Meet the typical Gen Z worker, who is quitting their job for a better one but probably regretting it later

By asserting new norms in the workplace, Gen Z is eschewing the ones implemented by millennials before them. They're demanding a better work-life-balance, and it's scaring their millennial managers, The New York Times' Emma Goldberg reported last fall.

Young 20-somethings are delegating to their boss, asking for mental health days, working less once they've accomplished their tasks for the day, and setting their own hours, Goldberg wrote. It's a sharp contrast from the overworked, structured days that work-obsessed millennials are accustomed to.

Some of it is part of a "slow-up," a purposeful shift in slowing down productivity with the aim of a better work-life balance. This could be taking unofficial breaks or responding to emails only on select weekdays.

The pandemic has made many burned out and overworked Americans question their work lives. Gen Z, along with younger millennials, are acting as the voice of these grievances online.

On TikTok, they're calling out capitalism for the role it's taking on their mental health.

"I live in a society where my productivity matters more than my well-being, and so I'm just depressed and anxious all the time," says a user who goes by Rama in a video. "I'm smiling, but I'm deeply wounded. I work three jobs, and I still feel like I'm not doing enough."

On Reddit, they're bolstering the "antiwork" movement, which embraces a work-free lifestyle. As Insider's Juliana Kaplan reported, the movement looks to similar youth-led movements against work in other countries, especially China, where young people are "lying flat" by decentering a drive to constantly be more productive and competitive at work, and instead find happiness in their own lives and relaxation.

The antiworkers are opting out of working altogether. Kade, a Gen Z worker in Kansas, quit his job as a service worker after his boss posted a sign telling workers they couldn't use their phones during shifts — and, if they were caught with their phones, management could confiscate them.

"I think it felt like I could be like a bigger part of a movement," Kade told Kaplan. "I didn't want to put up with this stuff."

The era of remote work gave Gen Z the upper hand in amplifying demands for workplace autonomy, Rikleen said. She added that their lives were turned upside down during an impressionable time.

"They had so much taken away from them in terms of access, you can go on and on with what has been lost," she said. "That reframes your thinking ... you start to think about what's important to you and how to express [that]."

Back in October, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky deemed the Great Resignation more of a "Great Reshuffle." Workers were quitting their jobs in favor of a better one. His team found that job transitions on LinkedIn have increased by 54% year-over-year, with Gen Z's job transitions increasing by 80%. Millennials were transitioning jobs at the second highest rate, up by 50%.

The findings echoed data released earlier in 2021. In late July, a Bankrate survey found that nearly twice as many Gen Z and millennial workers than boomers planned to look for a new job in the coming year. In August, a study by Personal Capital and The Harris Poll found that two-thirds of Americans surveyed were keen to switch jobs. The majority of Gen Zers felt that way (91%), as did more than a quarter of millennials.

The trend is continuing in 2022. Sixty-five percent of the generation plans to quit their job this year, according to a recent report by talent acquisition platform Lever that polled 1,200 full-time employed adults. That's way higher than the 40% of overall employees in the survey who plan to leave in less than a year.

A new report from ADP Research Institute titled "People at Work 2022: A Global Workforce View," surveyed over 32,000 workers worldwide found that 71% of 18 to 24 year olds said that "if my employer insisted on me returning to my workplace full-time, I would consider looking for another job." That's a higher rate than among older workers. Overall, ADP Research Institute found 64% of the workforce said this.

"I think that for them, for this segment of workers, the change from workplace to home was probably pretty natural," Nela Richardson, the chief economist at ADP and co-author of the report, told Insider's Madison Hoff about younger workers. "It probably felt like an extension of their social lives in some sense, because they hadn't yet been cemented by the workplace. And so the challenges of going back to work are more formidable."

"These are young workers who never really got their foot in the door and honestly don't know what they are missing in terms of the workplace," Richardson added, referring to the things like building relationships with coworkers or learning by just observing their coworkers.

As 22-year-old Erifili Gounari, founder and CEO of The Z Link, previously told Insider: "We value things like freedom and flexibility more. So, to me, not having an office and having the opportunity to let everyone work wherever they want creates a much better company culture, because everyone feels a lot more independent."

An early 2022 survey of more than 2,500 workers by The Muse found that 72% of jobseekers said they experienced shift shock after starting their new role. Kathryn Minshew, The Muse's cofounder and CEO, defined this as starting a new job only to discover, with surprise or regret, that the position or company is different from what you thought it would be.

"This is a generational shift, driven by Gen Z and millennial candidates who are more likely to believe the employer-employee relationship should be a two-way street," Minshew said. "On top of this, the pandemic has emphasized for many that 'life is short,' which means candidates are less likely to stick around in unfulfilling jobs."

It's part of a larger trend. Twenty percent of people who joined the Great Resignation regret quitting their jobs, per a new Harris Poll survey by USA Today that polled 2,000 American adults. The survey found that some of these workers were lured by the prospect of a higher salary without taking other job factors into consideration, only to find that they lost a work-life balance or that their new role was different than expected.

Gen Z cares more about work-life balance and personal well-being, according to a report by workforce communications app Firstup. It found they look for benefits such as paid time off, mental health days, or activities that create a sense of community.

They value employers who prioritize employee mental health. That's likely because the generation is more open to talking about mental health and growing increasingly depressed. Nearly half of Gen Z (46%) said in a Deloitte report that surveyed 23,000 Gen Zers and millennials that they feel stressed or anxious.

Gen Z workers also want a workplace that's meaningful, both for their career and in the impact the company makes on the world. The Lever report also found that 42% of Gen Zers would rather be at a company that gives them a sense of purpose than one that pays more. They're also more likely than the average American to want to work for a company that is speaking up for or addressing social justice issues.

More than half (56%) of Gen Z said they would leave their job if it interfered with their personal lives, per a Workmonitor global study by Randstad that drew from 35,000 workers. Almost half of them said they wouldn't accept a job at a company that didn't align with their views on social and environmental issues.

"I want to make a difference before I want to make money," Aryaansh Rathore, the 16-year-old founder of Bread, a Dubai start-up reimagining banking for Gen Z, told Crunchbase's Jason Williamson.

Advanced technology has helped enable Gen Z's entrepreneurial streak, which often begins in their teen years. They're posed to drive an entrepreneurship boom, Williamson wrote. A study of 1,000 Gen Zers by the Center for Generational Kinetics found that 62% of Gen Z plans to start or possibly start there own business in the future.

"Gen Z is innovative and powerful," Emma Havighorst, a 2020 graduate, previously told Insider. "The way we see the world is very different from prior generations."

For three years, Havighorst has hosted the podcast "Generation Slay," which profiles Gen Z creators and entrepreneurs like the mental-health advocate Gabby Frost and the nonprofit founder Ziad Ahmed. She said she thought the pandemic would produce even more innovators.

"Necessity breeds invention," she said. "We'll be trying to figure out solutions to problems that plagued past generations."