Why the office needs to embrace Gen Z’s work attitude

People counted as Gen Z are, broadly speaking, those born between 1997 and 2012. The stereotype of an employee from this generation in white-collar jobs is someone who puts a premium on mental health over ruthless productivity; prefers to work remotely, or as a digital nomad, instead of going into office five-six days a week to collaborate with their colleagues in person; and is transparent, often to a fault, about their demands and views. Versions of these ideas were aired by the cohort, too—and they were not unique in harbouring them.

In my experience of training hundreds of professionals from enterprises across India in the past few years, opinion gets invariably divided in the room about the decorum of Gen Z behaviour.

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As a Gen X-er with the mindset of a Gen Z, I tend to find the parameters of employee behaviour, internalised and perpetuated in the corporate world for decades, disturbing, even absurd.

How can good mental health be seen as a bad thing in any framework of employee welfare? Why should work-life balance be an opposing binary to toxic productivity, an either-or scenario? Going by the benchmark of success set by those who normalise 70-hour work weeks, the level of stress experienced by an employee seems to be their only key performance indicator (KPI). The harder employees toil at the expense of their health and happiness, the more deserving they become of promotions and rewards. On the contrary, if they achieve their targets and outcomes by working smart—be it by using artificial intelligence (AI) or in flexible hours—there must be something fundamentally insincere about their attitude.

Change is in the Air

The recently published Workforce 2025: Power Shifts report by global organisational consulting firm Korn Ferry debunks some of the toxic myths that continue to set the bar for excellence at multigenerational workplaces. Based on a survey conducted with 15,000 professionals across the world, from entry-level positions to chief executive officers s in 10 major markets (the US, UK, France, Germany, Brazil, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Japan and India), the report offers critical insights into changing dynamics in the workplace in the next decade.

Here are some key takeaways: By 2026, 27% of the global workforce will have Gen Z employees (in the Middle East, roughly 70% of the workforce is currently under 40); three out of four managers say that Gen Z is the most difficult generation to work with; eight out of 10 managers criticised Gen Z for lacking critical soft skills to succeed in the workplace; and last but not the least, four out of five Gen Zs argue that such behavioural cues can only be learned by observing tenured leaders at work.

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Chicken-and-egg blame games such as this one aren’t new. But the repercussions of a generational conflict in the workplace can set organisations back by miles, both in terms of culture as well as growth.

The chief levers of this clash are poor communication skills, lack of mutual respect, and different work styles at play. As public-relations professional and marketeer Mark Beal, who has written extensively on Gen Z in the workplace, puts it in a podcast, “Gen X lives to work, Gen Z works to live."

The former typically derives a sense of self from the job they do; for the latter, a job is just a means to embrace their purpose and make an impact.

A cross-section of Gen Z completed college or joined the workforce during the covid-19 pandemic. It’s hardly surprising they are “blind to the physical-digital fluidity," as Amanda Schneider, founder of ThinkLab, a market research firm focused on the design industry, puts it. As the return-to-office trend continues to gain currency, going “phygital" (a term believed to have been coined by adman Chris Weil long before the era of hybrid work) may meet the demands of both Gen X and Gen Z halfway. In fact, the Korn Ferry report validates the fact that Gen Z isn’t averse to hybrid work; they do want human interaction but not in-person apprenticeship.

The hard truth remains that Gen Z is eventually going to inherit the workplace. It’s the law of nature. Once upon a time, Gen X was the new kid on the corporate block, they set their own rules into play, created a system that served their needs, and superseded the ethos of the Boomers before them. In about a decade, Gen Z will come to rule the roost. The sooner the rest of us learn to grapple with this shift, as well as some of the positive values that our younger colleagues are bringing to the table, the better it will be for the workforce overall.

Work Vibes is a fortnightly column on ideas to help you thrive at what you do.

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