Latest news with #AlisonGreen
CNBC
21-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Bosses like to complain about Gen Z in the workplace. This career expert thinks it's ‘BS'
New grads are entering the workforce, which means we're probably due for another conversation about how some bosses seem to despise Gen Z workers in the office. In recent years, CEOs have bemoaned that the youngest generation in the workforce, who are as old as 28 this year, don't want to work, are too casual, and are the most challenging generation to work with. Some leaders even go as far as saying they avoid hiring Gen Z workers. Alison Green, who explores all kinds of workplace conflicts through her Ask A Manager column read by millions, doesn't buy the Gen Z slander or that certain generations are "better" workers than others. "When millennials were the ones who were new to the workforce, they were getting so much crap about their bad work ethic, and that they all needed participation trophies. That was all BS," Green tells CNBC Make It. "I never encountered that in in real life, and I found that very annoying," she says. Young workers have always come into the professional world questioning the way things are done in an effort to understand current processes, innovate new ones and make work more accommodating, says Ziad Ahmed, a Gen Z work expert. "Every young generation has come into the world and workforce and asked hard questions to reimagine what the world can look like," Ahmed previously told Make It. That said, Green says the experience of graduating from college and starting a first job during the pandemic could have a meaningful impact on the way Gen Zers show up in a professional setting. Young workers may have missed out on developing crucial social and learning skills while going to school or completing internships virtually, Green says. It's not surprising that managers are seeing evidence of that and don't know how to manage young workers who have a different early-career experience from their own, she adds. "The headline really should be: 'People new to the workforce don't know about work,' but that's not an interesting headline," Green says. "They said it about millennials. They said it about Gen X. It's just a fact that when people are inexperienced, you're going to see they're inexperienced." Green believes the world and workplace changes caused by the pandemic "created a new level of challenge, but I'm not sure the problems themselves are brand new ones," she says. Some colleges have taken it upon themselves to better prepare young workers for the professional world, like by offering classes to practice making small talk, or boot camps to build career-readiness skills. Daniel Post Senning, who teaches workplace trainings and is the co-author of the "Emily Post's Business Etiquette" handbook, says requests for his services have skyrocketed in recent years as people return to office and young people start working for the first time. People of all generations can use reminders of how to be courteous, communicate effectively and pick up after themselves in a shared space, he says. Ultimately, Green says, it's important to view criticism about junior workers and consider: "Is it really a generational difference, or are you just complaining about young people?" ,
Times
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
The Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler: I'm one of life's shy tortoises
Britain's bestselling illustrator, Axel Scheffler, identifies with a tortoise. We are discussing his latest book, Welcome, with text by the author Alison Green. It's not so much a story as a series of thoughts about being open-hearted to those who are different from you. Scheffler has filled the book with animals including a tiger, a crocodile, a squirrel, a tortoise and a badger in a wheelchair. When I ask him which one he relates to the most, he picks the tortoise because it's 'a little bit shy and quiet'. Scheffler is self-effacing but his successful career has forced him out of his shell. He has illustrated more than 200 books, including over 30 collaborations since 1993 with the author Julia Donaldson. Their rhyming trickster
CNBC
15-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Millions of people read 'Ask A Manager' for work advice—here's the Careertok trend she's 'super supportive of'
Alison Green has seen plenty of work trends come and go in her 18 years running "Ask A Manager," an online column that has reached millions of readers where she answers questions on everything from dealing with office jerks to quitting a toxic job. The explosion of people talking about work on TikTok in recent years has made things even more interesting. Ever since the pandemic upended the work world, people have posted their takes on #CareerTok topics including the Great Resignation, quiet quitting, conscious un-bossing and the never-ending debate about how to dress for the office. Within all of that, there's one big trend that Green is "super supportive of," she tells CNBC Make It: The "act your wage" mentality. "Act your wage" videos began floating around in 2022 as people discussed the ways they set boundaries at work, said "no" to additional unpaid tasks and overall challenged the appeal of hustle culture. As Green sees it, she's in favor of the attitude that encourages people to be "really aware of what you're being paid to do and what you're not being paid to do, and [not feeling] like you have to take on every problem in the organization [or work] overtime if you're not being paid to do it," she says. That said, she adds, she does see advice that takes the boundary-setting message to an "unrealistic level." "It's more nuanced," she says. "If you want to move up and get ahead and be considered a competitive candidate for higher level jobs there, it's a little tricky to say, 'I'm just not going to do any of that,'" Green says. "But I think that the general cultural move toward recognizing 'You're not buying all of my time and all of my energy, you're buying a limited amount of it,' is a really good thing. I would love to see the culture move more in that direction." Green encourages early-career professionals to take online career advice with a grain of salt. Essentially, what's normal workplace behavior versus what's not will depend a lot on your industry and particular work environment. It's better to take advice someone who knows what your line of work is like and can advise on specific boundaries, for example by offering, "Yeah that does kind of suck. It's also a norm in this field. And if you're going to work in this field, you need to expect to run into some of that," Green says. It's not like you'll be able to say "no" to every directive you don't like without some repercussions, Green says. Overall, "I think some content creators are speaking about the world as it should be, rather than the world as it is," Green says. "And when you're an advice consumer, it's important to be able to recognize when that's happening."
