New Generation, Same Old Blame Game

In the last quarter, more articles claiming that Gen Z is “not prepared for work” have crossed my daily reading feed. Employers are reporting growing frustrated with their entry-level hires, citing a lack of workplace readiness, and firing them instead of training them.

Sound familiar? It should, because this is the same critique older generations—Baby Boomers and Gen Xers—voiced about Millennials a decade ago, what Boomers said about Gen Xers, and what the Silent Generation said about Boomers. Plato, writing as Socrates (470 – 399 BC, yes, before Christ), wrote, “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

And although I really don’t like lumping people all together in generational-defined maxims, I’m very comfortable saying, “New generation, same old flawed blame game.” I published my first book, “Millennials & Management,” in 2014, after almost sinking my company because we didn’t adjust to our younger employees in 2011. The issue is not about lack of work ethic or readiness. It’s about communication. And to be clear, the responsibility for clear communication rests with the leaders and managers.

While it might feel like the pendulum has swung “back” to the employer in the constant ebb and flow of perceived power in the workplace, a company without the youngest generation is a company without a future.  

The Complaints Aren’t New

Frankly, these complaints about "not being prepared for work" could almost be cut and pasted from articles about Millennials from a decade ago, with a few Mad-Lib-like word changes. What these criticisms overlook is that the responsibility of workplace readiness does not fall solely on the employee. It’s the team leader’s job to help their teams—regardless of generation—understand expectations, norms, and the unique demands of their roles. From the first day, not starting six months after new employees have started and regularly disappointing you across different criteria.

Being Clear Starts From Day 1 (or Before)

I’ve given workshops all over the country on inter-generational communication in the workplace. In my experience, it boils down to a) setting and reinforcing explicitly detailed expectations, b) cultivating dynamic feedback loops, and c) understanding that everyone can and should help evolve a workplace culture to stay relevant.

Today, I’ll just address setting expectations, or we’ll be here all weekend.

What might seem "obvious" to a Boomer, GenXer or Millennial who’s been in the workforce for one, two, three or four decades is most likely unfamiliar territory for a 21-year-old fresh out of college. One of the biggest mistakes managers make is assuming that basic workplace norms are universally understood. They aren’t. The same way you would onboard someone to a specific task or tool, you need to onboard people to how your workplace operates. This includes everything from how to communicate with colleagues and managers to what constitutes professionalism, to the expectations for meeting deadlines.

You can’t just assume they know. Because they don’t.

One Thing You Can Do To Drive Clarity

If you do only one thing to improve clarity, start defining deadlines with specificity—day, hour, time zone and format. The number one deadline in high school and college today is 11:59:59. So if you say Tuesday is the deadline, don’t be surprised if you receive work at 11:59:59 PM in your colleague’s time zone. From their experience, they won’t be wrong. Avoid misunderstandings by driving clarity with detail in your expectations.