Lazy, or Just Different? Decoding the Gen Z Work Ethic

By Aghilah Nedunchelian

By 2030, Gen Zs and millennials will make up nearly three-quarters of the global workforce. “Yet, a striking number of employers still describe them with the same word: Lazy. That label doesn't hold up against the data; what looks like a Gen Z work ethic problem is actually a generation working by a different set of rules.

Quick take: Gen Zs aren't avoiding work; they're prioritising purpose, real-time feedback, and wellbeing over the traditional career ladder. Here's what's actually driving the shift, and why it says more about outdated workplace models than about the people entering them.

Beyond the Stereotypes: Understanding the Gen Z Work Ethic 

People mistake Gen Z's different priorities for a lack of ambition. Deloitte's 2025 Global Gen Zs and Millennial Survey, which polled nearly 23,500 people across 44 countries, found that only 6% of Gen Zs cite reaching a senior leadership role as their main career goal. That's not a lack of ambition; it's a different definition of it. Most of them are prioritising mentorship, hands-on learning, and skills they believe will hold up as AI reshapes entire job categories.

Fast promotions made sense when career paths felt stable. But Gen Zs came of age during a pandemic and economic uncertainty, so they are now placing greater value on building a career that lasts rather than moving up quickly. It is a recurring theme across Gen Z’s career goals.

This same shift toward psychological safety and human dynamics at work is something MIDP has been unpacking for years: see MIDP Transforms Human Capital in Malaysia for more on how organisations can rethink culture from the ground up.

Purpose is non-negotiable

For Gen Zs, values are not a nice-to-have; they are a deciding factor. Deloitte’s research found that nearly nine in ten Gen Z and millennial employees say purpose is important to their job satisfaction. More are also turning down jobs or employers when their values do not align.

Purpose also goes beyond having meaningful work. Financial security matters too. The same research shows that financial stress can make people feel less connected to the meaning of their work. For Gen Z, it is not about choosing purpose over money. They want both: fair pay and work they believe in.

Employers who treat purpose as an optional extra are missing what Gen Zs expect from work. This is where their work ethic becomes clear: they are more likely to stand by their values than simply follow the traditional path.

Feedback at Work: Constantly, Not Once a Year

The traditional annual review, where a single meeting determines how someone feels about their work for the next 12 months, is losing relevance quickly.

Around two-thirds of Gen Z employees say they want feedback that's timely and constructive throughout the year rather than saved for a single sit-down, and nearly all say they're open to receiving it continuously even after a project wraps or a week ends.

Gallup's broader workplace research backs this up: employees who receive meaningful feedback within the past week are significantly more likely to report being genuinely engaged. Yet, most managers are still operating on a quarterly or annual cadence.

The gap isn't about Gen Zs needing more reassurance than previous generations did – it's that feedback systems haven't kept pace with how the Gen Z work ethic actually operates: fast, iterative, and unafraid to ask "how am I doing?" more than once a year.

For a deeper look at how to build this into everyday management, see Feedback That Fuels: The Power of Intentional Conversations At Work.

Mental Health at Work Is the New Baseline, Not a Taboo

Mental health at work used to be something people managed quietly, if they managed it at all. For Gen Zs, that silence is the unusual part. They expect wellbeing to be built into how work happens.

UNICEF's 2025 Perception of Youth Mental Health Report backs this up. Around 6 in 10 Gen Z respondents said employers should play a role in helping young people manage stress, anxiety, and overwhelm, and about half said their employer currently has a positive impact in that area.

At the same time, roughly 4 in 10 said they still feel stigma around mental health in schools and workplaces, where they needed help with their mental health but did not always get it.

This isn't a request for special treatment – it's a request to give attention to mental health at the workplace.

This isn't unique to Gen Zs, either: MIDP's piece on The Male Loneliness Epidemic and the Crisis in Psychological Safety explores how psychological safety gaps show up across generations and genders alike.

Leaders Are Starting to Say the Same Thing

This shift isn't just showing up in survey data; it's showing up in how senior leaders talk about work.

During a panel discussion at the People & Culture Conference (PACC) 2026  titled “Providing Work Life Integration For Diverse, Multi-Generational Workforce”, Dato Zulkifli, Managing Director of Pharmaniaga, called out a habit inherited from millennials in workplaces without psychological safety. They would tend to stay in the office until their boss leaves, even if they had nothing to do.

His point was direct: clocking more hours in the office doesn't mean higher output or greater effectiveness. At Pharmaniaga, KPIs are built around deliverables, not attendance, which echoes exactly what the data shows about the Gen Z work ethic: they're not avoiding effort; they're rejecting the assumption that visible hours equal real output.

Dafinah, CEO of Hong Leong Bank, made a complementary point on the same panel. In a fast-moving world, every generation – not just the youngest one – needs to keep upskilling to stay relevant. She also noted that the pandemic taught organisations a lasting lesson about flexibility, and that wellbeing has to be treated with the same seriousness.

That view lines up closely with what Gen Zs have been signalling all along: flexibility and mental health support aren't generational demands; they're simply what a modern workforce now expects as bare minimum.

The Takeaway

Folding it all together, the data suggests that the Gen Z work ethic isn't about rejecting ambition, structure, or hard work. It's rejecting a specific model of it: one built around a ladder that no longer feels secure, values that go unspoken, feedback that arrives too late, and wellbeing treated as an afterthought.

Organisations need to consider this: it isn't whether Gen Zs will eventually adapt to the old playbook—it's whether workplaces designed decades ago are ready to adapt to a generation that is boldly requesting things that arguably should have been standard all along.

Conversations like these are exactly what MIDP's People and Culture Conference is built around, bringing together leaders who are actively rethinking the work culture at their workplace.

So here’s what you can immediately implement as a leader:

• Rebuild review cycles around ongoing, real-time feedback instead of annual check-ins

• Make purpose and values visible in day-to-day work, not just in recruitment messaging

• Treat mental health support as core infrastructure, not an optional perk

Let's make workplaces work better, for everyone.

If you would love to improve your workplace culture but are not sure where to start, contact us for a free consultation!