Gen Z return the favour, confess they do not trust the abilities of senior members at work
Generation clashes are common at work, with the older employees often complaining about the younger members. Now a new study has revealed that Gen Z do not trust the capabilities of their senior members to carry out any task.
Gen Z dislike their senior co-workers
Gen Z say their senior members at work are incompetent, cannot be trained and do not want to adapt to the new environment, according to a new survey. They also do not trust them and were pretty critical of their overall abilities in the research carried out by scientists at the University of Queensland. Employees at workplaces in Australia and Taiwan were chosen for the survey, which also shows that the younger lads are less tolerant of the older members learning something new.
Workplace structures have older and younger people working at same levels
A total of 400 employees were chosen for a series of experiments to understand how young and old employees work together, sometimes at the same level. "Workplace structures are becoming more and more horizontal, which means we often see people with significant age gaps working in the same roles," Dr Chad Chiu, lead author of the study, said. The younger lot often wonders why certain older people are working at the same level as them and not progressing to bigger roles.
What Gen Z think of their senior members at work
They often get critical of them on social media, the researchers said. "Younger workers often make unfair judgments about this – when they work with older colleagues sharing similar job titles, they often wonder why they don't advance to more senior positions," Dr Chiu said. So the team set out to understand more about their work dynamic, which they concluded wasn't very pretty.
First experiment - Gen Z employees were asked to rate older employees on trust
The study was divided into two experiments. In the first, the younger participants were asked to rate their older employees in the area of trust. A total of 199 employees working in consulting and technology firms in Taiwan were asked if they trusted them. The researchers found that the majority of them described them as untrustworthy. This was in the absence of any information about their skill and capabilities, and relying "primarily on surface–level characteristics like age to make a judgment," Dr Chiu said.
Second experiment asked Gen Z to rate an employee's ability with a problem with only his age available as information
The second experiment involved 177 Australian participants aged 22 and older. They were asked to judge a 55-year-old engineer who was presented with an urgent production issue. Researchers asked them how capable the engineer appeared to them. The answers were divided based on the ages of the participants, and they found that the youngest ones expressed low levels of trust in the engineer. "They may have thought of them as a nice or supportive colleague, but they didn't see them as useful," Dr Chiu said.
Gen Z lack trust in senior employees
The study revealed that the younger employees overall dislike their senior members at work. They did not trust their abilities to carry out a task and do not think they are ready to learn. The study also shows the need for better support for older employees to help them sustain in the changing environment.
Study offers insight into having age-inclusive teams
Advanced age doesn't necessarily mean they are fluent with all processes. "It is a mistake to think they don't need support because they're older or more experienced," Dr Chiu added. The survey is also crucial for managers who would have to run inclusive teams comprising both young and older members.
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