Gen Z reports 'toxic,' 'creepy' behaviour as RTO takes effect: report
Gen Z are disproportionately reporting workplace bullying as their employers enforce return to office (RTO) policies, according to a survey.
Thirty percent of workers overall said their company’s culture has been “toxic” since RTO was mandated.
But 38 percent of Gen Z respondents (18 to 24 years old) said they’d been bullied since returning to the office — and almost half (45%) said they’ve experienced “creepy” behaviour, found the survey of 557 employees by U.S. company Resume Builder.
But what does “creepy” behaviour mean, from a legal standpoint?
Creepy behaviour counts as harassment in Canadian law
It doesn’t matter, said Shane Todd, partner and vice-chair of labour, employment and human rights at Fasken.
Regardless of how vague or general a complaint is, even if it’s based on a feeling of an individual being “creepy”, the response by employers should be the same.
“Discrimination or harassment based on a protected ground, like sex or gender or sexual orientation, those sorts of things would be offside,” he said. “And if those sorts of discrimination and harassment things were happening, then HR would have an obligation to meet with the employee and conduct an investigation. And if it's found that something is happening that's unlawful in terms of discrimination and harassment, the company would have an obligation to do something to stop that from happening.”
Where misconduct isn’t tied to a protected class of employee under the Canadian Human Rights Act, employers have further obligations under occupational health and safety legislation, Todd said.
“It doesn't need to be that you're harassing someone because they're gay, for example, but you're just engaging in a course of conduct towards them that's unwelcome, like social isolating someone because you don't like them, or performance managing them more closely because you don't like them.”
Gen Z want more time in the office
Contrary to what might be expected, younger employees have been shown to be more attracted to in-office work than their older counterparts – for example, 2023 global research by LinkedIn found that Gen Z was the least likely to apply for remote jobs.
Early career professionals whose first years in the workforce were remote are wanting to make up for lost time with mentorships and other face-to-face opportunities that RTO would grant them, according to Axios analysis. September 2023 data collected by Adobe found that 81% of Gen Z consider on-site work experiences important, and 83% think a workplace mentorship is crucial to their career.
The high rates of bullying reports from Gen Z could be attributed to the age group simply being more likely to report misconduct and stand up to bullying, found research by Resume Builder; they are also more likely to quit jobs if they don’t get along with co-workers or bosses, according to Adobe.
“It is very possible that other generations are experiencing bullying or toxicity at the same rates as Gen Z professionals, but Gen Z is simply more likely to call it out,” said Matt Enhard, managing partner at recruiter Summit Search Group. “I find Gen Zers have a lower tolerance for this type of behaviour than older workers. They are also more dubious of the traditional workplace model overall.”
Training for management around RTO etiquette
While he wouldn’t recommend it for rank-and-file employees, training programs for people leaders and other people-facing management roles could be useful, Todd said, in mitigating discomfort in the office as multiple generations return from long tenures working at home.
“When people have been out of the office for a really long time, it's not a terrible idea to have sort of a refresher about what are the standards of conduct that we expect as people who are in the office, whether that's dress, or other matters, conduct that people might be engaging in at work,” he said.
“They can be somewhat useful, but they're always based on such broad generalities … What is really true about an entire generation of workers? I think is a hard thing to say.”
