At the age of 16, Mary-Kate Harrington pitched a business idea to Gary Vaynerchuk, an American CEO. Two years later, the high-achieving teenager was working for him in his newly opened London office.
Driven by the desire to prove herself in a room of older, more experienced colleagues, Mary-Kate, now 27, threw herself into the company’s work-hard-play-hard culture. She says she tried her best to be the perfect employee, joining in with wine Wednesdays, working late and commuting to the office everyday, but just two-and-a-half years later she felt forced to quit. “I found the rigid nine-to-five culture restrictive and difficult and, being neurodiverse, was always amazed by colleagues who batch-cooked, brought packed lunches, went to the gym at lunchtime or cycled to work,” she says.
“I was the 18-year-old relying heavily on dry shampoo, struggling to sit at a desk and focus for eight hours or more every day, all while trying to surpass my colleagues’ expectations and adapt to technology and tools I had never used,” Mary-Kate adds. “It was all rather anxiety-inducing.”
Growing workplace anxiety
Mary-Kate’s experiences are not uncommon. According to a recent study, almost half of Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) face anxieties around workplace interactions, with their concerns including meeting new people, making small talk and picking up the phone. One-third would like to see mental health days given as standard and almost 70 per cent wished they could work from home.
Additionally, Gen Z are most likely to miss work because of stress, with two in five calling in sick due to burnout, compared to one in 10 over-55s, according to YouGov polling. Their stresses include high workloads, regularly working unpaid overtime and feeling isolated. Meanwhile, the number of 16-24-year-olds out of work or study reached 946,000 – or one in eight – at the end of last year.
All of this points to a grim explosion in workplace anxiety and stress among today’s young people. But why is this happening – and how can we get them back to work?
While many have used these figures to paint Gen Z as lazy, workshy or mollycoddled, Matt Smith, associate director of clinical excellence for HA Wisdom Wellbeing, wholeheartedly disagrees. In fact, he believes it is a positive thing that Gen Z are more open about their workplace struggles, rather than waiting until crisis point.
“Anxiety is a physiological response and a perfectly natural process that we all experience at one point or another,” he says. “Most therapeutic interventions for managing anxiety include some form of exposure, meaning you need to feel the feelings and face the source of the anxiety to begin to tolerate and adapt to them.”
If a person’s anxiety is workplace-related, support from their employer is key in tackling it, Smith adds. However, many companies do not have the capacity or training to confidently support employees with mental health issues, which means they feel discouraged or are prevented from “engaging with the source of their anxious feelings”, Smith explains. “This stops them from developing the natural resilience that stems from confronting and overcoming anxiety, often worsening the problem, which can spiral downwards from there.”
Lingering impact of lockdowns
Smith believes there is often a lack of compassion for Gen Z, who grew up in the ever-changing and fast-paced world of social media and Covid-19 lockdowns. Any negative impact of this should not be held against a generation that had no control over these changes, he argues – and he’s not alone. Eleanor Andressen, chief academic officer at Trinity College London (which conducted the study), agrees. “Many young people experienced university through distance learning and their first job interview via Zoom, without getting used to office working or meeting new people face-to-face,” she says.
“Workers from my generation are used to being in the office every day and regularly meeting new people, we don’t know anything different, but that simply isn’t the case for today’s young adults,” she adds. “With working from home being the established norm for many, it makes sense that office work might be anxiety-inducing.”
Ro Mitchell, 24, is a content creator who spent her late teenage years struggling with severe anxiety. She believes the normalisation of working from home during and after the pandemic meant young people did not build relationships with colleagues or learn the art of office small talk.
“On Zoom calls, you’re there to do what you need to do, whereas in real life you’ll chat about what you had for dinner or watched on TV,” she says. “My generation missed out on this, so it makes sense they might struggle to adjust to a work environment.”
Whilst Ro works from home now, she used to be a coffee shop barista. “My anxiety was at maximum every day,” she says. “I found speaking to customers and strangers really difficult, especially when they were rude or complained. It would send me into a complete panic and I wouldn’t always know what to do or say.”
