen X cynicism (which is deserved, not trying to open a front in the "generation war" here) likely planted the seed for millennials to notice it.
I'm seeing the same. I'm an older millennial that joined the workforce in a conservative state, so I kept my mouth shut about shitty work conditions so I didn't end up fist fighting some of my coworkers. Gen Z is entering a workplace full of disgruntled millennials like myself and we're together making an environment where it's safer to tell employers we're tired of being taken for granted.
I'm a Xilenial and agree 100% with what you said. Younger Gen X started to notice these problems, but when your 35-ish year old Boomer parents are living the life, they shut you down without mercy. It took until the youngest Millenials/Older Gen Z for people to be able to talk about this openly.
Older gen y, been railing against the bullshit as long as I've been immersed in it. Glad others are taking up the torches and pitchforks.
Gen X here and it has been common knowledge since 2000 that the only way to not fall behind your peers in terms of salary or career advancement is to change jobs every few years.
Existing staff getting paid less than new hires has been a thing for at least 25 years.
"The best way to get a raise is to get a new job"
Hell, I think it was boomers, if not the silent generation, who first learned the hard way that company loyalty can screw you. If that shit started in the 80s, it would have caught the silent generation.
The whole generational conflict is just another attempt to divide people so they are less likely to unite effectively against the ones who put their profit ahead of everything and everyone else.
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They linked to blink 182's "All the Small Things" which reminded me of when I was working at Cracker Barrel in college. That song came on the radio in the kitchen, and everybody in the back of house said "Work sucks" in unison, and a bunch of the servers in the front replied "I know."
The manager made us change the radio station after that, but it was hilarious solidarity.
What a class traitor of a manager...
He was one of those "sad little kings of sad little hills" who lorded his power over everybody and creeped out any young woman who worked there.
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I don't know what employers expect to get in return for their behavior. For decades they treated employees like shit, and now they complain that employees don't love them.
Read "Hell's Angels" by Hunter Thompson.
There's a chapter about the economics of being a biker/artist/hippie circa 1970. A biker could work six months as a union stevedore and earn enough to spend two years on the road, and a part time waitress could earn enough to support herself and her musician boyfriend.
- stop hoarding wealth
- 1 but louder
I guess I'll interject with personal experience so take everything that follows as, my most humble opinion of things. I have zero expectation for anyone to agree.
Gen X myself, I am currently in a position that I am completely happy with now. That did not come without a massive fight. This is quite literally my 6th job in my field (system's programming) and now the second longest I've stayed with a company. Quoting from the story:
Without the promise of high returns for their loyalty, Gen Z has learned to follow the money
And this should be people's default until shown otherwise. I cannot count the number of times I've heard "it's just business" in the course of my various jobs. At the end of the day, your employer is looking at bottom line most times. One should not invest themselves into any relationship when the other is simply looking at the piratical ramifications of the relationship and not the broader nature of that relationship.
It's about the money and being able to pay for living expenses, which is reasonable. The dollar went a lot further when baby boomers were entering the workforce. It doesn't go as far now.
Yeah, while suffering when sufferable was okay when a taco was under a buck, dollar doesn't go anywhere today. The amount of time to have shits and giggles with an employer on actual compensation is about seven seconds today. When I first got into the field being underneath the region's average for X number of years wasn't unheard of. And for me, it was all cool because shit was cheap. Today, being under the region's average for a position needs to be measured in X minutes, not this year shit. Employer's that want to play games, Gen Z should not budge for a second on the matter.
When a raise and promotion don't hit swiftly, Gen Z is quick to jump ship
I'll say this. When I got to my current position, I knew right off that this was a good company. How? I can't really put a finger on the how, but having been in two jobs previous that were hyper toxic, I had a feeling. Now, I still didn't play games coming in though. I indicated exactly what I expected and that the job couldn't be "all hands on deck" 24/7, 365. That's just shitty management. I gave them six months to show me the money and if it didn't come through I had every intention to hit the door at the 121 day mark.
