Brianna Parkins: Maybe the Gen Zs are right to stop treating workplaces like ‘family’

Generational labels are a useful way to blame things on an otherwise unrelated group of people. The headline “millennials are killing” followed by a common noun was omnipresent on news sites from the 2010s onwards.

The avocado lovers were charged with murdering all kinds of industries – golf, cable television, diamonds, paper napkins, bars of soap, awful chain restaurants and church weddings.

All things, in my opinion, we could do without as a society – except all-you-can-eat pizza restaurants. We are a lesser people without the sneeze-guarded wilting salads, bacon bits and chocolate mousse made entirely from chemical compounds. Goodnight, sweet prince.

We all agree the Boomers are responsible for ruining the housing market, the planet and Facebook with their terrible “minions” memes. No one knows what Gen X ruined because no one pays them any attention.

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When they were young and hip and didn’t go “ooof” involuntarily when standing up from sitting in a low chair, they were known as the slacker generation. People who were disillusioned with traditional workplaces and who were cynical about corporate 9-5s being the path to happiness.

Preferring to prioritise a work-life balance and mental health, Gen Z are less likely to ignore their personal needs in a bid to get ahead

Then they became bosses and started giving out about Gen Z, who display similar suspicions about living for work instead of working to live as the path to personal fulfilment. Research from Deloitte and the Oliver Wyman forum suggests while Gen Z are ambitious, they are less likely to centre work as the pillar of their lives. Preferring to prioritise a work-life balance and mental health, they’re less likely to ignore their personal needs in a bid to get ahead. Which can be jarring to the previous generations who were expected to have a strict “put up and shut up” attitude in their early careers. And it’s ruining capitalism as we know it, apparently.

A few weeks ago, the Telegraph, in a very calm, understated article titled, “How Gen Z are proudly shirking from home – and taking the economy down with them”, had a look at workplace content on TikTok, the app down with the kids.

It described videos of people pretending to work from bed next to fears work from home is causing Britain’s productivity crisis. Which is sort of like writing an article about the dangers of abusive domestic cats citing a Garfield comic strip as evidence. It’s just a joke.

Laura Whaley, a workplace-themed content creator with 3.3 million followers, also copped a mention for a video explaining how to set boundaries with a co-worker who expects you to work unpaid overtime. Whaley is famous for her “how to professionally say” videos which help people come up with career-friendly alternatives to “will I f**k work for free this evening because you refuse to hire more staff”.

This is the generation who were not whipped by previous recessions into just being grateful for a job even if it treats them poorly

She is a leader in a niche but growing content stream aimed at Gen Z’s navigating uncharted hybrid-working territory who may not have the ability to look at what other older, grumpier and confident employees will and won’t put up with.

There’s an expectation that younger employees will have their energy and naivety exploited because that’s what happened to us. We had to stay back, work public holidays, say yes to everything, do the jobs no one else wanted to, be treated poorly, so why shouldn’t they? Some experiences are confidence- and skill-building. There’s no doubt about that, but some of it is just passing down meanness for the sake of it. So we can lie to ourselves that what happened to us was “character-building” instead of just plain “damaging”.

Gen Z’s crimes were refusing to work “beyond what’s expected of them”, ie not doing extra things and hours they weren’t being paid to do. Which oddly sounds like old-fashioned workers’ rights than a newfangled generational laziness.

This is the generation who were not whipped by previous recessions into just being grateful for a job even if it treats them poorly. This is the generation who saw their millennial counterparts do multiple internships, doing unpaid auditions for profit-making companies just to “get a foot in the door”. Only to find after years of grafting and stagnating salaries that they still can’t afford to buy a house or pay rent. Unlike their older counterparts they know they won’t have access to unionised workplaces with jobs for life. They’ve been thrown to the gig economy and they’re acting accordingly.

There is rarely a big book which logs every hour stayed back or every Sunday lost at the work laptop “trying to get ahead for Monday” which tells HR who to keep and who to lose when business starts to go bad. The mass tech lay-offs have told us that. Ask the Debenhams workers who were told via email they no longer had jobs to go to despite decades of service.

Did the company reward them for all the times they went “above and beyond”? Maybe the Gen Zs are right to stop treating workplaces like “family” when the reality is they see us, at the end of the day, as disposable employees. I, for one, welcome our new chaotic overlords when they eventually get in charge. I both fear and envy them. Even if they are too scared to make a phone call.