Philippines to the United Kingdom: Everyone Thinks the Other Generation Ruined the Office

🇵🇭 Philippines · 🇬🇧 United Kingdom

By Priya Mehta, The Global Office

Jobstreet's 2025 happiness index found Filipino Gen Z workers are the country's least satisfied generation at work, even though the gap to millennials and Gen X is a matter of a couple of percentage points rather than a chasm. A UK survey commissioned by hiring platform Applied found something structurally similar but far starker: 45 percent of workers under 35 say there's a real generational divide in their workplace, against just 22 percent of those over 55. Two very different office cultures, one shared theme — whichever generation is doing the complaining, it's usually complaining about the one above or below it.

Do's & Don'ts

🇵🇭 Philippines

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

Philippines

Filipino office hierarchy runs on both formality and genuine deference, and it starts with language: an expat guide to working in Manila notes that using a superior's first name — a near-automatic habit for many Western arrivals — can cause real friction, where "ma'am," "sir," or "miss" is the safer default regardless of how informal the relationship otherwise feels. That same deference shapes how disagreement is expressed. Confrontation and raised voices are generally avoided to preserve face, and a colleague's "yes" doesn't always mean agreement so much as a polite deferral — reading tone and context, the guide advises, matters more than taking the literal word. ManilaRecruitment.com adds that Filipino management style "emphasizes deep respect for hierarchy" alongside genuine personal concern for the team, and that long service specifically is "deeply valued," often marked through public recognition rather than treated as simply a line on a résumé.

Generational data complicates the stereotype of total deference, though. Jobstreet's 2025 Workplace Happiness Index found Gen Z Filipino workers (18-29) scored lowest on overall happiness at 76 percent, against 77 for millennials and 78 for Gen X — a narrow gap, but one driven by concretely higher reported stress and emotional exhaustion, and nearly four in ten Gen Z respondents saying they often dread going to work. What they do report liking tracks closely with purpose and flexibility: 76 percent cite finding meaning in the work itself, 73 percent value work-from-home arrangements specifically. A separate Ateneo de Manila University study, based on 40 interviews and a 132-person survey of Filipino Gen Z employees, found this generation notably focused on using pay for savings and investment and on contributing to family and society, a more explicit, financially literate framing of career motivation than older generations typically articulate the same way. Hofstede's data scores the Philippines at a steep 94 on power distance — one of the highest figures the index records anywhere — against the UK's 35, a number that helps explain why hierarchy-respecting language and indirect disagreement remain the norm even as younger workers report real strain underneath it.

United Kingdom

British workplaces don't lack hierarchy so much as they lack agreement on what's socially acceptable day to day, and a 2,000-person Applied-commissioned survey puts real numbers on just how wide that gap runs. Thirty-two percent of UK workers overall report a generational divide at their workplace, but the number nearly doubles among younger staff: 45 percent of 16-34-year-olds report one, against 22 percent of those over 55. The specific flashpoints are oddly granular — 16 percent of younger workers think gym wear, loungewear, or Ugg boots are acceptable office attire against 10 percent of the 55-plus group; 12 percent of younger workers find workplace-email slang fine against 5 percent of older colleagues; 14 percent think sharing relationship or financial details at work is acceptable against 7 percent of older staff. The one place older workers are more permissive: 34 percent of over-55s are fine eating lunch at their desk, against 27 percent of under-35s.

The relationship friction runs deeper than etiquette, too. The HR Director's reporting found 27 percent of UK Gen Z office workers (18-27) describe their colleague relationships as negative, nearly double the 13 percent rate among boomers, with communication gaps cited as a top-three friction point by every generation — 74 percent of Gen Z specifically flagged it. A long, heavily commented Blind thread on exactly this topic captures the texture behind the statistics: one poster called older colleagues "stuck in the past, unable to adapt," while several blamed boomers specifically for pushing return-to-office mandates. But the same thread pushed back hard on itself — multiple commenters, including one self-identified boomer, argued the complaints described individual personalities rather than genuine generational traits, with one noting dryly that "assholes come in all age groups," and another pointing out that reverse ageism against younger workers in tech is real but talked about far less. Hofstede's UK score of 89 on individualism, against the Philippines' 32, is consistent with a culture where generational friction gets debated loudly and publicly as a matter of individual rights and preferences, rather than absorbed quietly into a hierarchy.

The Reckoning

Set side by side, the two countries disagree about almost everything except the basic complaint. In the Philippines, generational tension is muted by a strong, shared expectation of hierarchy and politeness — Gen Z workers report real stress and dread, but it surfaces as quiet exhaustion and a desire for flexibility rather than open generational warfare. In the UK, the same underlying tension gets measured, published, and argued about constantly, down to whether Ugg boots belong in the office, precisely because British workplace culture puts a much higher premium on individual self-expression that has nowhere obvious to hide.

Neither country's older or younger cohort comes off as simply right. UK data shows real behavioural gaps in what's considered appropriate, but also that leadership mostly says it values the mix anyway — 73 percent of business leaders call multigenerational teams a benefit, even as 45 percent of their youngest staff feel like outsiders day to day. The Philippines shows a Gen Z cohort that's financially switched-on and purpose-driven, working inside a hierarchy that was built, structurally, around deference to people who got there first. A newcomer to either system should expect the real cross-generational tension to be happening quietly underneath a surface that, depending on the country, is either determinedly harmonious or loudly, publicly argued about.

The Part the Brochure Left Out

Blind — A poster described older colleagues as "stuck in the past, unable to adapt," and blamed boomers specifically for driving return-to-office mandates, while another in the same thread joked that older staff push RTO mainly because they need someone younger to operate their presentations.

Blind — Several commenters pushed back hard on the premise, with one self-identified boomer accusing the original poster of entitlement, and another, more measured reply noting plainly that "assholes come in all age groups" and that the complaint likely says more about specific individuals or company culture than about an entire generation.

Blind — One commenter raised a counterpoint rarely discussed in the same breath as boomer complaints: bias against younger workers in tech is real and arguably under-reported compared with the volume of commentary about older colleagues.

Expat.com (Manila guide, drawing on resident accounts) — Newly arrived foreign workers are warned that using a Filipino boss's first name, an instinctive habit for many Western professionals, can cause real friction, and that a colleague's polite "yes" should not always be read as genuine agreement.

Conclusion

Move from Manila to London, or the other way round, and the generational complaint doesn't disappear — it just changes which emotion carries it. In the Philippines, frustration gets absorbed into politeness and quiet stress; in the UK, it gets surveyed, published, and argued about on a Tuesday. Either way, the people doing the complaining are nearly always talking about the same thing: who gets to decide what "normal" looks like at work, and how long the rest of the office has to wait before that answer changes again.