I work with Gen Z every day—here’s what they’ve taught me about work and life

Thanks to endless discussions with no end in view—a consequence of an age too used to scrolling mindlessly—a topic of preference in a room full of millennials is more often than not the Gen Z team. For the uninitiated, the age group (those born between 1997 and 2012) is not much of a group, but an individualistic bunch of minds who will confuse, frustrate, impress, surprise, but mostly, just show up. 

Let me start from the beginning, as all sensible stories must. The Cosmopolitan India team is dominantly made of Gen Z, with some of our young writers rising in the ranks from college-graduate interns to experts in celebrity profiles and puns. For the magazine, the pimple patch energy works wonderfully, considering its reader who also falls in a similar age group and must be seamlessly drawn from Instagram grids to print pages. And then, along comes the millennial editor on the wrong side of her 30s, for whom engaging with a much younger team is a feeling best described as one that inspires throes of inner conflict.

Many a time in a gathering of friends from diverse professions—all of us ace back-pain athletes—the insights range from working around Gen Z’s heightened sensitivities and their over-dependence on AI to their need for hyper-boundaries and the sheer lack of email etiquette. Generalisations, mind you, laced with comments on the ‘dusty’ aftertaste of matcha that are unironically made while sipping on the third Americano of the day.

Real insights

It’s all in jest (mostly, at least), as we spend time dissecting the comments section of clickbait content made of Gen Z-HR witticisms and morbid millennial habits of being overworked and underpaid. But, when it comes to the brass tracks, the generation ‘gap’ is bridged with statistics. 

This May, the 2025 Deloitte Global Gen Z and Millennial survey disclosed what both generations seek on the professional front, especially in terms of value. To quote—36 per cent of Gen Zs and 39 per cent of millennials say that their job is a major contributing factor to anxiety or stress, while 94 per cent of Gen Zs and 97 per cent of millennials value hands-on experience over theory. Fifty-five per cent of Gen Zs and 62 per cent of millennials struggle to stretch their income, with the survey highlighting that living pay cheque to pay cheque is a battle both generations continue to fight. 

The truth is, working with Gen Z is part of the same cyclical, generational exchange that every shifting age group experiences as it fills cabins and conference rooms. Terms like micro-aggression and mental health breaks might be new, but they have only added to the lexicon of workplace outbursts and meltdowns. Many millennials have struggled with leadership that they don’t relate to, amped with anecdotes of how things were “way worse” when those who came before them were trying to climb the professional ladder. 

I must admit, I am guilty, too, of offering my millennial two bits to my co-workers. While there are learnings hidden in the folds of these stories, they also serve as instant reminders of how workplaces have evolved with every economic and cultural transition, and why they must keep changing. So, if your colleague has tested your patience lately, let it emphasise an essential truth: No matter what the age, you are bound to disagree and face dissonance when tasks are to be tasked and memos are to be memo-ed.

And since one must qualify the headline, the question to be addressed still remains: What is it that I have indisputably learnt from Gen Z? Well, above all, it is the power of asserting oneself, standing up for one’s word, and asking for boundaries and balance when one feels short-changed. To identify the difference between respect and reverence, and why more often than not, it’s only the former that applies. 

In the end, it is essential to also remember that Gen Z is the workforce of the future, decision makers of tomorrow and hopefully, game changers, too. A generation responsible for driving local economies while curating Instagram feeds like it’s their side hustle. And of course, arguing tirelessly for the fact that if you pay close attention, pyjamas are indeed the same as lounge pants, and it is absolutely okay to wear them to work.

This article first appeared in the September-October 2025 issue of Cosmopolitan India.

Lead image: Shutterstock

Inside image: IMDb

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