By Melvin Moses Kiyimba
I genuinely love working with Gen Zs. They are brutally honest, often chaotic, sometimes painfully clueless, but they bring a level of creativity and humor that makes even the most mundane office experiences tolerable, sometimes even enjoyable.
Take, for example, a brainstorming session I had recently. We were trying to pilot a project recently so we sat done to brainstorm, and after about 20 minutes of circling around corporate-safe ideas, one Gen Z in the room leaned back and said, “Melvin, be honest, would you actually click on this ad?
Because I wouldn’t. It looks like something my dad would send me on WhatsApp with ‘Good morning, family’ as the caption.” The whole room burst into laughter, but she had a point. The idea was safe, predictable, and, in her words, “very uncle vibes.” We scrapped it and came up with something fresher, something that actually spoke to their generation.
That’s the thing with Gen Zs, they don’t waste time pretending. If something is boring, outdated, or just bad, they will say it. No corporate cushioning, no HR-friendly phrasing.
And while this honesty can be jarring, it’s also incredibly efficient. I’ve sat through meetings where people danced around the truth for hours, trying not to offend anyone.
Meanwhile, a Gen Z will just say, “This isn’t working. Let’s move on.” And honestly? It saves everyone a lot of time.
But it’s not just their honesty, it’s their approach to work. Gen Zs have a way of making even the most tedious tasks feel a little less painful. I once walked into an office where a group of them were supposed to be sorting content for a project.
Instead, they had turned it into a full-on TikTok challenge. On one hand, I was about to ask if they were actually getting any work done. On the other hand, I had to admit, it was the most efficient I’d ever seen that task handled.
They had figured out a way to gamify the process, stay entertained, and actually finish faster than usual.
Of course, they have their faults, like any generation. The attention span can be… questionable. Ask them to sit through a two-hour strategy meeting without their phone, and you might as well be asking them to walk to Jinja barefoot.
They are also infamous for rejecting traditional office hierarchies. I once overheard a Gen Z intern respond to a senior manager’s request with, “Yeah, sure, boss man.” Boss man. I thought my ancestors would rise from the ground.
But the most Gen Z story I’ve seen recently? A young lady posted a TikTok looking for an internship, and somehow she ends up at a government ministry. But she turned it down.
Not because of salary, not because of the role, but because, in her words, “the aesthetics in the office didn’t speak to me.”
At first, I laughed. Then I realised, she wasn’t entirely wrong. Research in office psychology has shown that workplace aesthetics impact productivity, creativity, and employee well-being.
A study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that office design, lighting, and even color schemes can significantly influence focus and morale.
So while turning down a job over interior decor might sound extreme, Gen Zs are simply expressing something most of us never had the audacity to say: The environment we work in matters.
And speaking of audacity, if there’s one thing Gen Zs have mastered, it’s using humor to address serious issues. Right now, TikTok is flooded with a trend called Corruptok, where they hilariously expose their leaders for misusing funds.
A Gen Z might record a video outside a hospital with no medicine, lip-syncing to a viral sound while captioning it: POV: The minister used the hospital budget to buy a V8 instead.
It’s funny, yes, but it’s also their way of holding power accountable in a country where speaking out isn’t always easy.
This is what I love about working with them. They don’t just complain, they create. They turn frustration into content, into conversations, into movements.
Sure, sometimes they oversimplify things, and yes, not every problem can be solved with a viral video. But their ability to make people pay attention to issues we have normalised is something we can’t ignore.
That being said, we can’t let them run unchecked. The world doesn’t always work on vibes and aesthetics. We have to be open to what they say, because sometimes they are onto something but also be vigilant enough to guide them so they don’t fall into the wrong path.
And how we deliver that guidance matters. Yelling “Back in my day, we took any job we got!” won’t work. They’ll just tune you out or turn your rant into a meme. We have to learn to work with them, not against them.
And that’s why I enjoy working with Gen Zs. They push boundaries, challenge outdated thinking, and refuse to settle for mediocrity.
Sure, they might roll their eyes at my choice of fonts or call my emails “too formal,” but they also bring a level of energy and creativity that is hard to ignore. They make work feel less like work.
So yes, Gen Zs can be brutally honest, sometimes exasperating, and often attached to their phones like their lives depend on it.
But they also bring something fresh, something unfiltered, something undeniably real. And in a world full of pretences, that’s something worth appreciating.