Ready or Not, Here They Come: What Gen Z Is Telling Us About Work

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I am endlessly fascinated by culture, especially the less visible subcultures. One in particular never stops piquing my interest: generational culture.

My father graduated from Arroyo Grande High School.I graduated from Arroyo Grande High School. Shout out, class of ’01.And both of my daughters will graduate from Arroyo Grande High School. In fact, one already has. 🫠

Although three generations of my family grew up in the same town, walked the same streets, and graduated from the same high school, we all grew up in very different cultures.

All of which is to say: anytime I see an article about how a generation is experiencing something, best believe I am reading it.

Gen Z is here, and they are not really here for the nonsense.

Just today, I came across an article titled, “Why Is Gen-Z Romanticizing the Nine-to-Five Job?” 

The article title is a little (read: a lot) tongue-in-cheek. 

Gen Z is not really “romanticizing” the 9-to-5 because they love corporate work. Rather, they are using social media to make routine workdays feel more manageable, more meaningful, and maybe a little more bearable. They post videos about desk setups, coffee runs, lunch breaks, and small daily rituals.

Not because they are enamored with work. Because they are coping.

A central idea in the piece is that these videos reflect broader disillusionment with work. The article cites sociologist Erin Hatton, who argues that this content resonates with workers who feel uncertain about economic stability, career prospects, and whether work will provide any real sense of fulfillment.

In that sense, trends like “romanticizing my 9-to-5” and quiet quitting are not really about loving work any less than previous generations did. They are about putting work in its proper place rather than making it the center of life.

And on that point, I agree: work should not be the centerpiece of our lives. Full stop.

But it should be a place that supports our journey as humans, not just a place that provides a paycheck. Work should be a place where what we do adds value, makes a difference, and reminds us that our lives matter.

The article also suggests that younger workers are less likely to see their jobs as the source of purpose or self-worth, and more likely to adopt a “work to live, not live to work” mindset. Some even create “work alter egos” or personas to get through the day without letting work consume their identity.

Honestly, I don’t blame them.

What we have now, in far too many places, is an ecosystem of uninspiring, unengaging, and thankless organizations.

Organizations that think loyalty is owed but need not be reciprocated.

Organizations that think people should be grateful just to have a job, even while being treated like interchangeable equipment.

Organizations whose primary focus is delivering profit to shareholders, not serving customers, employees, or the broader good. (Thanks, Milton Friedman. 😒)

And if you are thinking, “Well, we are a nonprofit,” or “We are in the public sector,” you still have your own version of profits and shareholders. They just may not take the traditional form. The behaviors remain the same, and so do the outcomes.

An entire ecosystem of uninspiring, unengaging, and thankless organizations.

Now, to be fair, there are organizations that do inspire, engage, and appreciate people. And if that is you, thank you. Thank you for understanding that results matter, but they should never matter more than the means by which you achieve them.

But, I digress. 

So why should organizations care about this? Why should this trend concern them?

I’ll tell you why.

I’ll start with the human side. But if that is not enough, we can take it straight to the bottom line.

The Human Side:

44% of Gen Z workers say they’ve left a job that lacked purpose. That means meaning and values are not “nice to have” issues for younger workers; they directly affect retention.

42% of Gen Zs say work is a significant source of stress. So when younger employees are “romanticizing” small work rituals online, it may be less about loving work and more about coping with it.

Engagement among Gen Z and younger millennials dropped 8 points from 2020 to 2025 in Gallup’s U.S. data. That is a major warning sign because disengagement affects performance, energy, and likelihood of staying.

If you are asking, “So what?” here is what that looks like in measurable terms.

The Bottom Line

Turnover is expensive. Replacing an employee typically costs 50% to 200% of that employee’s annual salary, depending on role level. Gallup gives a more specific breakdown: about 40% of salary for frontline roles, 80% for technical roles, and 200% for leaders/managers.

Stress drives absence and health risk. The American Psychological Association found thatburnout is associated with a 57% increased risk of being absent from work for more than two weeks due to illness and a 180% increased risk of depressive symptoms. In other words, stress is not just a morale issue. It shows up in attendance, health, and effectiveness.

Disengagement hits performance hard: Gallupreports that highly engaged business units see 81% lower absenteeism, 18% higher productivity, and 23% higher profitability than low-engagement units. They also experience lower turnover.

If you remain unbothered, I do not know what else to tell you. But maybe I’ll see your workplace on TikTok soon enough. 

But if this concerns you, and it should, here is what organizations can do about it.

Put a Strong Emphasis on Role Clarity

People handle stress better and engage more when they know what is expected of them. Gallupidentifies “I know what is expected of me at work” as a foundational engagement item, and its research frames clarity as one of the core manager-driven factors tied to both engagement and well-being.

Put another way: when expectations are unclear, people guess and hope for the best. When people know what good looks like, they are far more likely to do good work.

Practice: Don’t leave role clarity to the recruiting phase alone. Yes, you need to know what to hire for in any position. But role clarity should be a throughline throughout the employee experience. It should shape how people are onboarded, how their performance is managed, how they are developed, and how success is defined over time.

Leaders: If you don’t know what good looks like for your people, you have lost the right to assess their performance with integrity.

Strengthen Manager Support and Recognition

A lot of this gets filtered through the direct manager. Gallup says managers sit at the center of engagement and well-being, and that manager support acts as a psychological buffer against burnout. 

More recent research and well-being guidance also highlight recognition as an underused but effective way to support employees as whole people, not just workers. (Duh.)

Practice: Make gratitude a priority. Hell, make it a leadership expectation. Train leaders and managers to express it well, and measure how consistently and effectively they do it.

Operationalizing gratitude does not diminish its meaning; it enhances it.

Create Sustainable Workload and Well-Being

Stress does not usually come from work alone; it comes from chronic work stress that is not being managed well. 

APA describes burnout as an occupation-related syndrome caused by unmanaged chronic workplace stress, and Maslach’s work highlights overload and lack of control as major drivers. 

Deloitte’s Gen Z and Millennial research also shows that younger workers are prioritizing meaning, wellbeing, and balance, so organizations that ignore workload and wellbeing are likely to lose talent.

Practice: Be intentional about the work you ask people to do. “If there is time to lean, there is time to clean” just teaches people to look busy. You are paying them either way, so why not make sure the work they do provides value and the way they do it provides meaning?

The chasm between being “busy” and being “productive” is shaped by how intentional you are about what your people work on and, just as importantly, what they do not.

See You at the Crossroads

I think we are at a crossroads, both societally and organizationally. Without diving too deep into bashing this wildly bastardized version of capitalism that we now pretend has always existed (it hasn’t), and without further besmirching Mr. Friedman’s name, though he may deserve it (he does), we are left with a choice.

We can continue down the path that began in the 1970s and led us to where we are today, with the consequences of those choices only becoming more pronounced. Or we can choose differently.

If Gen Z has to romanticize the workplace just to get through it, that is not a quirky trend. That is a signal.

And, as an aside, it is not just them. Some Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials have done similar things; they just did not have such a visible platform for expressing it.

People do not dress up their reality like that when work is already meaningful, healthy, and human. They do it to cope. And that should force organizations to ask a harder question: What kind of workplace have we created that makes emotional rebranding feel necessary in the first place?

Look, do I think our workplaces should be the only place where we find purpose and meaning?

Absolutely not.

Do I think they should play a role in helping us discover and develop our potential? 

Do I think they should play a more active role in helping people live happier, more fulfilled lives? 

Do I think the world would be a better place if workplaces placed equal focus on people as they do on profit (however they define it)?

You bet your ass I do.

Wes Love

Founding Partner