FOR GEN Z AT WORK, THE GENERATION GAP IS A WELLNESS GAP. HERE'S HOW TO BRIDGE IT

FOR ONE nonprofit executive director, it was a 2022 New York City subway shooting that highlighted the stark differences between how he, a 55-year-old, and his Gen Z staffers show up to work.

- BETH GREENFIELD

"We had an employee who lived a mile from where it happened and was traumatized by it - and further upset about the fact that we didn't create space in our weekly staff meeting to address that trauma," the leader, who asked not to be identified because he continues to manage Gen Zers, tells Fortune.

"The staff meeting is not an emotional support group. Go to your therapist for that," he recalls thinking, but not expressing, because in his experience, "you can't challenge or criticize" young employees.

That clashing of workplace expectations is just one example of how today's twentysomething employees the older end of Gen Z, born between 1996 and 2010 are making a powerful, and often times discordant, impact at work. Other irritating tendencies, according to older managers who spoke to Fortune: questioning how tasks fit into the big picture, never putting work first, expecting immediate raises and promotions, and bristling at honest feedback prompting labels ranging from "entitled" and "hypersensitive" to "fragile" and "narcissistic."

Much of the conflict comes down to a very basic difference, according to Mark Beal, Rutgers University public relations professor and author of Decoding Gen Z. "Gen Xers, boomers, even older millennials, they live to work. Work is driving them. It's energizing them," he says.

On the other hand, he notes, "Gen Z works to live."

Deloitte research from 2023 found that while 86% of bosses feel that work is a significant part of their identity, only 61% of Gen Z employees agree.