The Changing Landscape of Work Culture Expectations

Syya Yasotornrat (: 00:02

If there's one thing we've learned about business and life is that people are the X factor. They constantly surprise us both in amazing ways and not so much. We're Ben and Sia and welcome to the Gnaw On This Business Bytes podcast. This show is all about real life things we all deal with every day, how they relate to business and how to make some sense out of our daily chaos. Welcome to the show.

Syya Yasotornrat (: 00:37

And welcome to another episode of non this business bites. I'm Ben and this is Syya. So I saw something on TV the other day or was, I know, maybe it was YouTube. It was about a woman saying that, sorry, can't make the eight o 'clock meeting. I'm at the gym. You know, and it was just ragging on Gen Z. And the question is, are they right or are they wrong? You know,

If all of a sudden we're talking about businesses nine to five and I'm at the Bay, I'm at the gym at eight o 'clock and I could be at the office at nine o 'clock. Am I doing something wrong? But am I expected to be at that eight o 'clock meeting every single week when all of a sudden you as a person are not getting any value out of it. Now I'm not saying this is right or this is wrong.

I'm seeing we have a culture shift. When I was 20 years old, somebody told me you were at the eight o 'clock meeting. You were at the office at eight o 'clock. You would put a brand new suit on, your tie was done up, your shoes were polished, you got to the office. You were probably at the office at 7 .45 and there's 15 or 20 of you all sitting there in a boardroom for your eight o 'clock meeting.

And there was no if, ands or buts. And if you didn't make your eight o 'clock meeting, you got called out publicly on this. Now, today, there's all sorts of pushback. There's all sorts of clap back. There's all sorts of people just sitting there going, ah, sorry, no, work -life balance. And I don't know if they're right. I don't know if they're wrong. I don't know if it's a generational thing. I don't know if.

Maybe they're smarter than we were. I don't know if they're just don't want to work as hard, but I think this is something we got on. Let's take at it. Ooh, this is a sticky wick man. Oh, I know. Sticky wick one. Uh, cause it can go, I'm ambivalent. I'm kind of both sides. Okay. Uh, I, I, we are the Gen X generation. So we have had.

Syya Yasotornrat (: 02:58

the upbringing of you say what you will do, you're accountable and you work for the man you work. And we are the last generation where it was a point of pride to stay at a company for 25 plus years and be a company man, company woman, whatever you want to call it. Right. Now you're lucky if the average employee lasts longer than three years, like at an employment place, right. Good, bad, ugly and different. That's not what we're arguing.

I think though, this is such a fascinating scenario that you presented, which is my question would be, okay, 8 a .m. meeting is that when they are expected to work, if you're salaried or hourly, right? There's that nuance. And what's the context of this meeting? If it's just a status check of how you're doing and that's the only time your management team has the ability to meet with you.

you know, it's the only time you could talk to them. Um, and it's only once a week. If it's every fracking day, it's okay. Well, then that means I'm, my assumption is I'm working eight to five or whatever. If you want to think of it that way. And then you only work eight to four in your, in your, in your mentality. So here's where my mentality blurs the line.

Cause I will work 12 hour days or more cause I enjoy what I do now. I used to hate what I do now. I actually, no, I actually did enjoy what I did, but what I'm saying is, is, um,

I don't believe in the standard eight to five working hour. Now, if there are certain jobs roles that are timely, you physically need to be there. Like, oh, you need to man and watch like the nuclear reactor. Like, yeah, you got to physically be there or whatever, right? You got to be the person not push the buttons or push the buttons. Um, but if you have the ability to be flexible on your work schedule, I don't give a crap. Like folks on my team.

