When a new generation enters the workforce, there are inevitable growing pains: communication mishaps, dress code confusions, and culture clashes, to name a few. But we’re in a new digital age, meaning that these clashes have turned into thousands of memes across the internet, pitting millennials and Gen Z against one another – especially when it comes to how they act in the workplace.
The feud between consecutive generations is a tale as old as time. “The way millennials are talking about Gen Z is exactly the way that Gen Xers talked about millennials and the way that boomers talked about Gen X,” says workplace expert Lindsey Pollak. It’s not a surprise that there’s tension between millennials and Gen Z, but is there really that stark of a difference when it comes to the way they approach work?
Quick refresher: Gen Z is said to be people born between 1996 and 2010, or who are currently 14 to 28 years old, while millennials are people born between 1981 and 1995, or who are currently 29 to 43. That’s a significant gap – almost 30 years between the oldest millennial and youngest Gen Z – meaning that there’s also likely a significant gap in how they view work and professionalism in general.
And no, the “office siren” trend isn’t taking over workplace wardrobes and people in their 20s aren’t quiet quitting en masse or bowing out of work for hours at a time. But, according to the people PS spoke with, there are some differences worth mentioning – especially when it comes to juggling work-life balance and finding meaning through work.
Experts Featured in This Article
Lindsey Pollak is a career and workplace expert, as well as the author of “The Remix: Generational Change and the Surprisingly Bright Future of Work.”
Marla McGraw is the director of career management at Michigan State University.
Alejandra, 24, is currently the only Gen Z employee in her office. She works for her local government, a position she applied to due to her MS diagnosis. “My plans were to go to medical school, but I had to put my academic goals aside because my body was and still is recovering,” she explains. “I was looking for something stable that would provide benefits and would go by labor laws.”
Safe to say, this isn’t necessarily her dream job, and Alejandra doesn’t feel the need to pretend otherwise. “What a lot of generations don’t understand is that Gen Z could give two fucks,” she says. “One of the biggest things that I tell my coworkers is that we spend so much of our waking time at work, and you’re telling me that I have to put on this act that I really care about these deliverables? No, I could care less.”
While Alejandra says having pride in one’s work is still important, she doesn’t like being put in a box. “I don’t like structures that are antiquated and inefficient,” she adds. “My boss has had multiple conversations with me telling me that I’m unprofessional for constantly pushing back, but I don’t push back in a rude or an entitled way,” she says. “I don’t really care that the people around me don’t care [about making things better]. I will always push for change because without it, we can’t improve things.”
While some Gen Z workers feel comfortable resisting the status quo, others feel like they’re blending in – which, to them, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Frida Garcia, 26, is the only Gen Zer in her corporate office where she works as a graphic designer. She says she doesn’t notice a difference in the way she’s treated or the way she works based on her age. “I still get everything done and work all my hours. Every time someone asks me to do something, I get it done the day of,” she says. “I think it definitely would’ve been different if I was always slacking or coming in late all the time or doing whatever I want.”
Maddie, 32, runs her own business employing both millennials and Gen Z; she doesn’t understand millennials’ disdain towards younger workers. “I don’t think my behavior as a 22-year-old ten years ago was so much better than how a 22-year-old behaves now,” she tells PS.
At her first job, Maddie says she remembers feeling entitled, which is a word often thrown around to describe Gen Zers (and was used to describe millennials back in the day, FYI). She recalls thinking, “I went to Brown, how am I getting coffee?” Maddie adds, “I had an attitude about it for sure, but I did it. I didn’t have any examples of not doing it.”
Like Maddie, Gabrielle*, 33, started at the bottom of the corporate ladder. “I was OK with it because I knew that’s what I had to do,” she says. “I think I made $13 an hour with a bachelor’s degree. I kept getting promoted and every couple of years I would move jobs, then I got my master’s, and I kept applying for better paying jobs and then management jobs. But I knew I had to start that way.”