There was still friction, no meaningful relationship doesn't have those moments, but the things I was indicating was actually being taken serious, and compensation for kicking ass on my end was forthcoming. If your employer doesn't like talking money with employees, you're going to have a lot of friction and I'm not telling anyone what to do, but employer's feeling uncomfortable with the topic of money should be a red flag for you. If that's the straw that breaks the camel's back or just a stone in the wall for you, that's your call. But in my opinion, employers that get squishy about the word money shouldn't be employers. Not with how this world currently is. Maybe we can go back to the "ha ha ha" playing coy game when a significant percentage of a person's paycheck doesn't have to go for simply feeding themselves.
But Gen Zers "haven't lost the passion for what they want to do,"
And I have never thought they have. The Gen Z that I oversee are some of the best workers I've ever dealt with. But the world isn't allowing them to be slacking on ensuring that proper compensation is constant. Inflation is eating away any kind of raise I can give them as fast as I can give it to them. As far as I have seen, Gen Z is some of the best workers to date to come out of the woodwork and it's actually kind of shitty they cannot have the environment to flourish that I had at their age.
Again, from my personal experience, I think there's a lot of management that's still in the lax mood of how employment might have worked back in the day. When a few years under the line of compensation was just the name of the game. But the game has seriously changed and a lot of the folks my age and the boomers as well are still stuck in "the way things used to be™" and it's so bad right now, no one has time for that anymore.
As I've heard so often, it's just business. But I think employers have been so used to the giving that advice, they are completely at loss when receiving it. The Gen Z I've worked with, and it may be different for others, but the ones I've worked with and the ones I currently manage, they're some of the hardest workers who take everything they do as personal value and will be some of the best employees IF YOU ENCOURAGE THEM AND COMPENSATE THEM.
I too dislike that the world has become really centered around pay. But to quote some Tolken:
So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Treat your folks like people, and the rest mostly falls in place.
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Turns out treating employees like dirt, plus an impending climate collapse makes people unhappy. Who knew
Universal healthcare would be great in the US. It's always terrifying to quit or get fired/laid off, despite COBRA, because you're one accident or diagnosis away from having your nest egg destroyed.
Previously being a good worker at a profitable company meant you were safe, but now that isn't the case, and it is making me anxious every day.
COBRA is, intentionally, pure garbage. "You can continue your insurance, if you pay full-price, which virtually no one eligible can afford."
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I think this generational divide is bullshit. Most people have always known that the system is rigged and keeping your head down and working hard doesn't get most people anywhere.
There is a generational divide. Boomers and older GenXers often bought their homes years ago when they were far cheaper and have no mostly or entirely paid them off. If they need money, they can get a cheap HELOC. Their house is also a nest egg. That saves a lot.
They also likely actually got regular raises. Plenty of boomers make 6 figures and still struggle to open a PDF, while zoomers and millennials are doing most of their work for them for 1/3rd the pay.
Yeah, but there are a ton of boomers and gen x that never got a chance to buy a house. Stack on being a minority, or a woman, and your chances of owning a home back in the good old days were probably worse than now since banks and certain neighborhoods would tell you to get fucked. Things may have been easier for many in different generations, but not for everyone. I'm not discounting that gen z has things worse in a lot of ways, especially work and financial wise. I just don't think fighting amongst generations is going to help. It's class warfare.
Edit: By class warfare I mean basically everyone vs the ultra powerful/wealthy.
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Uh, stuff was better but nowhere near as nice as you imagine for a poor kid growing up like i was. but they were better. Work sucked, but yeah life was easier. You're missing the point though, lemme rant some.
How many rich old boomers do you personally know vs how many do you hear on tv?
The point of the tv (or in this case the article) using this angle is to point blame away from the culprits who caused this bad situation, the ultra-rich.
My boomboom parents, myself (xennial), and my extended family members have all watched their money get squeezed right out of their pockets their whole lives.
