While Gen Z Is Favored, Their Previous Generation – Gen Y Is At The Edge Of Burnout

The group of employees with the highest turnover rate 

It is believed that the higher you get paid, the more you have to work, up to 2 – 3 times the amount of standard employee’s workload. However, the employees in these positions are expected to add value to the company through evaluating and managing their direct subordinates’ performance and productivity. 

Burnout in Gen Y managers increased from 27% in 2020 to 35% in 2021, and up to 42% in 2022, according to a recent report by Gallup, while this rate in Gen Z is 34%, 27% for Gen X (those born between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s) and 21% for the baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964). 

Besides the pressure from the workforce adjustment, managers sometimes work themselves to the brink of burnout. The reason for this might come from the “generation characteristics”. The Gen Y managers are in a transition between being supervised to being the supervisors, which creates ambiguity between managing the staff and executing their tasks. 

Ms. Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hương – Deputy CEO of Talentnet commented on this issue that millennial managers often appear with a powerful and agile image; however, they still need support from others. She advised: “The responsibilities and generational characteristics have put Gen Y managers in a state of burnout. To maintain the balance, businesses need to approach their employees in different ways, from listening to their feelings and desires, to searching and implementing the latest HR trends. However, it is also important to let them rearrange their priorities within the workplace“. 

How to balance execution and management? 

As a manager or supervisor, to maintain the KPIs is the most important thing. Gen Y employees need to set a boundary between management and execution to avoid the “no name” tasks. 

Creating a resource allocation plan and sharing the projects with several small groups can help employees to improve their skills. This is also a good way to track and manage your employees’ performance. 

With the “newbie” as Gen Z, managers should only provide the basic instructions instead of everything, to give employees the chance to demonstrate their own capabilities. The remaining should be focused on supervising, updating the work progress, supporting, and giving advice to employees if necessary. 

Ms. Hương also suggested: “Leaders should prioritize the management-related KPIs for managers to improve their management skills as well as minimize the execution-related KPIs to avoid the struggle between these two types of task.” 

Source: Tuổi Trẻ