The pay out’s no longer worth it (Credits: Getty Images/Westend61)
Moving up to management was always the bog standard career dream.
Get a job, get promoted, move up until you’re the top dog.
Except, like many thing that were once taken as a given, the younger generations are turning their backs and questioning that career trajectory.
Millennial and Gen Z workers don’t want to be managers, thank you very much. And yet it often feels like the only way to get a substantial pay rise.
In a now-deleted TikTok video that went viral recently, a woman shared: ‘This was like two jobs ago and I still believed in career advancement and wanting to work my way up, so I became a supervisor.’
However, she found the ‘dollar pay bump’ wasn’t worth all the extra stress of her new role, and that managing people was ‘terrible’.
Though she’s now deleted the video – likely due to employment reasons – it’s sparked conversation on the app, with others sharing similar points of view.
A study of 1,000 American workers across industries, published in Entrepreneur, found only 38% of people are interested in becoming managers.
TikTokkers have responded to this too, with Kyyah Abdul calling management roles a ‘glorified internship’, because you get more responsibility for hardly any more money, so the responsibility outweighs the reward.
She believes people can stay at this level with the goal of moving quickly upwards to a more lucrative position, such as director.
But, the issue is, the people in these current high ranking roles don’t want to leave.
‘These people don’t want to leave because of how much money they’re getting for very little work,’ Kyyah said. ‘I personally believe there are people out there that want to be managers, and they want to progress up the ladder, but there’s a standstill right here [at director level].’
Sho Dewan, a career coach on the app, says he believes people don’t want to be managers because you get ‘more stress’ but no extra benefits and ‘nothing special comes out of it’, like more holiday.
He said: ‘Same thing as the old generation said why doesn’t anyone want to stay at their jobs anymore, it’s the same thing with management – why does no one want to manage anymore? You know why, because we know better.’
In another video, a woman shared how she realised her next promotion would involve managing people.
‘I actually don’t manage anyone and it’s amazing. I always knew I don’t want to be a people manager. So that got me thinking, am I stuck in my career?’ she asked.
A man going by the name Anti Career Coach said he’s in an ‘individual contributor’ role, which means he doesn’t manage anyone, and believes this is the way we avoid bad managers who take the promotion without wanting to look after people.
So, do you want to be a manager?
Laura Kingston, director of Leap Career Coaching, tells Metro: ‘Traditionally career progression has been seen as being promoted into a management position, however, I agree that there is an upward trend of people looking at alternative career paths via the expert route as an individual contributor.
‘Managing people doesn’t suit everyone, it’s important to consider your personality type and reflect on your strengths and how you like to spend your time. Do you enjoy interacting with people? Are you comfortable with giving people feedback?
‘Many people thrive on managing teams, giving them future opportunities to move into leadership positions where they can shape and influence the organisation.’
For those who don’t want it, she warns it could be ‘limiting’ as to how much you can earn, if your company doesn’t have any other roles to move up into.
Management, however, can be gratifying for some.
‘Some of my clients love managing people and achieve a sense of fulfilment by helping their employees learn and grow,’ she says.
‘Managing people comes with its challenges, some clients feel like they can’t get their “day job” done, however being a manager is the job itself. It can be stressful dealing with conflicts, politics, team dynamics and employees’ personal issues.
‘Being a manager can be really rewarding if you enjoy working and interacting with people and have strong communication and leadership skills.’
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The pay out’s no longer worth it.