I am an Xer who manages a small but crucial team at my workplace (in an EU country). I had a lady resign last week, and I have another who may be about to resign or I may have to let go due to low engagement. They are both Gen Z. Today it hit me: the five years I’ve been managing this department, the only people I’ve lost have been from Gen Z. Clearly I do not know how to manage Gen Z so that they are happy working here. What can I do? I want them to be as happy as my Millennial team members. One detail that might matter is that my team is spread over three European cities.
Happy to provide any clarification if anyone wants it.
Edit. Thanks for all the answers even if a few of them are difficult to hear (and a few were oddly angry?) This has been very helpful for me, much more so than it probably would have been at the Old Place.
Also the second lady I mentioned who might quit or I might have to let go? She quit the day after I posted this giving a week’s notice yesterday. My team is fully supportive, but it’s going to be a rough couple of months.
How long have they been at your company? A lot of younger people hold zero loyalty to their employer (for better or worse), and combining that with the guidance fo change jobs every two years for maximized income, you’re more likely to see increased turnover regardless of job satisfaction.
I have exactly as much loyalty to my employer as they have to me.
And that’s exactly how it should be. If a company is extremely good to you, be good back. If they’re shitty, you owe them nothing.
Hard agree.
Why be loyal to a company? I’ll bet you anything the company won’t show any loyalty when they decide to save money by laying people off.
I’ve learned this lesson way back in the 90s.
None of them were there long, but none of them moved to higher paying jobs either.
Out of curiosity, how do you know this?
Combination of LinkedIn and local contacts. The two cities where the team works are rather tight communities, and you either do what we do or you do banking or FX.
Edit: I forgot one left to become a personal trainer, so that one kind of doesn’t count I suppose.
Not to say that it’s not good to self-reflect and improve, and not to say that there’s nothing you can improve, but there might be other factors at play.
I don’t have the numbers to hand, but going off of my own experience and my memory, younger people are far more likely to leave a job than older people. You can try to find the stats - I’m sure they vary by country, for instance, but I changed jobs relatively often early in my career. As my career progressed (and changed from industry to industry), I tended to stay longer.
Basically, what you want to do is establish the baseline. Is it a you thing, is it a company thing, an industry thing, or just the natural process? It might be a mix, but until you know what you’re dealing with, it’s going to be hard to fix it.
Is there an exit interview? Or anyway to ask them?
Would be interested to know if there’s something in particular or not. Not sure if you do this, but some leadership places do 360 reviews, where you get staff anonymously give details about. It fucking sucks to get but it can be super helpful.
Loyalty is a two way street and when it comes to jobs the company’s loyalty should come first.