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India Today
7 days ago
- Business
- India Today
Why the Gen Z stare is making managers uneasy, and what it really means
There's a new workplace buzzword doing the rounds, and surprisingly, it's all about the eyes. The 'GenZ stare' has quietly become a viral point of debate. It's that unreadable, blank expression that some GenZ workers wear in meetings, during feedback sessions, or even while talking to many older colleagues and managers, the stare feels rather awkward. Business Insider reports that some team leads describe it as 'emotionless' or 'disconnected', as though the person in front of them has mentally checked out but is physically still in the for GenZ, it's not a silent protest. It's just how they've adapted to working in a fast-paced, overstimulated, camera-on-all-day world. They're not necessarily disengaged -- they're just not MANAGERS ARE GETTING UNCOMFORTABLE Managers are used to certain 'soft signals' of attentiveness: a smile, a nod, maybe a well-timed 'got it.' With GenZ, those cues are missing.A recent survey by HR Grapevine found that 18% of managers considered quitting because they felt unable to connect with GenZ 27% said they'd think twice before hiring GenZ workers if they avoided eye contact or failed to show emotional isn't just a retail or front desk problem. Across industries, especially in service and customer-facing roles, the absence of traditional warmth is being interpreted as THIS REALLY A SOFT SKILLS PROBLEM?That's where it gets messy. Some HR professionals say yes: eye contact, emotional cues, and engaged body language are classic soft skills that still others point out that this isn't about laziness or poor etiquette -- it's about how the workplace environment is changing. GenZ, born into smartphones and schooled through a pandemic, often values authenticity over performance. If something feels performative or emotionally draining, they won't fake it just to tick a Business Review recently reported that GenZ is less motivated by career achievement and more driven by alignment with personal values, like mental health, purpose, and THE STARE REALLY SIGNALSIt's easy to assume that the blank expression means disinterest. But in many cases, it simply means the person is thinking, processing, absorbing, or sometimes, taking a moment to here's the problem: that pause, that moment of silence, is often misread, especially by managers used to lively performance reviews or team huddles, silence can come off as disrespect or passive aggression. In customer service roles, it may seem unwelcoming.A CULTURE CLASH IN REAL TIMEadvertisementAt its heart, this is a classic generational divide. Older employees may see lack of non-verbal engagement as a matter of disrespect. Younger ones see silence as has grown up reading texts, not facial expressions. They were raised on DMs, not phone calls. For them, eye contact isn't always necessary -- it can even feel invasive. Meanwhile, GenX and boomers often read body language as a key trust workplaces become more multigenerational, these differences aren't just quirks -- they're potential friction points. WHAT GEN Z NEEDS TO KEEP IN MINDYour stare isn't meaningless -- but it can be calm under pressureSignals thoughtfulness and emotional boundariesFeels more real than forced smilesCons:Can be mistaken for rudeness or disengagementMay weaken trust in high-stakes interactionsCould block professional feedback or growthTip: If silence is your response style, pair it with verbal clarity. Saying 'I'm thinking it through' or 'Got it, just absorbing' can keep communication MANAGERS SHOULD CONSIDERIf managers want to engage Gen Z better at work, they need to take note of a few things:Don't rush to label the stare as teams in emotional intelligence and cross-generational soft younger employees how they prefer to goal isn't to erase differences, but to understand them. The GenZ stare may feel foreign, but it's a real part of how this generation works. Ignoring it won't help. Listening GenZ stare isn't about rebellion -- it's about a generational reset. It's a new non-verbal language being written on the job, one blink at a what lies behind it may be the key to bridging the growing silence between generations at work.- Ends
Times
30-06-2025
- Business
- Times
‘I was in a dark place. Now I'm moving house to restart motherhood'
My divorce was turbulent. I was left in my thirties to bring up three children, with no financial contribution or involvement from their father. We split the equity from our marital home 50/50 and with that I took on a mortgage on my four-bedroom town house in St Albans, Hertfordshire, but only by maximising my mortgage loan and putting £10,000 on a credit card to secure the house. I didn't want to, but we needed a home, and I also knew that paying rent wasn't getting me anywhere [says Sabrina Ponte, 59]. It was quite simple: I had to work, and hard. I got a job at a publisher, HR Grapevine, selling online advertising. I had a base salary, but commission went up and down. My employer was supportive, but the responsibility was mine. After three years I started to get into trouble with the mortgage payments: it just became too much. The credit card loan had climbed from the original £10,000 that I borrowed to £40,000 after interest was applied. I was too proud to ask my parents or friends for help, so I just dealt with it myself. I sought the advice of a debt management adviser. They told me that I should stop paying it back and consolidated the debt for me. It took me six years in total to clear it. It was one of the darkest times of my life — we had little money to live on after I paid off the mortgage and loan. I tried to make Christmas and birthdays special, but there wasn't much else. I did up my daughters' bedrooms myself, stripped wallpaper and re-painted their wardrobes, putting new handles on. • Read more expert advice on property, interiors and home improvement My main thoughts were always to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table