Welcome To The Workplace
Gen Z has arrived at work—and apparently some bosses are reaching for the termination paperwork remarkably fast.
The strange part is what they say is causing it. Because they are things that past generations would never have considered doing in the first place.
Some Aren't Lasting Very Long
This isn't entirely internet complaining. In a 2024 Intelligent.com survey, 60% of companies that had hired recent college graduates said they'd fired at least one of those new hires that year.
Another Intelligent survey found 55% of hiring managers had participated in firing a recent graduate during 2024. Employers point directly to things like motivation, communication and professionalism. And once you get into the other workplace habits causing friction with older bosses, things get even more interesting.
Lack Of Motivation Keeps Coming Up
Ask employers what is going wrong and one complaint absolutely refuses to disappear: motivation.
Half of the companies in Intelligent's 2024 survey that had trouble with recent graduates cited a lack of motivation or initiative. Apparently "I'll do it when somebody specifically tells me to" is not the career strategy some managers were hoping for.
Showing Up On Time Still Matters
For all the things that have changed about work, the clock remains surprisingly old-fashioned.
In another survey, 23% of hiring managers who had worked with recent graduates complained about punctuality. Baby Boomers certainly showed up late sometimes too. They were just smart enough to blame traffic and walk in carrying coffee for the boss.
The Boss Doesn't Want To Be Your Alarm Clock
Then there is the amount of supervision some younger employees reportedly need.
One in five hiring managers surveyed by Intelligent said recent graduates required too much micromanagement. There's a difference between wanting clear instructions and needing somebody to check whether you've started the instructions. Managers tend to notice that difference pretty quickly.
Feedback Can Get Awkward
Getting criticized at work has never been fun. Older workers just had fewer polite names for it.
In Intelligent's surveys, employers repeatedly identified difficulty accepting feedback as a problem with recent graduates. Some younger workers want criticism delivered more carefully and constructively. Fair enough. But "I don't like how that feedback made me feel" probably won't make the feedback disappear.
Communication Is Becoming A Big Problem
Apparently growing up with a phone permanently attached to your hand does not automatically make you a great workplace communicator.
Poor communication was cited by 39% of companies that reported problems with recent graduate hires. That's a problem when half of working life is basically explaining what you're doing to somebody who wasn't there when you did it.
Texting Isn't The Same As Talking
Gen Z grew up communicating through texts, DMs, group chats and disappearing photos of somebody's forehead. The workplace still occasionally demands an actual conversation.
Research from iHire found employers thought Gen Z needed improvement in communication with hiring managers and workplace etiquette. Knowing exactly which emoji to use apparently doesn't help much when your supervisor wants an explanation.
Professionalism Has Become A Generational Argument
What exactly counts as "professional" anymore? That depends enormously on whom you ask.
In one Intelligent survey, 46% of companies reporting problems with recent graduates cited a lack of professionalism. To a younger employee, an informal message may feel friendly and efficient. To an older manager, it may read like something sent from the couch during halftime.
Office Etiquette Isn't As Obvious As It Used To Be
More than half of employers surveyed by iHire said Gen Z needed to improve its office and workplace etiquette.
The funny part? Nearly three-quarters of Gen Z respondents rated their own etiquette as good or excellent. So apparently everybody thinks they're behaving perfectly. Which is usually a pretty reliable sign that somebody isn't.
The Pandemic Didn't Exactly Help
There's another piece of this that gets lost whenever people start yelling about "kids today."
Many Gen Z workers finished school, started college or began their careers during the pandemic. SHRM has noted concerns about a soft-skills gap among some younger employees whose schooling and early adulthood were disrupted by pandemic-era isolation and fewer ordinary face-to-face interactions.
The Workload Can Come As A Shock
School gives you assignments, deadlines and usually a fairly clear explanation of what happens next.
Work occasionally gives you three urgent emails, a meeting you didn't know existed and somebody asking why something isn't finished when nobody told you it had started. Employers surveyed by Intelligent specifically complained that some recent graduates struggled to handle workplace workloads.
Problem-Solving Matters More Than The Instructions
Managers don't only want the task completed. Eventually, they want you to figure out what to do when the task goes sideways.
About a third of companies reporting trouble with recent graduate hires cited inadequate problem-solving skills. In other words, the boss doesn't always want another question. Sometimes the boss really wants you to make the question disappear.
Initiative Is Where The Generations Really Clash
Older workplace culture rewarded the employee who saw something that needed doing and simply did it.
Younger workers are more likely to question whether a task is actually part of their role—and whether they're being compensated for taking on additional responsibilities. Neither attitude is automatically wrong. But put the two together in one office and somebody's blood pressure is going up.
AI25.Studio AI GENERATIVE, Pexels
"That's Not My Job" Hits Differently Now
A 2026 Resume Genius survey found 70% of Gen Z respondents said they'd refuse uncompensated work outside their job description. Among Baby Boomers, it was 50%.
That doesn't necessarily make Gen Z lazy. It does make the boundary much firmer. And to a manager raised on "other duties as assigned," it can sound practically revolutionary.
Work-Life Balance Isn't A Perk Anymore
For Baby Boomers climbing the ladder, staying late was often treated as proof that you wanted it badly enough.
Gen Z is much less impressed by the performance. In iHire's 2025 multigenerational research, 43.1% of Gen Z called work-life balance their most important employer offering beyond salary and benefits. Only 23.4% of Boomers said the same.
