Gen Z and workplace loyalty
On Tuesday 7th December 2021, I resigned from my full time job as a creative strategist at an agency that shall not be named. This was after spending almost eight months at the job, during which I contemplated resigning in the last two months and whether or not it would be a smart move to resign because of how the Nigerian labour landscape is set up.
The job had taken everything from me; my creativity, my time, my spark and my mental health was in shambles from the dirty office politics to the passive aggressive emails to constantly getting thrown under the bus and being blamed for situations beyond my control and pay grade, all because I desired financial freedom and wanted to work for an agency with a sexy name and office on the Island.
I signed up for therapy after I resigned and swore never to work for any company that paid no mind to the mental health of it’s staff and it got me thinking; why do we stick to bad jobs or rather, how did the generation before mine make it work? People keep saying gen Z kids don’t care about work and are not loyal to their jobs and friends in my age group have resigned with similar circumstances and have had to give flimsy excuses just for peace to reign and it almost feels like we are strengthening their resolve.
What exactly is the problem? Are we just lazy, self centered or is there something else going on in the background
So I did some research and realised that it’s not.
We are currently in a workplace revolution that was accelerated by the pandemic and it is being taken for granted by many companies and by the time they figure it out, it will be too late. The labor market has seen these revolutions play out before however. The most recent revolutions are:
- The Industrial revolution: Here, folks took jobs for survival (boomers) to give their families hope for a better future and a shot at ensuring their kids lived a more comfortable life. They didn’t care about toxicity in the workplace or verbal and physical abuse from their superiors, they just wanted to get paid enough to live and they couldn’t lash out because opportunities were scarce. Now this was confused with loyalty.
- The Information revolution: The next generation(mostly millennials) came to work for a good standard of living, disposable income, enough paid time off for vacations, private schools for their kids and a couple of piano and extra school lessons. Here, you might think there would be some form of loyalty but boy do I have news for you, loyalty never existed. If there was the faintest of getting better pay, people would jump ship before Thanos can snap his fingers.
And now there’s us; the infamous gen Z.
- The Digital revolution: We were exposed to the internet very early and we’ve seen what good living looks like and we crave it. We don’t care about survival like the first generation or a good standard of living like our parents, they already did that for us. We care more about the quality of life, the quality of work that we do, how much impact it makes to our environment, the quality of opportunities that are available to us via bonuses, promotions, remote work, four-day work weeks, etcetera. We hate undefined roles, overbearing bosses and office politics. We say it as it is and don’t mince words.
So when people say the gen Z don’t care about their career or whenever people ask if I was in my right senses for throwing away a six-figure monthly salary in order to prioritise my mental health, I think they fail to understand how we were raised and the kind of standard we expect from our jobs and employers. We are not docile or horny for mini slavery. We’ve seen our peers get better paying jobs with companies that understand that talent has to be nurtured in the right environment.
Employers should realise by now that with COVID opening up remote work, there is going to be little motivation by talent to want to work for companies that would stress them when they could be earning from home and in another currency.
Call us lazy, selfish and other unprintable words as much as you want. We don’t care, we know we deserve better and we will get what we deserve and it won’t be through grovelling at your feet for crumbs and trust me, we also have the capacity to hold grudges as it is not enough for us to succeed, you must fail.
