How Gen Z workers are terrifying millennial bosses with woke demands

• Born between 1997 and 2012, the 72 million members of Generation Z are beginning to enter the workforce – and stump their older bosses
• Gen Z’ers are starting their first jobs amidst a pandemic that has revolutionized possibilities for working from home and upended social norms as we know them
• Lola Priego, 31, CEO of testing start up Base –said a Gen Z worker sent HER a Slack message giving her a task to complete
• Polly Rodriguez, 34, CEO of vibrator startup Unbound, said a Gen Z employee asked on a Saturday how the firm would support Black Lives Matter
• Within days, the company hired a diversity, equity and inclusion firm to give employee trainings and launched a fundraiser supporting sex workers of color
• Gabe Kennedy, 30, founder Plant People was asked by a Gen Z job prospect why she needed to work an 8 hour shift if she completed all of her tasks for the day 
• Ali Kriegsman, 30, co-founder of Bulletin said she doesn’t know how to handle texts from younger staff who say they are ‘too anxious to work’ or have cramps
• ‘As an entrepreneur, I want to call out sometimes… because my period is making me super hormonal… But I’m in a position where I have to push through’
• Andy Dunn CEO of clothing company Bonobos, 42, said that a Gen Z editor made 1,100 ‘sensitivity edits’ to book he’s writing

Woke Generation Z workers are terrifying their millennial bosses with a series of woke and entitled demands, CEOs have revealed.

Sex toy company Unbound’s CEO Polly Rodriguez, 34, says she was stunned when her co-founder contacted her to say a younger social media manager had called on a Saturday to demand to know how the vibrator start-up would be supporting Black Lives Matter.

The Gen Z’er did so in June 2020, days after George Floyd was murdered, with both bosses surprised by the contact, assuming a staff member would only get in touch on the weekend in an emergency. Unbound duly hired a diversity, equity and inclusion officer to train staff and began a fundraiser for a group that supports sex workers of color.

Commenting on the attitude of Gen Z’ers, or ‘dot com kids’ – those born between 1997 and 2021 – Rodriguez told The New York Times: ‘When I was entering the work force I would not have delegated to my boss. Gen Z doesn’t hesitate to do that…

 ‘Some young former employees are much more willing to burn bridges.

‘To me it’s shortsighted. Is it worth the social clout of getting gratification on social media but then trashing someone who could continue to help you professionally?’

Meanwhile, CEO of lab-testing start-up base Lola Priego, 31, was shocked to receive a note on workplace messaging service Slack from a Gen-Z employer assigning her a task to do.

Priego says she was tickled by the edict, and appreciated that her underling saw her as approachable – but admitted that another senior colleague was appalled by the disrespect for the traditional workplace hierarchy.

By 2025, members of Generation Z will make up 27 percent of the global workforce, predicts the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Ali Kriegsman, 30, co-founder of the retail tech company Bulletin, still doesn’t know how to respond when her employees began asking for paid time off for ailments that her generation would grin and bear, like period cramps and anxiety attacks.

She said a typical call-in, usually sent via text, reads something like this: ‘Hey, I woke up and I’m not in a good place mentally – I’m not going to come in today.’

While Kriegsman admires their efforts to prioritize their well-being, she knows that doling out additional PTO could undercut profits. She appreciates the effort to separate work and personal life, a divide that is difficult to maintain in the digital era.

Like other managers, though, she is taken off guard by the generation’s candid manner of making themselves heard, and the way they flout the social norms of the traditional workplace hierarchy. The schism is large despite many bosses being young millennials themselves – those born between 1981 and 1996.

‘As an entrepreneur, I want to call out of managing my team sometimes because my period is making me super hormonal,’ she told the Times. ‘But I’m in a position where I have to push through.’

Tero Isokauppila, 37, told the Times that a junior staff member at his food business urged him to post a black square showing their support for the movement on their social media.

The co-founder of maternity start-up Oula recalled Slack messages from one of her youngest employees asking what the company could do in solidarity with Asian Americans after a series of shootings in Atlanta-area spas.

‘You talk to older people and they’re like, “Dude we sell tomato sauce, we don’t sell politics,”‘ said Gabe Kennedy, 30, the founder of herbal supplement company Plant People. ‘Then you have younger people being like, “These are political tomatoes. This is political tomato sauce.”‘

Kennedy said that while his mostly-millennial 10-person team fall into a rigid office schedule, often working late nights and sharing Chinese takeout while poring over customer feedback, his youngest employees prefer to set their own schedules.

 One Gen Zer who interviewed with Kennedy for a full-time position, he said, asked why she needed to clock in got an eight-hour day when she might complete her day’s tasks earlier – Kennedy told her that the role was expected to be a nine-to-five job.

‘Older generations were much more used to punching the clock,’ Kennedy told the Times.