It's me, Hi, I'm the problem, it's me

Why it’s important for Gen X managers to figure out Gen Z and how to do so

By James Ching

The What

In the summer of 2023, a few Fortune 500 clients of mine from different industries (one from FMCG, one from Lifescience, and one from Tech), all senior Asia Pacific HR leaders shared with me that amongst the many things keeping them up at night, one that no one had a good solution to, was how best to integrate Gen Z into the workforce. 

“Tell me more, how do you mean?” I asked.

What I gleaned from these conversations from leaders of diverse industries, is that there are two segments of the workforce now that perhaps struggle to get along - on the one hand, Boomer or Gen X executive leadership, and on the other, Gen Z new joiners or early career employees.

The details differ slightly, but the common threads are as follows:

• Senior Leadership tries to impose a particular paradigm of work (“I don’t understand, this is the ‘normal expectation of work that we all went through before”), and Gen Z wouldn’t have any of it (“I don’t understand why I have to take a long commute, come into office, only to do meetings on zoom”). This impacts many aspects of the workplace such as Flexibility of workplace, Working hours, to even the Corporate Mission and Vision. 
• Gen Z feel frustrated about the reality and demands of the modern workplace, as it differed markedly from what they have been taught in college. This leads them to show up in a range of behaviors at work from impatience at feeling a lack of progression, to a total disengagement, the now famous ‘quiet quitting’ (here in Asia, another famous termed coined by Chinese Gen Z is 躺平 Tǎng Píng - literally ‘to lie flat’). 

I remembered being fascinated by what I was hearing from disparate industry leaders. Clearly something was going on. They were from different industries, and yet, they were concurrently concerned about the same thing? I needed to zoom out to get the big picture. 

After some sleuthing, I discovered that 2023 is the first year, Gen Z or younger workers (defined as born 1990 or later) started to outnumber Boomers in the workplace. (cf. Glassdoor, NBC) → this meant that the segment of younger workers is growing and at some point, their workplace ‘norms’ WILL be the predominant norms, once senior executives retire. 

2023 was also the year all the Asia Pacific economies (finally) fully reopened for business, first with Thailand in Southeast Asia, and finally with mainland China. In light of that, organizations then started calling for their employees to come back to the office to work (‘Hybrid work was the exception’). 

No prizes for guessing which generation has to deal with the clash of these in the workplace: Gen X and Millennials as middle managers. 

The Why

Before we jump straight to solution mode, it’s important to get into the differences in perspectives between Gen X and Gen Z. 

Differences in Beliefs and Realities 

Why do they differ in several areas? I am sure there are millions of reasons one can think of, but here’s my take on it:

For Gen X, most of us grew up analog. Digital was always a means to an end, not an end into itself, and for Gen Z, they were born digital. Digital is their default option, their go-to.

I remembered endless hours in primary school after classes, playing catch, racing neighbor kids in our one-child plastic cars annoying the adults, chasing after chickens 🐓and ducks 🦆outside Grandma’s zinc-roofed house in the Kampung (village), and falling down many times with bloodied knees in the school playground🩸😣 .

I still remember my first electric typewriter 🧑🏻💻 and how fascinated I was when super crisp text came out of it courtesy of a ‘new thermal ink’ technology. I also remembered during National Service (compulsory military service in Singapore), we had pagers, which necessitated us to find a payphone or a physical land line phone to ‘return the call’. I remembered in secondary school spending hours yakking away with classmates on the other end of a regular phone 📞, talking about school, teachers, homework, our hopes and dreams, our frustrations etc. I remember building my first website in college for a summer side hustle with friends to assemble computers for people who wanted to save money. 

I remembered experiencing a lot of ‘generation defining moments’ together with millions of people around the world, simply by watching TV 📺, live - I annotate what I think were my key takeaways that formed as a result of these: 

1. Triumphant Germans climbing on top of graffiti filled sections of the Berlin Wall, camera flashes going off, breaking the wall down with sledgehammers or their bare hands; ➡️[Unity]
2. Gorbachev, fighting back tears, telling the world that the Soviet Union was no more; ➡️[Economic models that work for ordinary people, trump Ideologies]
3. George Bush (Senior) on TV declaring coalition war on Saddam to liberate Kuwait; ➡️[Coming together to fight for a cause even if we are different]
4. The return of Hong Kong from Britain to China; ➡️[Self determination/Self Reliance]
5. A feeling of dread and being stunned into silence as I watched a passenger plane (and then another) crash into the World Trade Centre in New York City ➡️[Nothing that is strong, is automatically permanent, change is disturbing, creates anxiety, and yet always how life is]
6. Steve Jobs on stage launching the first iPhone ➡️[challenging the status quo by focusing on the customer]

