Generation Z is changing the way the work and professional success. While previous generations pursued promotions and long working days, for this generation there are new priorities that go beyond work. It is not a laziness or lack of ambition, but about a change of approach that prioritizes the quality of life and the balance between work and personal, all at a time marked by Economic uncertaintythe mass layoffs and AI.
This change has been registered under the term “professional minimalism”, which reflects how many young people prefer to maintain their work with the right effort to guarantee Your financial securitybut without seeking promotions that imply greater responsibilities that, in addition, are not accompanied by a salary increase. Instead, they dedicate their energies in activities that are passionate about working hours.
Do not call it lazy, call it professional minimalism. According to One of the meanings From the RAE dictionary, minimalism is the “aesthetic and intellectual trend that seeks the expression of the essential eliminating the superfluous.” This definition, applied to the workplace, would result in eliminating from the equation everything that does not provide benefits, such as overtime, taking work home or running the risk of ill.
Professional minimalism seeks simplify daily work and limit responsibilities to the strictly necessary to comply with the provisions of your employment. In this way, younger workers do not exhaust their energies in long working days, but try to leave at their time and not give personal time to work.
Seven out of ten young people does not want to be a boss. According to A survey June 2025 of Glassdoor to more than 1,000 users of its employment platform, 68 % of the workers of the Z generation said that it would not look for a managerial position if it were not for salary or position, a clear rejection of the traditional corporate ladder that previous generations ascended with enthusiasm.
Chris Martin, research director of Glassdoor, this model believes that it represents “a conscious change that takes us away from the dependence of a single employer, establishes clear limits and generates multiple sources of income for financial stability.” For generation Z, this modality does not mean being lazy or working less, but positioning against the pressure of the “Hustle culture“
Multi -employment without responsibilities. Although they reject certain aspects of the work that previous generations had embraced, generation Z is still ambitious, but it is in its own way. In fact, according to Another survey carried out by Harris poll among Glassdoor users, 57 % of these young people have at least a second job, compared to 48 % of millennials who confess to being multi -employed, 31 % of generation X and 21 % of Baby Boomers.
This shows that generation Z prefers to guarantee its financial stability with several jobs without responsibilities, instead of giving everything in a single job that, the least thought day, can lose. As Martin said, “it is not that generation Z rejects work. It rejects an obsolete version of the work that has been sold to them.”
The real job is not to get carried away. After a progressive degradation of the relationship of trust between employee and company, which has ended with workers with years of dedication to its fired companies, the Z generation has begun to apply the same rules of loyalty to companies.
Instead of prioritizing work above their working life, young people have begun to put limits to the time and effort they dedicate to employment, preventing fatigue and Labor burnout ruin the time they dedicate to their personal life. Such and as stood out Fast Companyone of the young participants in the survey, I commented that “If people really passionate about their work, they would not win anything. Passion is for work from 5 to 9, the one that comes after 9 to 5”.
Image | Unsplah (Mushvig Niftaliyev)
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