Syya Yasotornrat (: 05:01

Here's the deadline that it needs to be done by I don't care if you do it the night before like a college student as long as the quality of the work is still there or if you do it throughout the day for five ten minutes or an hour I don't care it as long as it gets done and if I have to micromanage you then it's that's a problem for me as a manager so if I say hey I'm if we can talk at 8 a .m. There better be a reason in my book there should be a reason for it does that make sense like I can't just be a

Hey, check in otherwise. If they've always worked out at AM and everyone knew that was a workout time, I will respect that because I've also learned nothing in life is so urgent. You got to be at the exact same time. I don't know, man. I don't know. I look at it from two different levels. Let's take it from the leadership point of view. Leadership point of view is it's becoming harder and harder to be a leader, especially with hybrid situation, with work, work from home, with all sorts of people that like to, some people like to work early. Some people work too late. They,

And leaders sit there and say, OK, how do I lead a team that works over 15 hour or 18 hour day? You know, if I've got certain people that work at night and certain people work in the morning, I need some time. I can bring everybody together. I need one time where I can sit there and say, hey, listen, listen, we've got a problem. We need to work together. We need to figure this out, whether it's on a zoom call or teams meeting or actually physically in person. That's a different story altogether. But you also have what you're saying is that.

We live in an asynchronous world. We live in a world where people are sitting there going, look, I just need to get my job done. Is the quality suffering? No. Is the client suffering? No. Am I making quota? Yes. Am I exceeding quota? Yes. Is the work of great quality and are people happy with? Yes. You're right. It shouldn't matter. If I'm a night owl and I like to work from, say, 11 o 'clock at night to 4 o 'clock in the morning,

As long as it's on the desk at eight o 'clock in the morning when somebody needs it and the quality is there, it shouldn't make a difference. So we need to sit there and say, okay, the world has changed, the culture has changed, people have changed, technology has enabled this to happen. How do we as teams utilize the technology?

Syya Yasotornrat (: 07:25

and utilize different forms of communication to make sure everybody knows what needs to happen when, and not necessarily how, but why. And be able to make sure that things have a good handoff from one to another. We're not dealing with frustration, dealing with handoff issues. Then we don't have a problem. But as soon as you start sitting there in a situation where it becomes chaos, because no one's talking to each other, deadlines are being missed, product quality goes down, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, then leadership needs to sit there and rein people in. But I think, you know, as organizations, we need to sit there and say, are our people that we're hiring adults and can they do their job? Or are we hiring a ton of tons that we feel that we need to micromanage? If we're hiring adults, treat them like adults, give them expectations, give them accountability. If they don't live up to expectation, that's when you drop the hammer.

Until then, just say, look, you need to get this done by a certain time and this is why this is what we need from you. If it's happening, great. If it's not happening, that's when you're going to have a problem with me.

100 % I look, I like there's a reason why I don't have children, Ben. Okay. And it's because early on in my career, I had the opportunity to be a first line manager. And this is the quintessential who was I talking with? I think it was Denise and like hell on a show on I think it was like hell florida's show. The influencers connection corner. Shout out Saturdays. Bye. Check it out. Um,

we're, we were talking about don't hire people or don't promote people just because they excel at the role that they are currently in and assume that they're going to make great managers, Peter principle. It is different skillsets. Yes, it is. And that is where I feel like, uh, you know, kind of where my brain is going out with that is, you know, if you have a team that you bring on,

Syya Yasotornrat (: 09:35

that you know, maybe some certain individuals need a little bit more checkpoint checks, if you will. Doesn't necessarily mean they're lesser than it's just simply that's the way their brain functions, then you just make mental notations as a leader to know, hey, this person functions a little bit better if you just say, hey, need this document on Tuesday, this document on Thursday, this document on Friday. And but overall, everything should be done by Sunday kind of vibe, right. And others are just like, it's Sunday, see ya, right.

I think the challenge now with this asynchronous lifestyle, and I love that term asynchronous, is now leadership has to become more, I don't want to say forgiving, malleable to accept the different types of working, because it's the same regimented structure that we expected everyone is not going to function today. And you're seeing the backlash now. You're seeing the Gen Zs who are now in the workforce, millennials. I keep saying it because it's funny and sad at the same time. They're

They're pushing 40 and above now. Yeah. Uh, they're demanding that we accept that when they say their private time is scheduled for their me time and mental wellness time, they're not joking. They mean it. And we have to, I think it's, I don't think it's such a bad day to say, you know what? I need a mental health day. The challenge on that would be if you have a lot of mental health days,

