For as long as we’ve been talking about burnout, it’s been about how much we have to do. Too many meetings, too many emails, too many hours in front of a laptop. The obvious solution, of course, is to cross our fingers for fewer meetings and getting a weeklong vacation once a year (or twice if you’re lucky).
I’ve listened to parents gloat when they have to call out sick. And don’t even get me started on pure joy over a five-day COVID-19 quarantine. But according to a growing number of young workers, burnout isn’t about how much work they’re expected to do. It’s about answering a far more uncomfortable question:
Why am I doing this at all?
Gen Z entered the workforce in an unprecedentedly volatile economy. They’ve watched the pandemic decimate working life as they knew it, survived mass layoffs conducted over Zoom, and now they’re hearing AI will remake or outright eliminate many of the jobs they’ve been trained to do. Add it all up and it shouldn’t surprise you that climbing the corporate ladder isn’t quite as attractive as it was 10 years ago.
In a recent 2025 global workplace survey from Deloitte, only 6% of Gen Z respondents said their primary career goal was to reach a senior-level position. But they’re not without ambition. Learning and development were two of the top reasons Gen Z said they chose their current employer. They just want to know where the ladder is leading them before they dedicate the next 20 years of their life to climbing it.
The exhaustion of disconnection
I think this is where companies are failing to see the next phase of employee burnout. Someone can work eight-hour days within a friendly corporate culture and still feel totally burned out if they don’t feel connected to the work they’re doing.
Companies are beginning to realize they can let people work from home two to three days a week, offer unlimited vacation, and have the coolest Ping-Pong table in Silicon Valley, but it still might not matter. Burnout is slowly becoming less about how many hours we work and more about why we work them.
Journalist Jennifer Breheny Wallace wrote about this concept in her book Mattering. Wallace argues one of our core needs is to feel that we matter and that we have something of value to offer. She distinguishes between the two to highlight how important the latter has become to modern workers.
Employees don’t want to work for a company that just appreciates them; they want to do work that they feel has value. So you can give everyone Fridays off, but they’ll probably still be burned out.
Burnout vs. flexibility
For years, companies have battled each other over who offers remote work, hybrid schedules, and other coveted benefits. And yes, flexibility still matters, but it doesn’t fix the (younger) millennial and Gen Z workers’ biggest question:
What’s the point of any of this?
This generation wants to know why they get to come to work each day. Moving forward, companies that provide their employees with the ability to answer that question will win. Managers will need to articulate why the work matters. Or better yet, show employees how it matters by connecting daily tasks to tangible outcomes.
And before you say it, I know this is in addition to allowing younger workers opportunities to learn and develop on the job. Gen Z (and soon Gen Alpha) are forcing companies to realize what other generations accepted: Yes, rest can allow us to recover from working too hard. But it can’t give meaningless work purpose.