Five O'Clock Can Actually Mean Five O'Clock
This is where a lot of old-school managers really struggle.
Gen Z workers are drawing firmer boundaries around what employers can expect beyond the job itself. Remember that Resume Genius number: 70% said they'd refuse uncompensated work outside their job description. To an old-school boss accustomed to people simply staying until the work was done, that's a very different way of looking at the clock.
Not Every "Emergency" Is An Emergency
Older corporate culture produced plenty of bosses who could turn a PowerPoint presentation into a five-alarm fire.
That firmer attitude toward uncompensated extra work also means younger employees may be more willing to question whether something truly requires going beyond the job they agreed to do. Sometimes that's a perfectly healthy boundary. Sometimes your boss really does need the spreadsheet tonight.
Some Will Simply Refuse An Assignment
This one may have sounded completely foreign in a 1970s office.
Deloitte found that half of Gen Z respondents had rejected an assignment or project because it conflicted with their personal ethics or beliefs. That's not quietly complaining about the assignment afterward. That's actually telling the workplace no—which is a very different kind of employee-boss relationship.
They Want To Know Why They're Doing It
"Because I said so" has lost a lot of its magic.
Research consistently finds that younger workers place unusually high importance on purpose, values and understanding how their job fits into something larger. Older managers may hear unnecessary questioning. Gen Z may hear a perfectly reasonable request for context. And thus another meeting is born.
Posting About Work Can Become A Problem
Previous generations complained about the boss at the bar. Gen Z has TikTok.
Owl Labs' 2024 workplace survey found nearly half of Gen Z respondents had posted negatively about a job or employer on social media. The audience is slightly bigger than three buddies over beers—and employers have discovered that search bars work both ways.
Ghosting Has Entered The Workplace
Sometimes there isn't an awkward resignation conversation because there isn't a conversation at all.
iHire found 19.2% of Gen Z employees surveyed had quit a job without giving notice, while 15.3% admitted ghosting an employer by failing to appear for an interview. To be fair, Gen X actually beat Gen Z on quitting without notice. Congratulations?
Even Meetings Have New Rules
You used to sit through a pointless meeting because that was apparently what Tuesdays were for.
Younger workers are much more willing to protect their calendars, question unnecessary meetings or block off focus time. Calendly found 67% of Gen Z respondents used calendar boundaries and blocks. Somewhere, a Baby Boomer is wondering when employees became allowed to decline 2:30.
The Casual Workplace Can Go Too Casual
Modern offices have become dramatically less formal. Suits disappeared. Ties disappeared. Then half the office disappeared and started working from the kitchen.
But employers still have limits. Workplace research repeatedly shows managers complaining about casual communication and etiquette among younger employees. "We're relaxed here" apparently does not mean "pretend this is your group chat."
And Then There Are The Parents
Now we're entering territory that would've made plenty of Baby Boomer bosses wonder whether they were being pranked.
Recent surveys have found Gen Z workers involving their parents well beyond proofreading a résumé. Some report parents communicating directly with managers about workplace issues. Advice from Mom is one thing. Mom calling your supervisor is an entirely different Tuesday.
Yes, Some Parents Are Actually Calling The Boss
A 2025 ResumeTemplates survey produced one of the more eyebrow-raising numbers in this entire generational debate: 45% of the Gen Z workers surveyed said a parent regularly communicated with their manager.
The conversations reportedly included time off, raises, promotions and workplace conflicts. Imagine trying that on a 1974 factory supervisor. Actually, don't.
But Employers Aren't Completely Innocent
Before Baby Boomers start high-fiving each other, there's another side to this.
Gallup says younger employees are less connected to their workplaces and often aren't getting the clear expectations, development and meaningful feedback they need. SHRM has also warned managers against simply falling back on generational stereotypes instead of training inexperienced employees properly.
Gen Z Thinks It's Doing Fine
Here's where the story gets especially interesting.
ResumeBuilder surveyed employed Gen Z workers and found 81% considered themselves good or excellent employees to manage. Most also said they had positive relationships with coworkers.
Managers say one thing. Gen Z says another. Basically, the world's largest performance review has become a disagreement over the comments section.
Most Gen Z Workers Actually Like Their Jobs
Despite the endless "Gen Z hates working" headlines, 64% of employed Gen Z respondents in that ResumeBuilder survey said they liked or loved their jobs.
So this isn't an entire generation wandering around refusing assignments while Mom calls HR. The viral horror stories are real enough to investigate. They just aren't everybody.
The Workplace Changed Too
Baby Boomers entered workplaces built around hierarchy, face time, long careers and the idea that the boss generally got the last word.
Gen Z entered after remote work, smartphones, social media, a pandemic and decades of declining loyalty between companies and employees. Of course they're behaving differently. It would've been much stranger if they didn't.
So Who Needs To Change?
Probably both sides.
A new employee still needs to show up, communicate, accept feedback and figure out how to work without requiring a daily rescue mission. Employers also have to teach people the unwritten rules instead of acting shocked that somebody who has never worked in an office doesn't magically know them.
Baby Boomers Would Have Recognized The Consequences
The behaviors may look different, but one workplace rule hasn't changed much at all.
Every generation eventually discovers that you can challenge the boss, ignore expectations, arrive whenever you want or insist the workplace adapt to you. You might even be completely right.
But the person signing the paychecks still gets a vote.
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