While I am not Gen Z by any stretch of the imagination, I try to list down a few defining moments in their lives, and I could be completely wrong, because unlike Gen X and Millennials, a shared TV experience isn’t how they experience global events now, but regardless, like Gen X, the effects of many of these events are often felt later when they got older:

1. Facebook → Instagram → TikTok [access to the world, community, I can be globally visible]
2. Budget Airlines [freedom]
3. 2008 GFC [inequality, inequity, uncertainty]
4. The rise and success of Mr Beast, Justin Bieber [alternative models of success]
5. Obama being elected first Black President, and Trump winning the presidency later on. [polarisation]
6. The passing of Founding Father Mr Lee Kwan Yew (in Singapore) [legacy]
7. Covid 19 [isolation/flexibility/self-reflection as normal]

The How

Based on the above differences, it see a few ways forward that I would like to encourage Gen X managers to consider as they work with their Gen Z colleagues:

1️⃣ Nobody needs fixing: 🛠️

Taylor Swift’s song “Anti-Hero” has a chorus line : “It’s me, Hi, I’m the problem, it’s me”. The truth, no matter how uncomfortable it is for us as Gen X managers or colleagues to realise and accept, is that nobody needs fixing.

We need to recognise that Gen Z colleagues grew up in vastly different times than us when we were growing up and have learnt values differently or learnt different values than us.

Put another way, we may find ourselves more willing to applaud our Gen Z nephews, cousins, nieces when they want to do something different from how we would approach it vs our Gen Z colleagues at work, so let’s find it within ourselves to apply that openness and not evaluate Gen Z based on our own mores and values. 💕💕

2️⃣The oyster belongs to the next generation:

As Gen X we have all grown up hearing about “the world being our Oyster”. The Gen Z workforce that will outnumber other generations, will have to shape the way they think how workplaces should operate, the workplace will become increasingly theirs to shape and own. It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.

As Gen X managers and colleagues, a more productive approach could be to invite all generations at work to co-create what that future workplace practice needs to look like, in a way that has elements of what each generation sees as important, but overall still assuring that organizational objectives are met.

Gen Z value flexibility and Gen X are very adaptable, between that there is plenty of room to negotiate. 

3️⃣ Affirmation, Recognition, and Validation, do more 🏆:

As Asian Gen X, most of us grew up being ok with not getting a lot of external affirmations, recognitions, and validations.

As Gen Z, they were brought up at home and in school to believe that they can do anything and being congratulated every other day (or so it seems), and many then come into the workforce being told they ‘know nothing’ and they are ‘inexperienced’.

So between these two poles, there is also room for Gen X to offer more affirmations to Gen Z for jobs genuinely well done, encourage them more overtly, perhaps they have good tech skills they can share or guide older colleagues who are struggling with.

Older colleagues can mentor them about workplace dynamics, communication, collaboration, and other soft skills. It's a win-win.

4️⃣Involve/Invite Gen Z to share about topics they are passionate about:

Gen Z value their roles outside of work as much as inside. Explore opportunities to get them to talk about what they are working on or passionate about outside of work.

There could be opportunities for them to actualise some of these passions in a workplace setting (e.g. volunteering day at the senior home, reading to underprivileged children, cleaning up a beach).

On one occasion my organisation (as part of a global Town Hall that happened during Covid lockdowns), did a “You have got Talent” segment and got different teams from around the world to record a performance that they would like to share.

The overwhelming majority of submissions were younger colleagues, and guess what, they loved doing that and the feeling of being connected to their global colleagues. I personally was just blown away by how much talent they had in comedy, singing and all kinds of performances. 🎤🎤👩🏻🎤💃🏻

5️⃣ Reframe how we talk about Projects:

Many Gen Z colleagues know that they are full of passion, drive, energy, and have the latest hard skills e.g. tech skills when they join as newbies.

They also know they are hungry for the one thing they lack - experience.

As Gen X managers, it could be more productive to reframe assignments and projects as opportunities for learning and gaining experience, instead of just “I need this done, it’s good for you”.

Granted, it is more effort on our part, but as people leaders it is our job to help our team members make the connection and meaning of what we ask them to work on with what they care about. 

I hope the above has been helpful for your journey navigating the multigenerational workplace.

Good luck on your journey!

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