A Mumbai-based investor recently shared a leave note from his Gen Z associate that has gone viral due to its straightforward and no-nonsense tone. Unlike typical leave requests that ask for manager approval, this one simply stated: "Hi Siddharth, I will be on leave on 8th Nov 2024. Bye.”
Sharing a screenshot of the email, his boss, Siddharth Shah, captioned it: "How my gen z team gets its leaves approved." And as the post suggested, the leave was indeed granted.
The response to the post was diverse; an X user wrote, “And if I had sent this message to my manager, he would have scheduled a meeting with HR to discuss my behaviour issues.”
“One of my Gen z team members suddenly declared 1 week leave. It was a critical time of the project so I tried to reason. He did not budge. The leave was because he had a breakup and he wanted to go to the mountains to forget the breakup,” added another user.
In a series of follow-up tweets, Siddharth Shah defended his Gen Z team, emphasising their dedication and hard work, contrary to the stereotype that they are difficult to manage or lack a strong work ethic. Responding to an X user who criticised Gen Z's "indisciplined work culture," Shah remarked, "I don't know what you mean. At 20-21 I was doing nothing. Today, at 32 I've worked with at least 7-8 Gen Zs in the last 2-3 years who have made me very proud."
When another user suggested that employees shouldn't need to explain why they need time off, Shah replied, "I don't ask as a manager. I ask because I love to gossip... My Gen Z team is nice. Although today Soniya Deshmukh (another Gen Z associate) was shouting at me because I was on holiday for two weeks.”
In a similar vein of leadership recognition, a woman from New Delhi recently earned praise for writing exceptionally encouraging rejection letters to job applicants. The tone of her letters, which kindly informed candidates they hadn’t been selected while acknowledging their skills and efforts, was widely appreciated by both the rejected applicants and social media users.
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