‘Lonely’ Gen Z workers shun fully remote jobs

Gen Z employees might be the digital natives in the workforce, but new polling suggests they are the least likely of any generation to favor exclusively remote working.

Just 23% of workers in the age bracket, which roughly spans adults born in 1997 or later, would prefer “exclusively remote” work compared with 35% of respondents spanning all other generations, according to Gallup research.

The polling company said the result comes down to Gen Zers being “the loneliest generation”. The finding suggests that Gen Z workers are almost twice as likely as Gen X, and nearly three times as likely as baby boomers, to say they “experienced loneliness a lot of the day yesterday”.

Additionally, Gallup analysts Ryan Pendell and Sangeeta Agrawal wrote that, “Gen Z employees have the lowest life evaluations of any generation at work. They are also the most lonely.”

They pointed to results which found 66% of hybrid Gen Z employees are required to work a certain number of days in the office each week. “This could mean they are showing up when coworkers are not in the office, reducing the potential for meaningful, in-person interactions,” the report said.

Moreover, Gen Z workers are the least likely to have children at home. “Parenting plays a role in shaping views on remote work,” according to the study. “Very few Gen Z workers are the parent or guardian of a child younger than 18.”

Millennials, by contrast, “have a stronger personal attachment to remote work” than other generations. Some 41% of millennials said they would probably look for another job if their remote working options were taken away, significantly higher than other generations.

Fully in-office work remains deeply unpopular across the generations. Just 6% of Gen Z workers say they want to be in every day, compared with 4% of millennials, 9% of Gen X, and 10% of baby boomers.

The researchers wrote: “Gen Z prefers hybrid work the most, but they may miss out on its in-person benefits if they show up to an empty office.”

They suggested bosses “change hybrid policies so that younger employees are more likely to interact with others”, or better to “discuss with their team how each person works best and coordinate in-person time at the team level”.