and them safe. Due to my full-time job, I was unable to attend many key moments such as school plays, concerts and some sports days. I do feel sad about that. In sales you need to put the hours in to get the deals so that's what I did. My children are now in their thirties, and by re-mortgaging I was able to help them get onto the property ladder. I have shown them that if you work hard, you can own a home and I'm proud that each of them has achieved that. When the last of my three moved out, I knew it was time to move on. I have put them first my whole life. I have a new partner and it's a second chance at love. My house has meant so much, but we want to be together. Since the house down the road took over a year to sell, I decided to try a new sales approach. I used Springbok; it takes cash offers with no chains. It sold in two months. The plan is to rent together close to the school gates, but so far we have found it hard to secure a property and I have had to extend the completion date on my house. Most letting agents appear to be unresponsive or slow at getting viewings — we were prepared to put down the deposit on one place without seeing it to speed up the process, but they had tenants that they couldn't shift. • 'To ease the pain of my divorce, I transformed my home' I will cry buckets when I close the door on this house, but I have achieved what I set out to. The house sold for £460,000 and I have a mortgage to clear of £100,000 so that's a great nest egg. My partner is a builder, and we dream of buying a plot of land after two years and building our own home. It does feel like a second chance at motherhood too. I love my children dearly, but at times it was tough and I had to be both mum and dad to them: do the hard bits, the discipline, the homework nagging, the picking them off from the floor when they had a bad time, you name it. This time round, it's more like being a grandparent — we have my partner's child 50 per cent of the time and I can do all the fun bits that I wasn't always able to do with my own. I also skip the real challenges — I don't have to go to parents' evening and when there is a need to be strict, I hand him back to his dad. I am excited to be mortgage-free even though it has been so important to me to have a property for most of my life — the difference is that this time all my children are grown up and I just get to nurture and have fun playing mum again but without the stresses first time around. New walls equal new chapters and I can't wait.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
40,000 Employees Thank Marriott CEO For Defending DEI Amid Political Pressure
During the Great Place To Work Summit, Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano shared his sentiments regarding how the company he captains responded to the attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion unleashed by the Trump administration. Although he privately wondered if he had made the right call, he soon received confirmation from thousands of employees that he had, indeed, chosen the right path. According to HR Grapevine, Capuano told the stakeholders present at the summit, held April 8-10 in Las Vegas, that Marriott would not waver on its promise to create opportunity for everyone who walked through the company's doors, regardless of political pressure from the White House. 'The winds blow, but there are some fundamental truths for those 98 years,' Capuano told the audience. 'We welcome all to our hotels and we create opportunities for all—and fundamentally those will never change. The words might change, but that's who we are as a company.' Within 24 hours of his remarks, he received a litany of emails from the company's most important resource: its employees; and what's more, the 40,000-plus messages thanked him for standing up for diversity, equity, and inclusion because those were values that they too believed in. Marriott, which employs over 800,000 people globally, has consistently been ranked on Forbes' Best Companies to Work For list, this year, the hotel chain took the eighth spot on the list and because of their strong commitment to their employees, carries a 90% employee retention rate in an industry that averages a 57% retention rate. According to Forbes, Capuano's remarks represent the position that diversity, equity, and inclusion is not a social program, the framing that the White House and other Republican states have championed for several years, instead, it is part of a company's operational infrastructure and consistency between what a company says and does creates a culture of coherence. Indeed, according to Great Place To Work, workplaces that have a high degree of trust from their employees typically outperform their competition by nearly four times. The companies on their 100 Best Companies list also more than triple their performance in the stock market, that is to say that employee trust, like that engendered by Marriott, translates directly to profitability. According to Michael C. Bush, the CEO of Great Place To Work, 'The 100 Best Companies have built a foundation of employee trust that fuels performance in all areas of their business — not just some areas, and not just for some people. They are more profitable and productive because they've created consistently positive work experiences, lower burnout rates, and higher levels of psychological and emotional health compared to typical workplaces.' He continued, 'These leaders ensure all employees have opportunities for special recognition and make sure they believe that what they do matters; that they matter as human beings first and workers second. They've built organizations where transparency, well-being, and high levels of cooperation are cornerstones. That is how business is done: with people, not to people. When that happens, the business benefits all stakeholders — from frontline workers to executives, shareholders to local communities.' RELATED CONTENT: Making The Case For A Thoughtful Approach To DEI: Addressing Misconception And Reality