Maybe you assume we got to keep the money we made from way back when times were better?
Nope! All those wealth transfer graphs you've seen where the line goes up had to come from somewhere. That line means i watched it happen is all, watched it get taken from us. I'm poor like you.
Gramp's life savings got eaten up by gram's medical care. Dad lost his house. I will never get to own one. You probably know a lot of people in all different age groups that have a story like mine.
Meanwhile,
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Warren Buffet is a boomer
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Jeff bezos and Elon musk are Gen X.
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Zuckerbergs a millennial.
Though they are in different generations They all have something in common.
Their wealth, and their absolute love of lobbying the government to get even wealthier at the expense of your and me.
Like Carlin said, "they want all of what you got, and they're gonna get it too."
They are the ones to focus on. Maybe the past was great but we live in the present, and there's no reason left to be jealous of boomers/xers. Our ages don't separate us, our (lack of) wealth unites us.
Trust me, we are all in the same boat.
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It takes a young person being kicked down in a vulnerable moment one time to realize work doesn't care for them and they owe them no loyalty. And since a long time, junior workers are the first to get the axe for circumstances that are no fault of their own.
And when being at a salary that you can barely make it now, staying at that salary as costs shoot up is untenable. So no surprises young workers aren't buying this loyalty bull.
Doubt. I’m a younger Gen X and work has fucking sucked for us and for our parents before us. The middle class has been hollowed out since the 70s, at the latest. It’s now purely transactional, with the final vestiges of loyalty and all that other bullshit long gone. Pay me and leave me the fuck alone. Do those two things to the proper extent and I will provide dispassionate labor in commensurate amount. Otherwise, I will whore out my knowledge and labor elsewhere, with less than zero regard for the collateral damage I may cause.
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Instead of worrying about company culture or whether the job sounds exciting, the first thing Kaneshina looks for when job searching is the salary. "Right now there's this whole salary-transparency movement. So a lot of the roles I apply to I know about the pay right off the bat," she said. Once satisfied with the pay range, Kaneshina digs into the company — are they doing work she has experience with? Then she checks whether the opening provides room for growth — how long until she could get a promotion? For her to apply, all three factors have to line up.
Tech field Gen-X here. When did the above stop being a normal expectation? It sure as shit was when myself and all my contemporaries were starting out. Compensation package, culture and growth were always part of the pitch when employers made job offers.
This is also a shift from when older generations were young: In a 1995 survey by the consulting firm Wyatt Co., under-30 Gen Xers — the "works sucks, I know" generation — were actually the most satisfied with their jobs than any other age group.
That answers the main question I had after reading the headline: did all generations feel this way at this age, or is this unique to Gen z.
Edit: just read the about the 1995 survey referenced in the article. It's pretty interesting. https://reason.com/1995/05/01/heh-heh-work-is-cool/
Reason is a hyper pro-capitalist libertarian magazine who, in an interview with then-governor Ronald Reagan, implied he was too liberal because he didn’t think fire departments should be privatized.
I wouldn’t trust them with this kind of survey, in other words.
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Am on the tail end of Gen X and when I started working even low pay allowed me to afford a place to live, food to eat, and doing fun things occasionally. While work sucked, it at least paid the bills and allowed the freedom to live. Plus there were still some companies that offered actual long term perks, tried and keep people with experience around, and promoted from within.
Gen Z still gets the low pay, but are treated as expendable, and can't afford anything and so it is understandable that they would hate working in comparison.
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Increase minimum wage
We deserve shares when we join. Give us a slice of the pie
And yet businesses try to convince you that you're part of the family and we're all in this together. Work your ass off by coming in early and staying late all year? Good job here's a 2% raise. Nevermind that is lower than inflation and the extra work and meager raise actually lowers your hourly equivalent if you're salaried.
If businesses really want everyone to go above and beyond they need to pay people in equity. Why else would anyone give a shit about the long term success of a business? They certainly have no loyalty to their employees.
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clickbait
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