“Work is not their life, but in a good way.”
Gabrielle currently has 80 direct reports – 20 of which are Gen Z and 20 of which are millennial – and the biggest distinction she notices among the two generations is their expectations. “Those who are younger and usually fresh out of graduate school come in expecting the compensation that those of us who have been in the field for 10, 15 years are receiving, even though they might not have the qualifications to receive it,” she says. But they also advocate for themselves more often and come in with set expectations of their boundaries, Gabrielle adds, which she respects. “Work is not their life, but in a good way, and I think millennials are struggling to set those boundaries.”
According to Alejandra, she’s right. “If you’re interrupting me, I will let you know that you’re interrupting me and you’re going to let me finish,” she says, adding that she “will not answer phone calls or emails or anything after my scheduled time to work . . . I’m very detached from my work, in a sense.”
A separation of work and self may feel like a very Gen Z-coded outlook, but it’s something that millennials have been grappling with since their own entry into the workforce. “Millennials have a lot of very real work trauma,” Maddie says. “We’re coming [after] two generations of people who could earnestly work hard and make a living for themselves and buy a home and do all of these things, and we’re the first generation for whom that’s not a true statement.”
Having a younger generation come in that pushes back against the tight constraints of work is what creates change, and usually for the better. According to NPR, the first demand of organized labor was for a ten-hour work day, which was spearheaded by people who weren’t afraid to speak up. The five-day, 40-hour workweek only came to fruition thanks to the laborers who questioned authority and fought for change (which is, ironically, what Gen Z is getting backlash for now).
Thanks to the “entitlement” of prior generations, there’s now parental leave, paid time off, 401ks, and even the culture of job hopping. “These changes take place because the next generation says hey, I think these are important, and companies need to change in order to attract talent,” says Marla McGraw, director of career management at Michigan State University. “That’s how things move in a different direction.”
When it comes down to the things that really matter at work, Gen Z and millennials aren’t all that different. According to a 2024 Deloitte survey of 23,000 Gen Z and millennials across the world, 86 percent of Gen Zers and 89 percent of millennials say that having a sense of purpose is important to their overall job satisfaction and wellbeing. The two generations also match up on having a strong preference for flexible work, maintaining a work-life balance, and pushing for change in their jobs on things such as workload, learning and development, DEI, wellness, social impact, and environmental efforts.
“We stand up for ourselves and we question authority,” Alejandra says. “We just want everything to be fair for everybody. If you look at the sociopolitical climate, Gen Z is all about justice . . . when you bring that to the workplace, I think older generations might feel threatened or bothered, and their way of expressing that they’re uncomfortable is simply saying that we’re hard to work with rather than acknowledging their own personal faults.”
Maddie currently has three Gen Zers on her ten-person team. “They are wonderful women who show up every day with excitement and enthusiasm, and I also believe that they know I care about their wellbeing,” she says. “I’m not going to have them sit at their desk until 10 p.m. just because I did that when I was 22.”
“People want to work for good people. People want to work hard and perform well if they feel like they’re going to be appreciated and compensated for their time. This isn’t rocket science,” Maddie says. “I hear people say, I pay [Gen Zs] $45,000 a year and they live in New York City and leave at 5 o’clock. I’m like, good! You’re not paying them enough. Why should they stay past 5 p.m.? That was the stupidest thing I did when I started my career – working until midnight making $35,000 a year. For who?”
For those who are struggling – Gen Z, millennials, whoever – to connect with colleagues, Pollak has one piece of advice: “Be open to finding the balance or the compromise between the old and the new,” she says. “That’s where I think the magic happens.”
*Names have been changed.
Elizabeth Gulino is a freelance journalist who specializes in topics relating to wellness, sex, relationships, work, money, lifestyle, and more. She spent four and a half years at Refinery29 as a senior writer and has worked for House Beautiful, Complex, and The Hollywood Reporter.
