Millennials and Gen Z workers now make up more than half of the labor force, and they’re re-writing the rules of the office.
Some of the biggest things on the corporate chopping block? Strict hours, stuffy dress codes and restrictive vacation policies. At least that’s the case for the small team at LA-based Socialista Queen, a social media marketing agency.
In May, 29-year-old Liat Aharon, the agency’s founder and CEO, posted a video about some of the office rules she has for her staff of four, some of which her peers say are considered “controversial” for a traditional work setting.
Among her company policies: Team members are permitted to start their workday whenever they want, whether it’s 6 a.m. or 10 a.m., as long as they complete an eight-hour workday.
Team members work a hybrid schedule and from an office Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, unless they’re on a photo shoot, during which they can work remotely.
Each person gets about 10 vacation days accrued throughout the year, but they’re also encouraged to take more unpaid days as needed like for a big trip, as long as they give enough notice.
Aharon tells CNBC Make It she publicized her office rules after seeing another creator post their own video as a Gen Z manager, “and it made me laugh, because I had no idea these things were controversial.”
“I love to live a good life,” Aharon says. “I think making life in the office fun should always be a priority.”
She says her policies are inspired by the flexibility she wishes she had throughout the jobs of her early 20s as a restaurant worker, phone salesperson and other gigs, plus hearing from friends who say they’re “miserable” in their jobs.
“I just don’t get the point, because it’s so easy, in my opinion, to make an environment fun if you have the right people,” Aharon says, adding that “hiring the right people is huge in these kind of situations.”
The CEO doesn’t typically look for an education requirement for her hires. “The first time I was hiring I even wrote, ‘I don’t care about your resumes,'” Aharon says. “I want to make sure that you know how to edit a video and have a good attitude. I don’t care if you’ve graduated college to be in social media management, personally.”
She conducts candidate interviews herself and asks situational questions, like how they’d handle a project with a client, to get a feel for their decision-making process and how they communicate.
Not everything Aharon does is so zillennial-coded. She says the best thing a candidate can do to set themselves apart is to follow-up with a thank-you email soon after meeting.
I think the office should be a safe place where people have a good time, because you never know what people are going home to.
Liat Aharon
Founder and CEO of Socialista Queen
“If you follow up after three or four days, it shows me one thing, but if you follow up after an hour or in the same day, I’m like, ‘OK, this person really wants this,'” she says.
Aharon says some of her peers call her management style “lenient,” though she doesn’t see it that way.
“I also do have boundaries that none [of my staff] have ever stepped over,” like not abusing the time-off policy and making sure flexibility never results in missed deadlines, she adds. “I’ve just discussed with them that these are the fun rules until anyone makes me have to change that, which is how I think life should be, where you give people the benefit of the doubt unless proven otherwise.”
Aharon says her flexible company policies have never led to issues their roughly dozen clients including a jewelry business, moving company and orthodontist office.
Ultimately, “I think the office should be a safe place where people have a good time, because you never know what people are going home to,” Aharon says.
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