A clock-watcher

I once had a boss who liked to stand by the reception desk and to greet everyone arriving with an irritated glance at his watch.

"They should all be sitting at their desks by now, answering their phones", he would utter indignantly.

"Erm, they all have their mobiles on them...", someone would attempt to pitch in.

"Well, it doesn't matter", the boss would cut off. "A rule is a rule".

Most people thought "the rule" to be silly in the context of the 21st century, and his reaction outdated and unhelpful: everyone knew even then that people worked harder when they were not chained to their desks.

I was reminded of that less-than-inspirational boss when a 25-year old friend posted recently that she was being harassed by a colleague for occasionally leaving 10-15 minutes earlier than her contractual 5.30pm.

"But if I finish my tasks for the day, what business it is of his it if I leave a little earlier?!", she was genuinely perplexed. "I'll be speaking to my boss to agree that if I have done what I need to do, I can just leave the office."

Truth be told, I don't like people indulging in presenteeism of any kind - because this is form over substance, in essence. Get your job done well, engage with colleagues, clients and management, do you fair share in leadership tasks... who can ask for more!

Yet, it looks like the reality of work has not quite caught up with the way the world has moved on.

Generation Z are all about substance. They want to work hard, they want to progress in their careers - but they want to know exactly how their professional efforts will result in their moving up the ranks. Requesting them to just be there won't make sense.

And you know, I get it.

As leaders, we need to review the whole proposition. Do we want results, or do we want the nice visuals of bums on seats at their desks?

Do we want happy, balanced employees who see the future at the company because they're valued, or do we want working units devoid of opinions and initiative.

Above all, do we want younger colleagues who feel trusted to do well, or do we want someone who needs to be constantly micromanaged?

Engaging with Generation Z raises all of these pertinent points. And so we need to take them seriously, if we are serious about the succession plans in our professions.