Rage apply­ing is when young employ­ees in pro­fes­sion­al fields get fed up with the work­load, boss, com­pen­sa­tion, or all of the above and apply to as many oth­er com­pa­nies as they can while soak­ing in their anger. The act of apply­ing to oth­er jobs when one’s morale is low is noth­ing new. But the term “rage apply­ing” is the lat­est buzz­word to sur­face in Human Resources as Gen Z and some Mil­len­ni­als grap­ple with a wide range of dis­ap­point­ments and setbacks.

Many of them began their careers in a pan­dem­ic that had peo­ple feel­ing more iso­lat­ed and forc­ing them to work from home. As a result, they have not cul­ti­vat­ed the kinds of rela­tion­ships that get peo­ple to stay. They might have lacked the men­tor­ship that can fuel a new worker.

Why Is This Happening?

Most impor­tant­ly, they are now fac­ing seri­ous finan­cial hard­ship. Some have loads of stu­dent debt. Infla­tion is high, and it is mak­ing the prices of hous­ing, gro­ceries, and oth­er neces­si­ties sky­rock­et. Even if wages rose recent­ly, they are not going as far as they might have before the eco­nom­ic down­turn. So, sad­ness quick­ly turns to anger when the boss asks  them to add one more thing to their already over­flow­ing plate or when oth­er col­leagues are qui­et quit­ting and leav­ing them with all the work.

Watch­ing these Tik­Tok videos reveals that rage apply­ing might be a way to deal with anger, but it can also pay off. CNBC report­ed that one per­son who was rage apply­ing earned a $14,000 raise. The woman whose viral video intro­duced the con­cept of rage apply­ing said she earned $25,000 more annually.

Warning When Rage Applying

Still, experts warn that rage apply­ing comes with its risks. There is no dis­crim­i­na­tion or vet­ting of the orga­ni­za­tion. Send­ing out mass appli­ca­tions increas­es the odds of get­ting an inter­view and there­fore an offer, but appli­cants could end up in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion to the one they are try­ing to escape.

“The high that comes from a poten­tial pay bump at anoth­er tox­ic job is going to wear off pret­ty quick­ly,” Career Coach Jen­na Gre­co says to CNBC.

This is an excel­lent point because leav­ing the dev­il you know does not guar­an­tee you will find an angel around the cor­ner. Rage apply­ing rais­es anoth­er issue because it is a demon­stra­tion of how dif­fer­ent­ly the gen­er­a­tions act in the work­place. For instance, Baby Boomers, who are retir­ing, tend to be more loy­al to employ­ers. They also expect­ed to meet with man­agers in per­son, and they pre­fer to be in the office. In addi­tion, they com­mu­ni­cate more about their frustrations.

Gen Z and Mil­len­ni­als are used to tex­ting. They are work­ing remote­ly often. Many of them live behind their screens. As a result, com­mu­ni­ca­tion is not the way they han­dle these prob­lems. The issue is that com­mu­ni­ca­tion is nec­es­sary for suc­cess. With­out express­ing these frus­tra­tions, the man­agers will nev­er know what they could be improv­ing or how the work­place could be trans­formed. No one will ever know what is in this young per­son­’s head or how she would like to grow in her career. Rage apply­ing is a form of hid­ing from one’s problems.

What Should HR Do?

Frankly, busi­ness­es are going to have to fess up to the fact that their cul­tures are caus­ing these HR trends like qui­et quit­ting and rage apply­ing and the Great Res­ig­na­tion. They’re going to have to address the prob­lems that are moti­vat­ing Gen Z and some Mil­len­ni­als to react to their employ­ers in these ways. The moral of the sto­ry is that the future of work depends on bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion. And the future is now.

By Francesca DiMeglio

Orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on HR Exchange Network