The following piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Eagle and its staff. All opinions are edited for grammar, style and argument structure and fact-checked, but the opinions are the writer’s own.
Hey girl,
I just saw an article that said 30 percent of hiring managers had to fire a Gen Z worker within a month of their start date. Be so for real with me … as my manager, have you thought about it?
Lukewarm regards,
Your newest Gen Z hire
Gen Z has colored professional environments with jokes and unseriousness, whether in their emails, language or behavior in the workplace. The humor, filled with absurdity and out-of-pocket comments, is easy to go overboard with, and we are on the cusp of crossing a line. Calling a manager “bro” or sending a video to announce leave from the office is funny, but has risks of being taken the wrong way. It's, unfortunately, time for Gen Zers to start becoming a little more serious.
When thinking seriously, conventionally or inside the box in a professional field, the corporate world immediately comes to mind. Gen Z will make up about 27 percent of the workforce by 2025 and is already breaking through those traditional concepts with casual and humorous language, changing company cultures. There are upsides to this breakthrough, but the downsides, such as difficulty in promotions, blurs in hierarchy and reducing opportunities, are already peeking through.
Unlike past generations, Gen Z advocates for flexibility, diversity, mental health and increased communication. We push for change, raising the standard of treatment for work. These are all amazing and positive changes, right? Well, although Gen Z brings some positive changes, the generation also comes with quirks that may not always be welcome in a workplace, such as inappropriate language, disregard for seriousness and jokes that end up hurting the employees in the long run. Already, almost four in 10 employers avoid hiring recent college graduates because they are deemed unprepared and 58 percent of managers are concerned about Gen Z’s unprofessional attitude.
Although it is definitely important to change work culture from the soul-sucking corporate 9-to-5, there is a fine line when it comes to behavior in the workplace. Some humorous office emails can lighten up the mood every so often, but when Gen Z begins to make up most of the workforce and Gen Z quirks become the norm, it can hurt workplace professionalism. These quirks can disrupt workplace hierarchies and in turn boundaries, causing organizations to lose credibility.
If Gen Z continues this relationship with professional environments, it could lead to a murky understanding of relationships in the workplace and difficulties in promotions. Despite genuine competency, casual and informal behavior can result in negative perceptions. In a casual environment with no differentiation of levels, it also becomes difficult to establish authority and leadership, blurring lines of hierarchy and burying rising potential, which may unintentionally take away opportunities from people.
We as a generation need to learn that it is okay to keep the status quo for things like work etiquette. Slightly branching out from that baseline is great and can even be encouraged for workplace suitability, but we must be careful to not steer too far away for our benefit.
Generational values are always changing, and every time a new generation enters the workforce, the ones that came prior will have critiques. Gen Z is the newest victim of these criticisms, but accepting older employees’ complaints as advice may be beneficial. After all, they do have more experience than us. As Gen Z starts to make up most of the workforce, we cannot continue to uphold our unserious and silly reputation. We can sprinkle our fun quirks into the “real world” to provide needed change and fun, but we shouldn’t drown in that behavior.
Sara Shibata is a junior in the School of Public Affairs and School of Communication and a columnist for The Eagle.
This piece was edited by Alana Parker, Rebeca Samano Arellano and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks and Charlie Mennuti.
