‘Hiring Gen Z is a nightmare – they don’t turn up to their first day of work’

Arnell describes her experience with Gen Z as “pretty poor”. She takes pride in the flexibility of her marketing business, where staff have freedom around what hours they work, can take 32 days of holiday and train in new areas, supported by the company.

However, she believes Gen Z members took advantage of the culture. “They want everything and deliver nothing in return,” she adds.

“They don’t seem to be that arsed about anybody else but their own personal space and experience, and what they need and want. There doesn’t seem to be any bigger picture thinking.”

At worst, Arnell says, “I’ve had situations multiple times with people that have literally gone out with their friends all day on the p-ss and then basically done their work at 3am in the morning, drunk, and then couldn’t understand why that was unacceptable.”

They would even admit what they’d been up to, according to Arnell.

“Until they reach a certain age, I think they just can’t work remotely; they need to be in an office environment. Even though they claim that they want the freedom and the flexibility, they’re not structured themselves to actually be disciplined”.

McNeil found Gen Z workers repeatedly asking for flexible working, and says they had “an automatic assumption they could work from home”. He describes it as a “consistent battle of trying to get people into the office”.

McNeill and Arnell are wary from their experiences; nowadays Arnell takes longer to interview people applying to work at her company. McNeil blames Gen Z’s woes on technology making “things too easy for people, so that when [it] fails, they don’t know how to get around it” and schools not teaching enough teenagers about “the real world”.

Shoshanna Davis, 27, founder of Fairy Job Mother, a consultancy helping young people and employers build better working relations together, says the internet has shaped expectations, especially around remote employment.

“There’s a huge glamorisation of the idea of working from anywhere, which is made to be very attractive.”