Sweeping judgements of Gen Z as lazy or dramatic are unhelpful, Ro believes. “The reality is that there were probably just as many people dealing with anxiety and stress 20 or 30 years ago, but there was shame and stigma around mental health problems so people had to suffer in silence,” she says. “It’s a positive shift that young people today are saying ‘it’s okay to admit that you’re struggling’, setting boundaries around their work and seeking help if they need it.”
Young people are boundary enforcers
After quitting her job, Mary-Kate went on to create her own business, Thrive, which delivers workshops and seminars on addiction and recovery in schools and workplaces, shaped by her own unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Self employment means she doesn’t constantly worry about being the perfect employee or being tied to a desk all day.
“When it comes to Gen Z, I can understand why older generations who wore suits, carried briefcases, and commuted daily for decades might take umbrage at demands for remote work,” Mary-Kate reflects. “For boomers and many millennials, suffering and endurance were synonymous with achievement. Gen Z rejects the idea that pain is a prerequisite for success.”
On social media, there is a growing movement of young people encouraging their peers to set firm boundaries at work, leaving on the dot of 5pm and refusing to answer emails outside working hours. “Just a reminder: if you die today, your job will be advertised tomorrow and filled in weeks,” one influencer preaches to her 500,000 followers. “Take your vacation and sick days. No one awards trophies for burnout.”
Some commentators argue that normalising mental health days will lead to losses in productivity and growing absenteeism. However, Amy, 25, who works for a communications agency in London, believes they are vital for proactive self-care, managing stress and preventing burnout.
“I’m lucky to work in a really supportive team, but some might not want to share their anxieties with a manager. Mental health days allow time to recover or deal with health privately, without judgement or external pressure.”
Striking a balance is key
Rachel Watkyn OBE, founder of The Tiny Box Company, regularly employs Gen Z workers. She has witnessed a “noticeable shift” in work ethic with many young people “less inclined to go above and beyond in the way older generations often did, particularly in the early stages of their careers”.
She believes a stronger emphasis on work-life balance, mental health and flexibility is a positive change which “encourages healthier, more sustainable ways of working”. Yet, from a leadership perspective, “it requires careful management to balance individual needs with business demands” as “in some cases, there is less willingness to push through challenges or remain in a role long enough to build deep expertise”.
Smith believes the answer lies in creating supportive workplaces where employees can engage with the source of their anxieties and, as a result, strengthen resilience. “The issue is that many young people feel happy and more comfortable working from home, and just don’t appreciate the benefits of interpersonal face-to-face interactions, in fact they see it as a negative and stressful thing,” he says.
Part of the resolution involves Gen Z workers taking responsibility for aspects of their own resilience and stress-management, Smith believes. “When people are stressed because of work, they often lose sight of what is important – diet, exercise, sleep, hygiene, social interaction and their hobbies,” he says. “Neglecting these in a period of stress simply makes everything worse, potentially resulting in a never-ending cycle of anxiety.”
Meanwhile, Smith adds, it is important that employers are transparent with their workers. “Communication is key, especially as people struggling with workplace anxiety are likely to experience catastrophic thinking,” he explains. If, for example, a manager schedules a meeting with an anxious employee but doesn’t clarify what it is for, they may jump to the worst-case scenario and worry they are being disciplined or fired.
He advises employers to appoint mental health first aiders internally or external counsellors to help their employees, whilst managers should try to separate performance reviews from general catch-ups with their employees. “Of course, it is then down to Gen Z to engage with these interventions,” Smith notes. “Employers are incredibly busy and can only provide access to support. It isn’t fair to expect all the responsibility to sit with them.”
While older generations express their concern (or, occasionally, anger) towards young people and their anxieties towards work, Mary-Kate says, “I don’t subscribe to the idea that Gen Z is lazy. What is changing is visibility. The digital world has revealed new ways of living and working, and young people represent that cultural shift. They are no longer chasing success at the sacrifice of their mental health, and I think that is a positive, powerful thing.”