Generation Games

Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of our generation you shall find,

This is an industry that is built on relationships, on people knowing each other, dare I say, liking each other, and choosing to work together. We all know that. How much of that getting to know and like people gets done purely between the ours of 9am and 5pm? Or, to be more merchanting-centric, between 7.30am and 5pm, and sometimes Saturday mornings?

Some of it does. But much of it doesn’t. Much of the business talk, the relationship building, the working out whether this person is going to be one that you will go the extra mile to get cement or plasterboard for when it’s as rare as hen’s teeth, happens outside of the day-to-day working environment.

Some of the very best, closest working relationships in this industry have their roots in a chat over a beer or two (or tequila shots – you know who you are) in a bar in the wee small hours. Ditto the golf course, the rugby, Cheltenham races, the corporate box at the Emirates, or the terraces at Old Trafford.

Again, this isn’t anything that we don’t all know. What I am getting at it that much of what we do  happens Out of Hours. In our own time, even at the weekends, when we are not, theoretically on the company’s shilling.

Those of us who get the way this industry works know that what you sometimes give up in terms of your own time, you often get back in spades by building up those relationships that become friendships, that in turn underpin better business relationships.

Not everyone understands that though. This is a rather longwinded way of highlighting an article that someone forwarded to my inbox. Huge generalisation claxon, but, apparently, Gen Z don’t; really do ‘extras’.

There is, it appears, a rise in many areas of what the article called “job description culture”, of working no earlier and no later than your contracted hours. Where, if the traffic has been kind, you’d rather sit in your car in a cold car park for 20 minutes until 8.59, than get to your desk and risk giving the company any more work than they pay you for. And if industry socialising can’t be done on the company’s time? Nope, not doing it.

And yet that means basically cutting yourself off from a lot of good stuff, the casual learning, the easy networking, the “I didn’t know your company did that” moments. You pick up new skills without trying, hear about opportunities you’d never spot from a desk, and get to see colleagues, competitors, suppliers, customers as actual humans.

The pandemic and lockdown had something to do with this I think, as does social media. It seems as though there is a huge swath of potential recruits to the workforce who just don’t want do anything outside work hours. Who are more concerned with being their authentic selves, with being independent, and not wanting to risk being one of the sheep.

I’m not saying we want a throwback to the old days where overtime rules by default, where your promotion could depend on not messing up when you invite the boss for dinner, of office presenteeism, and never leaving your desk before your manager. I worked in an office like that for a while. It was horrible.

My issue is that this industry needs to recruit new people. Young people. People who come with a fresh perspective, and new ideas, who will be able to develop the sector into the future, and replace those at the upper end who are retiring. Most of those new recruits will be Gen Z. Would this industry suffer if a whole generation of new recruits refused to engage in anything other than the workplace, and their allocated hours? Yes, it would.

That said, this sector is rather different. One is either in and out again very quickly, or you’re in it for the long haul, and you throw yourself into all the networking and relationship building. The success of the BMF’s Young Merchants Group is testament to the fact the newer industry recruits can still party and network like the old timers.

In the end it should all be about flexibility, give and take. Of understanding that sometimes, you need to put in some time that doesn’t strictly fit with what’s written on your contract. Likewise, not everyone will be willing or able to go that extra mile all the time.

The importance of the Work Life balance has been highlighted, rightly so, and especially since the lockdowns. But the point of a balance is that sometimes it tips one way, and sometimes it tips the other.  The best employees and employers understand that, no matter what Gen they are.