Millennials and Gen Z: Understanding Your Relationship to Work and Burnout

Oct 09, 2024

The theme for World Mental Health Day 2024 is burnout
Therapist Cora Hilton, specialist in working with Millennials and Gen Z, explores why these generations are so burnt out at work

October the 10th marks World Mental Health Day. Established by the World Federation of Mental Health in 1992, the day aims to get people talking to each other about their mental health. Each year, the Federation sets a theme as a specific focus, and this year, the spotlight is on poor mental health and burnout in the workplace.

Mental Health UK describe burnout as ‘a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion [that] can occur when you experience long-term stress and feel under constant pressure’. This same organisation have authored a Burnout Report this year, which highlights some alarming statistics: 9 out of 10 adults surveyed experienced high or extreme stress in the past year, and 1 in 5 workers took time off work owing to poor mental health resulting from pressure or stress.

Further breakdown of the numbers suggests a particular impact on younger generations. 34% of workers aged between 18-24 had taken time off work owing to mental health and stress, compared with 15% of respondents over 55. The highest ongoing levels of stress within the past year were reported by workers aged 35-44, with 40% saying that they experienced high or extreme levels of stress and pressure often or always. The age categories cited in these numbers specifically correspond to Gen Z (aged between 12-27 in 2024) and Millennials (aged between 28-43).

Writing as a therapist who specialises in working with Millennials and Gen Z, these statistics tally with my experience: the subject of burnout is omnipresent in my therapy room. So, why does burnout so disproportionately affect Millennials and Gen Z? While there are many socio-economic factors particular to these generations (including recessions, housing prices, the rental market, Covid and Brexit), I would suggest that there are other uniquely generational factors that may also contribute to burnout.

Millennials grew up thinking of working life as full of hope: they were to be the most educated and most financially secure generation, for whom work would always be ‘a career’. Many a Millennial was raised on the adage, ‘find something you’ll love, and you’ll never work a day in your life’ – work isn’t just something you do between the hours of 9-5 and then escape, but the source of identity, meaning, success, and happiness.

And then, things didn’t turn out as planned: Millennials are the first generation to be less economically secure than the generation preceding them. So, Millennials are left with the vestigial beliefs about work they grew up with, but are navigating the very different reality that has played out. The connection between work and identity can contribute to Millennials’ burnout: it can be challenging to hold boundaries at work and push back on its demands while still harbouring a desire to be seen as successful, and still hoping to attain the original promise of what work could be for you. Perfectionism, fear of failure, and feeling lost can become rife. For Millennials: if the one thing that was supposed to make you happy doesn’t, what do you turn to instead?

When Gen Z arrived in the workplace, the hopeful vision of the future presented to Millennials had long disintegrated. However, work was still not something that could be opted-out from, especially within the current economic reality. This presents a question of how to participate in a system you know doesn't work for you, yet you’re required to enter to afford to get by. There may be a lot of anger at having to play along, especially when older generations expect you to be enthusiastically looking to ‘prove yourself’ at work.

Further, several concerns that preoccupy Gen Z seem to be ignored by other generations – there is an absurdity of being expected to rhapsodise about spreadsheets while you are deeply worried about glaring concerns for the future, which nobody else in the office is talking about. For Gen Z, burnout may be fuelled by anxiety resulting from all this uncertainty and instability. And, there is a question of how to have the hope and ambition in work that Millennials were encouraged to foster, when the future doesn’t seem like something you can have much faith in.

In setting the theme for this World Mental Health Day, The World Mental Health Federation are hoping to spark conversations and changes within the workplace that will reduce burnout. As well as discussing burnout within the workplace, here are some thought on how you can support yourself outside it, too:

Consider your individual context, and what ‘pushes your buttons’ at work

I’ve outlined above some general themes that may influence burnout and work stress. We all have our individual context that impacts us at work, and knowing the specific factors that affect you could help you better understand – and perhaps make changes to – what goes on for you at work.

It may be helpful to consider questions like:

Are there certain people or tasks at work that elicit strong responses for you, and why might that be?
How do you envisage the role of work in your life and identity?
Is there a certain image you want to uphold at work, and how does this impact you - does it make it hard to say no, or to ask for help, for example?
And, is there family context around work, including any pressure to do certain work, to get promotions, or to earn a particular wage?

The more you can know about yourself in this regard, the better equipped you are to navigate through it.

Work/life balance

While potentially a slightly empty buzz-term, it can become a useful idea if we are to think of it quite literally: what do we need to balance out after working?

For example, if we work indoors, in a big team, in front of a screen, with work all a mental exercise – do we need to make space for time outdoors, time away from others and screens, and time doing something more hands-on? Drawing our attention to what specifically gets thrown out of whack at work can help us more accurately recognise what needs to be readdressed in order to feel level.

Relationship with the internet

Burnout is a specifically modern phenomenon in part because of the internet. Global, 24/7 connectivity brings with it the possibility of constant work. It’s important to recognise that even the aspects of the internet that feel related to our personal lives can actually be another workplace for us, with its own demands to perform successfully. Making conscious decisions about how and when we tap into this can greatly reduce general stress and anxiety levels, and help contain burnout.

Managing work in the modern world isn’t easy, and burnout is a significant challenge within it. For Millennials and Gen Z, there’s an aspect of being canaries in the mine: as the first workers to experience the new landscape of the 21st Century workplace, they are entirely exposed to the raw, undeveloped shell of post-internet industry. It is waiting to be sculpted into something that works for us. Hopefully, this World Mental Health Day will keep that conversation going.

Cora Hilton is a verified Welldoing online therapist