That's a bigger red flag of something else going on either a, that person needs additional help. And as a company, what is it that they can support them on? Right. To get in counseling or whatever, or secondary, the hell's going on in the company that you're creating mental health issues for that poor person. Right. So I think it's, I think it comes out, as I said before, accountability and expectations. Everybody needs to understand, okay, what do I expect of the people on my team?

and what can people on my team expect of me? And it's gotta go both ways. To sit there and say, no, I'm not, as a leader, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna be available, if you work from 11 o 'clock at night to four o 'clock in the morning, no, I'm not gonna be available for you to get in touch with me. I don't care how many questions you have, you better be organized enough to get in touch with me before five o 'clock, because as a leader, I get my time too.

Syya Yasotornrat (: 11:57

And just because you work at 11 o 'clock at night doesn't mean that I as a leader need to be available to you. That's true. And if you're disorganized and if you don't have all the information and if your job and you don't do your job properly because you wait till 11 o 'clock at night before you even open up the file and you do something wrong, that's on you. That's on you for not being organized and not taking the time. So I think that expectations and accountability have to go both ways.

I'm right there. And I think that if we do that, I think that we're going to have far better forms of communication, less stress in the office, less sick days, less stress days, whatever it is, because people are going to sit there and say, look, I'm already running three projects. I don't have time for a fourth project. You know, it says I'm happy to take on the fourth project. Which of these three projects would you like me to drop off my my calendar?

You know, I'll take on number four. If number four is really a priority, no problem. Which of these three do you want me to drop? And that needs to be a realistic conversation to sit there and say that you can't just keep piling stuff on people's plates and think that there's not going to be a breaking point. And that goes for leadership, that goes for team members, that goes throughout the organization that...

that people are only capable of what they're capable of. You know, people should be pushed and people should be, you know, should should be expected to do a reasonable amount of work. You know, there should be minimal requirements. But on the other hand, there has to be a situation where people sit there and go, you know what? No, I can't do that. It's just physically or there's just not enough hours in the day.

That you just literally nailed it. I actually did an exercise for myself the other day and I literally looked at my calendar. I had, I had to cord and off times for me to do things to ensure my deliverables would be prompt. But I literally had to like update the way I did my calendar slightly different where it's I, I color code my calendar anyway, but I literally had colors that like irk me like red. Yeah.

Syya Yasotornrat (: 14:23

And that's what I knew how to drop dead time. Like that's that has to be done now at this point. I never done it quite like that before. And I got to tell you, it's helped me. But what it also does is remind me of how little availability I have in the day. So when I have we all have people that want to pick our brains and whatnot. Literally, I have like maybe 45 minutes like that I can actually relax enough to

give that person time without me going, Oh, like, you know, a psychiatrist minutes up, do you just get out? Like, yeah, you know, that's right. Sal is coming in. You're out. Sorry. That's it. I mean, I know your deep regression crying right now, but you got two minutes. That's right. Yeah. I mean, I booked 15 minutes before meetings and 15 minutes after that. My clients never see, you know, I, I booked, I booked 15 minutes on either side. People sit to go, why is our meeting starting at three 15?

Well, just something in my calendar. That's the way it set itself up. You know, but that's why. That's why if you ever see weird times in my calendar, it's because I booked 15 minutes before a meeting and 15 minutes after. So that way I have time to decompress, to write notes, to do a certain things that need to happen before before I have to go on to my next meeting. Or else it could be six hours later and I'll have forgotten what I was supposed to do six hours earlier.

you're you see you're smart. I'm more mundane. I'm like, go potty. I just need to go potty. And off you go. I just need to go. Yeah, no 100%. Oh my gosh. So let's take a look into that way. We all need to sit there and say,

What is the way that we want to do work? And to sit there and say, just because we want to work that way.

Syya Yasotornrat (: 16:18

We may have to modify how we work as well because it doesn't work with everybody else's. I mean, you can't, if everybody is all about me and not about we, nothing happens in companies. And then all of a sudden the company that you're working for ceases to exist and you're out of a job. Yeah. But we also need to sit there and realize we're important too. So it's all about the balance. So with that, I'm Ben. I'm Syya. And we'll see you soon.

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