🎉 Gen Z is gaming the system 🤣

Get better compensation planning.

Read time: 2.5 minutes

Good Morning Party People! 🎉

The Mexican government just released video footage of a hearing in which they revealed skeletons of “aliens”. Not sure they could make a more fake-looking alien if they tried. We aren’t buying it.

Check out the MOTD to see what it looks like (ET looks more legit).

Here’s what we got today:

💸 Show me the money!

👦 Gen Z is wild

🏢 Google announces layoffs

📉 Wage growth is slowing

And, of course, MEMES!

PS - The results from Tuesday’s poll…

Petersen is a…

• 25% said “Villain”

• 21% said “Hero”

• 54% said “Neither”

MOTD (Meme of The Day)

Think you have great meme skills? Reply to this email with your best meme to be featured in the MOTD.

Show Me The Money

“I want to better understand my career growth opportunities here?”

Sound familiar?

Translation:

Show me the money.

According to Glassdoor, 58% of employees believed that career growth opportunities were directly linked to salary increases.

When employees vocalize their ambitions for career growth, they often also want an uptick in their earnings.

But you can’t afford raises for everyone.

So, what do you do?

Start with a little transparency. Show employees where they fall in their current band for their level, and empower their managers to coach them up to the next level. If they feel like there is a pathway to grow their responsibilities AND their pay, the data shows they will stick around.

There is no better time for managers to build trust than when it comes to tough conversations. Helping employees understand their current pay AND future pay potential is one of the best opportunities to do that.

1 in 6 Gen Z’ers Used a Virtual Office Background While Vacationing

According to a survey conducted by Resume Builder, 44% of Gen Z’ers have taken a “hush trip”. 65% of the hush trippers used a virtual background to trick employers.

WTF is a hush trip? 

Why are the youngins doing this? 51% of survey respondents took a hush trip because their time-off request was denied. So they sent it anyway. Many others didn’t want to use their PTO (scumbags).

45% of survey respondents got away with their hush trip. The other 55%? They’re no longer employed. Just kidding, only 7% got fired (pretty good odds).

Guess it makes sense that so many companies are mandating a return to the office. Gen Z is ruining it for everyone…

Google Just Ruined The Layoff Trend…

Layoffs have been decreasing MoM pretty consistently since January. That is until Google recently announced significant layoffs to their recruiting team.

Yesterday afternoon, Google shared that hundreds of employees on their recruiting team would be let go. Earlier in the year, the company cut 12,000 jobs (6% of their workforce). Brutal.

Cuts to the recruiting team generally mean that the company is freezing hiring. Google still has plans to hire…

Just when the layoffs start to really slow down, Google has to go and ruin it. We’re hoping more companies don’t follow suit.

ICYMI - Google recently offered a hotel special to get more employees back into the office. They also had to pay out $8.4M to former employees from a compensation lawsuit.

Wage Growth is Sloooowing

Wage growth is returning to pre-pandemic levels. YoY, wages grew 4.5%, down from a peak of 9.3% in January.

Over the past few years, inflation massively increased wages across all sectors (still not enough to keep up with those crazy gas prices, eh?).

Wage growth was previously at 3.3% before the pandemic. Many believe that the spike in wage growth contributed to inflation as companies with high labor costs raise prices in order to increase profits. Never mind the 27% increase in the money supply printed during COVID. Inflation also came in at 3.7%, slightly higher than the expected 3.6%.

So what does the (lack of) wage growth mean?

The Fed wants to see the labor market cool off (have they not been watching the tech sector? — It’s cool!). The slowing of wage growth isn’t great for employees (we all want higher wages).

As inflation continues to cool, it will be interesting to continue to monitor the wage growth.

For more, check out the Indeed Hiring Lab.

Party Favors (extra reading)

• Talent Edge Weekly

  Join thousands of HR and business professionals who get smarter, faster each week about the world of work, the workplace, and the workforce in just 10 minutes, every Sunday, 6 PM EST!

• Building Better Teams

  Tobias Günther has been building successful teams — with a people-first mindset — for almost 20 years. He shares the practical tools and frameworks that work, remotely or in the office! Join world-class founders and leaders for this free newsletter, sent out 2x per month.

• How worried should we be about the uptick in covid cases? A Johns Hopkins scientist explains

  Johns Hopkins scientist explains why a rise in new variants probably won’t shut down businesses in the US.

Get in front of 5,734+ HR Leaders, Founders, and Recruiters

Advertise with The Office Party and promote your company to decision-makers at top companies. Get in touch.