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The ways boomers and Gen Z view work are vastly different. While both generations can be resilient and ambitious, they often view hard work through different lenses. 

Gen Z are digital natives with an entirely different view of how work and life coexist. Whereas boomers have a bootstrap mentality that defines success by loyalty and structure. That disconnect is often why these generations end up on opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to work ethic. 

Boomers & Gen Z have completely different ideas of what the phrase ‘hard work’ means.

“I think one of the reasons that older generations think that young people don’t work hard is because hard work looks very different than it used to,” pointed out a content creator and comedian named Mike Mancusi. “Hard work used to be like physical . You had to like run around, you had to go to different locations.”

Mancusi explained that hard work for boomers involved balancing their professional and personal lives, including running multiple errands on their way to work. But now technology has changed that. Young people are experiencing burnout from overextending themselves mentally, whereas boomers did it physically.

“So yes, it’s less hard work. Physically, you’re not stuck on a literal hamster wheel, but the hamster wheel is constantly happening 24/7 inside your own brain. So sure, we probably have less back problems, our physical health is probably more in shape, but our brains are ruined,” Mancusi continued. 

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Most Gen Z adults don’t think work is the end-all, be-all of life.

Compared to older generations, Gen Z don’t view work culture as a personality trait. Instead, they are extremely vocal about the importance of work-life balance and prioritizing their mental health so they don’t experience extreme burnout.

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In fact, an estimated 46% of millennials cite work as central to their identity compared to only 36% of Gen Z. For Gen Z, activities like reading, playing or listening to music, and seeing performances are ranked as nearly equal to work in importance. Beyond work-life balance, learning and development opportunities and pay round out the top three factors for Gen Z.

Because Gen Zers want work-life balance doesn’t mean they don’t work hard. Unfortunately, that doesn’t quite translate well to hiring managers and bosses. Over a quarter of executives wouldn’t even consider hiring a recent college graduate today. 

Managers actually feel the most significant shortcoming in Gen Z employees is a lack of critical skills such as communication, problem-solving, creativity, collaboration, adaptability, and conflict resolution. Another factor could be that boomers aren’t really leaving the workforce either.

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Boomers are working far past their retirement ages.

In a Pew Research Center survey, 29% of boomers were working or looking for work, a share not seen among other generations of people their age. A lot of that could be due to the fact that retirement is a stretch in this economy.

In his video “The Real Reason Boomers Are Retiring Broke,” YouTuber Austin Williams explained how decades of bad timing, market crashes, and dwindling pensions left millions of boomers unprepared for retirement and still working well past 65. On the other hand, boomers are also most comfortable working in general.

They see work as the pinnacle of their life and of success. For many boomers, work is their entire identity. For Gen Z, work is just a small part of their personality, as they have far more ambitions and goals beyond sitting behind a desk or laptop.

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Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.