As a millennial, of course I spend most of my free time worrying. generation Z He thinks I’m shy, annoying, boring and uncool. This is the main hobby of millennials, the thing that unites us all. As we lurch into middle age, we look over our shoulders in paranoia and panic at the generation that comes after us, wondering if they were doing the right thing and if we were wrong all along.

The concept of ‘millennial shyness’ covers everything from wearing gym socks to saying ‘doggo’ and ‘smol bean’, from side partings to pausing before you start recording videos of yourself on camera. It’s like hell outside. What makes it even worse is that Gen Z has a lot of things right, and a lot of things they need to correct us about. ‘Doggo’ stupid, gym socks fall into shoes. And perhaps most importantly, We were thinking about business all wrong.

‘Conscious patronizing‘ is the latest Gen Z invention that fascinated its ancestors: Millennials and beyond. Although it may seem like a corporate term, conscious patronage is anything but. In fact, this refers to the tendency for Zoomers to resist the typical conveyor belt career progression toward middle management roles, which analysts have noticed as Gen Zers are now workplace-age adults.

These workers of this age (Generation Z generally refers to those born between 1997 and 2012, meaning the oldest among them are now in their mid-to-late 20s) must be moving out of the typical ‘graduate’ lifestyle and into young professional adult life. adopting a more submissive, boring attitude. By our mid-20s, we must have actually entered the age of the ‘Assistant Regional Manager’; This is an embarrassing millennial joke, I hope you’ll excuse me.

But this does not happen at all. Robert Walters, a UK-based talent solutions company, surveyed 2,000 people across the country and found that across industries from HR to finance, Gen Zers are more likely than other generations to avoid the greasy pole of professional development. They don’t want to be middle managersand they have little interest in or respect for company loyalty and traditional authority, focusing instead on their own personal development and individual expertise. More than half of Zoomers surveyed reported no desire to take on middle management roles, while 69 percent said those jobs brought low rewards and a large amount of stress.

Speaking to Forbes A few weeks ago, Lucy Bissett, director of Robert Walters North, said promotion for Zoomers meant nothing but “stress, limited autonomy and poor work/life balance”.

To be honest, it’s hard to blame them. Although as a culture we have long passively accepted middle management as the next step on the road to the top, if we free ourselves from that belief and examine what that actually means, there is little left to be desired. In modern companies, it is middle managers, not executives or interns, who are often left adrift by inter-office drama and organizational incompetence.

The ‘fall men’ of history are full of middle managers; they are expendable enough to be eliminated, but important enough to absorb external criticism that businesses or companies are not taking their problems seriously enough internally. Middle managers repeatedly see themselves as individual, human scapegoats for faceless companies seeking to avoid responsibility for their financial or reputational failures.

( Understanding Generation Z: Employers seek answers to managing young workersOpens in new window )

And even if you’re not dramatically dismissed as a result of a White House investigation, middle management offers boredom and responsibility and little financial reward to compensate.

Inside another new surveyThree-quarters of middle managers admitted to feeling overwhelmed, stressed and burned out “always or sometimes.” And 77 percent reported that they received no managerial training on their hire or promotion, and about the same proportion reported that they rarely or never received continuing training beyond their initial hire. Is it surprising that Gen Z isn’t so fussy? Isn’t it surprising that almost a third (30 percent) of them have completely overthrown the system, preferring a flat office structure over a hierarchical one?

No, it’s actually pretty predictable. And yet, the conscious patronizing response (or at least the mocking response) was equally predictable. Generation Z, like their Generation Y ancestors, has become the autumn man of the generation. Zoomers have always been stereotyped as lazy and bossy, overly sensitive and socially awkward. The negative reputation of Generation Z has increased as they entered the workforce. They leave early, skip work, and always want more. More flexibility, more benefits. Many of the things the generations before them never had or perhaps didn’t feel comfortable enough asking for. And instead of taking a moment to consider why they’ve never felt empowered to create a healthy work/life balance for themselves, many have turned their anger on Gen Z: “Why should it be so different for them when we have to deal with these issues?” BT?”

There is a clear answer to the question of why Generation Z sees workplaces so differently from previous generations. They came of age as young professionals Covid-19 pandemic. They are denied the early, uncertain excitement of a new post-college life, and consciously giving up patronage is just one way to adjust their expectations accordingly to cope with this reality. Or as Bisset puts it: “Young professionals who enter the workforce largely in a remote or hybrid capacity are less inclined to full company commitment.”

It’s not just the pandemic that has transformed the workplace into a new and uncertain space. the rise of artificial intelligence technology What it means to take any kind of pride in your own talent has been redefined in many industries, and the post-COVID economy was shaky, leading to the constant threat of downsizing and layoffs. If you are not given your job ChatGPTIt can be outsourced to a cheaper, albeit less effective, subcontractor.

It’s becoming increasingly clear to entire working-age generations that the future of their careers depends on ruthless market forces rather than their own talent or commitment… and once you learn that, it becomes that much harder to motivate yourself to show up every day. and I truly believe that a good performance in your morning Zoom meetings (which for some reason are mostly held in-office) will make any difference in your longevity at a particular company or brand.

But then again, maybe I’m being too soft on Zoomers and too harsh on the capitalist means of production (I doubt it). Undoubtedly, there is cause for concern in the growing popularity of getting rid of conscious patronage. If there are no middle managers, who do we go to complain when AI technology fails us and managers mislead us?

And if not middle managers, then what’s the point? Robert Walters predictably found that the more attractive area for Gen Z to focus on is “brand and approach”; 72 percent of survey respondents said they would prefer to be individual contributors rather than middle managers. This sounds very ‘branded’ for a generation that has been criticized for its individualistic messianic tendencies and belief that everyone can be the ‘main character’ of their own lives.

( Artificial Intelligence: Human empowerment or a big changer?Opens in new window )

While going against the middle management trend may at first seem somewhat subversive when viewed through the ‘main character’ lens of a generation raised primarily by TikTok, conscious patronizing is simply a repackaging of individuality.

On the surface, leaving your office (or logging out of Microsoft Teams) at 5pm might seem to reveal a positive attitude towards work-life balance, but realistically many Zoom users are simply using these evenings to work on their side hustle. or from side hustle to side hustle. Individualism and technology have transformed and distorted the idea of ​​work into something that strips away working hours and company loyalty. Instead it morphed into something more amorphous and sinister. If we can work from home and for ourselves, we can work anytime, forever. If we work for ourselves instead of a boss we hate, we can blame ourselves instead of the boss when we are in trouble, stuck, or bored. And we hate ourselves for it.

Conscious patronizing is positive because it reveals a truth that we all already know to be true, even if we’re not quite ready to articulate it yet: our traditional way of thinking about ‘work’ is outdated and unfit for purpose. Business is changing, we need to change with it. But since there is no alternative (certainly a healthier alternative) to the current system, the sudden disappearance of boring, gray middle managers could have even worse consequences for all of us.

We’re looking toward a corporate future where we’ll have to converse with chatbots that constantly say, “I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand what you mean.” And the sad truth is that someone will have to step in to save us from this.

At the risk of sounding like a shy millennial, I must admit that I do, with a caveat: If none of us are middle managers, then unfortunately we are all middle managers.