Gen Z entered adulthood amid historical disruption. The Covid-19 pandemic fractured traditional pathways to education and social development at critical stages of identity formation. At the same time, social media rewired how attention, validation, and communication operate, compressing focus while intensifying anxiety, isolation, and dependence on digital feedback loops. Layered on top of this is the rapid normalization of artificial intelligence in the workplace, which has quietly signaled that many entry-level roles are no longer essential stepping stones but automatable tasks.
“These three factors are being thrown at Gen Z all at once,” says Nita Umashankar. “Don’t blame them for their circumstance. They’re in a really difficult spot.”
An award-winning educator and marketing researcher, Umashankar teaches and mentors Gen Z students in the classroom and supervises graduate and doctoral researchers, while advising young professionals as they transition into early careers. Through consulting engagements and leadership workshops, she also works directly with organizations to diagnose how systems, incentives, and communication styles can be redesigned to unlock performance on both sides.
“Gen Z is ready to rise to the occasion,” Umashankar says. “But their potential needs to be unlocked.” For more than a decade, conversations about the future of work have circled around technology. Increasingly, they are also about people, and few topics expose this tension more clearly than Gen Z in the workplace. Employers cite gaps in professionalism and accountability. Younger employees say they feel misunderstood, disengaged, or prematurely written off. Umashankar argues that neither side is wrong, but both are incomplete.
A Misalignment of Expectations, Not Motivation
At the center of the Gen Z debate is a fundamental misalignment between how organizations expect early career professionals to operate and how this generation has been conditioned to learn and perform. Employers often interpret short tenures and frequent job changes as a lack of commitment. Gen Z employees, meanwhile, describe environments that feel opaque, unsupportive, or disconnected from their values.
Umashankar sees these dynamics play out repeatedly in the classroom and beyond. Many young professionals cycle through roles every year or year and a half, often presenting resumes filled with brief stints as evidence of ambition and breadth. “I see their resumes, and they’re proud they have ten things on it,” she says. “What does that tell me? A lack of loyalty.”
This pattern reflects the spillover of swipe culture into professional life. “If you’re always looking at plan B, you’re not investing in plan A,” Umashankar says. Constantly scanning for the next opportunity undermines learning, trust, and credibility. At the same time, organizations frequently fail to explain why patience, consistency, and skill accumulation matter, leaving Gen Z without a clear framework for progress.
Empathy and Structure Must Come First
Unlocking Gen Z performance starts with acknowledging this context. “Gen Z feels attacked,” she says. “They’re viewed as lazy and disloyal.” Recognizing the pressures of Covid, social media, and AI helps reset the relationship and creates space for growth.
Structure is the next critical lever in translating empathy into performance. Gen Z graduates arrive from educational systems defined by close supervision and constant feedback. Many workplaces, however, expect immediate autonomy and self-direction. That gap often leads to underperformance that is misread as disengagement, which is why Umashankar advocates for deliberate, short-term micromanagement as a bridge rather than a crutch. Clear expectations, frequent check-ins, and explicit norms provide the scaffolding Gen Z needs to build confidence and competence.
Holding Gen Z to high standards is not punitive; it can be affirming. “They actually love being held accountable,” she says. “They often thank me for caring enough to have high expectations.”
Whether it is punctuality, professional communication, or presence, enforcing standards signals trust and respect. When expectations are explicit and consistently reinforced, Gen Z responds by rising to meet them. Accountability, in this sense, becomes a motivator rather than a deterrent.
Designing Engagement in an AI-Driven Workplace
As artificial intelligence reshapes work, Umashankar cautions against viewing Gen Z and younger generations as expendable. While automation may reduce costs in the short term, constant turnover creates hidden expenses in training and lost institutional knowledge. Cutting early talent altogether, she argues, is not a sustainable solution.
Instead, organizations must rethink engagement. Gen Z brings energy, cultural fluency, and fresh perspective, but they also require environments that can hold their attention. That means rethinking how attention is earned at work, including the deliberate gamification of employment to sustain focus and engagement.
Organizations that fail to adapt risk eroding their future leadership pipelines. Those that invest in aligning expectations, structure, and accountability create conditions for loyalty, growth, and resilience.
Unlocking Gen Z potential at work is not about lowering standards or resisting change. It is about understanding the forces shaping a generation, then building systems that challenge them to meet the moment.
Follow Nita Umashankar on LinkedIn for more insights.
