I once sat an interview panel for a technical position where a young man showed up wearing khakis and a polo shirt. When I asked him why he wasn’t “formal,” he said, “Ma’am, isn’t this a field job?” I couldn’t argue with his logic. He did a great job in the interview and went on to become a reliable employee.
Human Resources (HR) policy and procedure manuals recommend that upon successful hire, new employees undergo orientation and are given a list of dos and don’ts. In reality, it is usually a list of don’ts, with very dire consequences if these “commandments” are not followed.
HR has been seen as punitive, portraying practitioners as “supervisors” and exuding an air of “teacher on duty.” Employees lived in fear of the dreaded excuse letter. But here comes a group of employees who provoke you to write that letter. And more often than not, you find that there was a good reason for their behavior. So what is the place of our list of precepts in this new era? Should we throw it away?
Gen Z doesn’t conform to labels. They don’t fit the mold, and they can’t blindly follow rules. You can’t tell them to work from 8am to 5pm. They’ll say they get more done at night, so they want flextime, or that they don’t need to sit at their desk doing nothing because they finished their work in 3 hours. These actions will get a scathing rebuke from their bosses, who have never questioned them.
It is time for a global conversation about the future of work and the workplace. Children have shown us that it is time to rewrite our HR processes and procedures manuals. I hope that this conversation will begin in all professional bodies, starting with the 28th IHRM Congress in October.
HR professionals will have to work late into the night to create new leaner, more effective and more responsive HR policies that embrace change, welcome innovation and inject new ideas into the workplace. There is a place for young people at the table, and maybe we will start seeing the change we have been yearning for all this time.
Mr Muhoro is the Human Resources Officer at the ICT Agency.
