Cup of coffee in hand, a young thirty-year-old lists, facing the camera, the managerial values that she applies to her team. “I am a millennial manager: of course you don’t need to justify your hours, as long as you meet your objectives. And of course I don’t have to know why you need time off, as long as you let me know when you’re there or not,” she explains in a video posted on TikTok, already viewed by nearly a million people on the social network, popular with 18-34 year olds, the trend is exploding: dozens of sequences of this type feature managers from Generation Y – born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s. –, exposing their vision of post-Covid management, between teleworking, paid leave, hours, mental health or quest for meaning Sometimes caricatured by Internet users, who mock the supposed benevolence of these people. millennial managers, these offbeat videos and the debates they provoke in comments testify to a real upheaval in the professional sphere.
“Since the pandemic, these new generations of chefs are certainly those who are faced with the greatest number of challenges in terms of management, flexibility of working time and listening to employees,” explains Elodie Gentina, professor at IESEG School of management and author of Managing Generation Z, better understanding new behaviors (Dunod, 2023). Especially since these millennial Managers must learn to combine the expectations of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2010), and those of the oldest, often higher up in the organization chart. “They find themselves in a sort of vice, juggling between different visions of the relationship with work. This requires great managerial agility, which can be difficult to manage,” explains the specialist.
Quentin, a 30-year-old millennial manager, experienced this in his previous job. The young man, who wanted to give his colleagues the opportunity to take a train a little earlier on Friday, or to leave work as soon as their tasks were completed, had to confront the vision of his superiors, who were much more attentive to presenteeism. . “My boss was more the type to ask us if we had taken the afternoon off if we dared to leave before 7 p.m…. Since he himself put limits on the subject, it was complicated to cede this flexibility to my teams without risking a clash. All that played a role in my decision to leave,” he says. The thirty-year-old, who has found work, is very clear about his new managerial vision: “As long as the objectives are achieved, my colleagues leave at the time they want. For me, it is a question of empowering people , rather than copping them… And that doesn’t stop anyone from being more efficient, on the contrary!”
Mental health, a more easily discussed subject
According to a study by Deloitte conducted in 2023, mental health is also one of the major concerns of young workers: almost half of Generation Z (46%) and 4 in 10 millennials (39%) say they regularly feel stressed or anxious at work. At the same time, half of those surveyed agree that their employers are taking mental health more seriously and that their efforts on the subject are having a positive impact. “For the new generation, it is very important to be listened to by the manager, there is a real notion of trust: I realize, for example, that mental health subjects are more easily discussed. They have a real need to communicate about what they feel personally”, describes Antoine, millennial manager at L’Oréal. When he took up his position, this young executive decided to set up regular meetings with his teams to discuss these issues of well-being at work.
“The relationship with authority has changed: to be respected as a manager, you no longer have to be the oldest, the most expert or the most qualified, but rather the most understanding and the most attentive,” deciphers Elodie Gentira, according to which “old-fashioned” management, which put all employees in the same basket hoping that the pressure would be enough to motivate them, is no longer possible today, without which companies take the risk of losing the trust and loyalty of their employees.
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