FOR a single generation to have turned the workplace into the wokeplace is a feat to behold.
Since the Covid lockdowns, companies have been bending over backwards with incentives for younger staff, obsessed with working from home, to return to the office.
These include doggy daycare, duvet days and more time off work.
Back in the day, the idea of enticing one’s employees into the office by paying to look after their dogs would have been the height of madness.
Surely the prospect of being sacked would be motivation enough for most.
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That is no longer the case.
Today, Gen-Z workers wear their poor work ethic like a badge of honour.
Trends like Bare Minimum Monday, where staff brazenly describe doing the least work possible on that day, to avoid “familiar burnout”, have gained significant traction.
Because if there is anything young people are known for, it’s burnout from overworking, right? My heart weeps for the poor lambs.
Nonetheless, this trend seems to be here to stay.
A study by market research agency Survation found most of us will work a four-day week by the end of the decade.
Some employers even seem to be getting a head start, and — no surprise — it’s the public sector getting in on the act with gusto.
See South Cambridgeshire Council’s trial of a shorter working week, of 30 hours, for all desk-based staff — while keeping the same pay.
The irony is not lost on local residents, who have had their council taxes increased.
To make matters worse, this lunacy is not unique to Britain.
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In the US, a recent Gallup poll revealed that at least half of the American workforce is made up of “quiet quitters” — employees who skate through work doing the bare minimum in order to get paid.
This trend is a reactionary movement by Gen Z, who feel they live in a time when extra work is not rewarded.
It may come as a shock to the young, aggrieved workers that there are no participation trophies for being an adult.
Sometimes being a grown-up just means sucking it up and getting to work.
More than that, however, an obvious question remains. How did all this happen?
Since when did workers feel so emboldened by their lazy ways to make such unreasonable demands, including doing fewer hours for the same pay?
How has a culture where hard work was rewarded now declined so precipitously?
Clearly, WFH practices have irrevocably changed workplace dynamics.
In some cases, the flexibility and time saved on commuting have allowed workers to be more productive.
But this is by no means a general rule. It is clear that the pendulum has swung too far.
For businesses to offer “office dogs” — my personal hell — as a workplace incentive reeks of the kind of desperation that should frighten us all.
It’s all fun and games until nature calls Scooby right next to the coffee machine.
What happened to putting in a decent day’s work?
Not any more. Today, Gen Z workers want it all.
A far cry from the thankless slog previous workers had to go through, the typical Gen Z employee wants a work-life balance heavily in favour of life, great pay, spiritual fulfilment, a warm and fuzzy feeling when they enter the office, pronoun name badges — and to avoid the dreaded “compassion fatigue”.
‘Funemployment’
Some of this you may agree with — after all, who doesn’t want to work less for the same or more cash?
But the reality is that, for most businesses, if staff are doing less then you are going to need more staff to achieve the same productivity.
More staff equals higher costs and the result is more businesses going bust as they struggle to meet increasingly uneconomical demands.
UK productivity is already lower than in four other G7 nations, including France.
The entitled Gen Z don’t care about these consequences or, more likely, don’t know of them.
The world has insulated them from harsh realities.
Even once dreaded trips to the Jobcentre are known as “funemployment”.
For a generation that grew up on microwave dinners, streaming sites and fast search engines, instant gratification is the name of the game.
They want it all, and they want it now.
This cannot go on. Yes, work must be rewarding. But employers must resist these increasingly ludicrous demands.
Their survival will surely depend on it.
FEASTS FIT FOR A KING
WE are expected to spend about £200million on family Coronation celebrations, according to the Centre for Retail Research.
Despite the unfavourable weather forecast, people are getting in the mood, splurging on scones, quiche and copious amounts of booze.
Supermarkets Lidl and Aldi have already seen business boom, with the latter reporting sales of its Coronation quiche up by a third in the past month.
I must confess that I have contributed heavily to this uptick – and happily so.
Like many other people, I will be spending the King’s Coronation glued to the TV, while eating and drinking in the company of friends and family.
I hope you enjoy it too.
God save the King!
POLICE ARE ALL WORDS
THE role of the police is clear – to protect the public, prevent crime and support law and order.
If all this is done correctly, the public does not need to be reminded what the police are there for.
But the Met Police clearly takes a different viewpoint.
Ever since the scathing revelations of the Casey Review, the force has been in PR overdrive.
Tweets about the Coronation from the force’s official page stated: “Our tolerance for any disruption, whether through protest or otherwise, will be low.
“We will deal robustly with anyone intent on undermining this celebration”.
I can feel militant Republicans quaking in their boots.
Ahead of the Coronation, it is not only important that the police are seen, but also heard.
But all this talk is clearly over the top.
Word to the Met: Just do your job. And if you see any eco-activists glued to the Blackwall Tunnel, do your job then too.
Met crowd wouldn’t dare cancel icon Karl
THE church of Hollywood has committed a grand faux pas.
The crime? Blatant hypocrisy.
Amid the cat costumes and semi-nudity, this week’s star-studded Met Gala paid tribute to Karl Lagerfeld.
It would be an understatement to admit that the late creative director of Chanel lived a life full of controversies.
From open admiration of porn actors to his being “fed up” of the #MeToo movement, to even his saying “no one wants to see curvy women”, he never shied away from giving his opinion.
Unfortunately for the high priests of morality in Tinseltown, they failed to posthumously “cancel” the fashion icon, as they happily do others.
Instead, they put morality on the back seat, to eat steamed fish and don grotesquely expensive designer frocks worth tens of thousands of dollars.
DO LAY OFF ED, PLEASE
ED SHEERAN this week won a lawsuit against the heirs of Ed Townsend, the songwriter who composed the classic Let’s Get It On with Marvin Gaye.
They accused Sheeran of “copying the song’s harmonic progressions as well as melodic and rhythmic elements without permission”.
The judge begged to differ.
I watched this trial with interest and kept wondering, would Mr Townsend have welcomed going after Ed – a self-confessed fan of Marvin Gaye – in such a way?
As the trial went on, an old clip of Foo Fighters star Dave Grohl was doing the rounds online where he told Pharrell Williams about how, while the drummer for Nirvana, he had ripped off drum patterns from stars such as Chic’s Tony Thompson.
He recalled how he claimed to have met Thompson at a BBQ at his house, and said: “I was like, ‘Man, I just want to thank you because I owe you so much. I’ve been ripping you off my whole life’.
“Tony goes, ‘I know’.”
And that was that.
So I would say, if Mr Townsend’s heirs are so strapped for cash, they are very welcome to become multimillion-dollar, record-breaking artists like their relative before them.
And then see how strongly they will feel about litigating against “harmonic progressions”.
