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Every generation entering the workforce has its work ethic put on trial. For Gen Z, the charge is a reluctance to stay reachable once the workday ends.
New survey data suggests the bargain they are questioning is lopsided. In a June 2026 survey of 1,006 U.S. employees by Software Finder, 69% said being available after hours has not meaningfully improved their careers. Just 8% credit it with a promotion, and 12% with a raise or bonus.
The costs are easier to find. Forty percent of respondents said after-hours availability has worsened their work-life balance, 38% said it has raised their stress, and 32% said it has worsened burnout.
That gap between sacrifice and reward comes as employers grow stingier with advancement. Workday data reported by Fortune showed promotion rates fell in 10 of the 11 industries it tracks in the first half of 2025.
Always-on workers get a small edge at a steep price
The survey splits respondents into always-on workers and those who set firmer boundaries around their time off. The always-on group does report more upside: 57% say their availability helped their career, compared with 8% of boundary-setters.
Promotions are another story. Only 17% of always-on workers credit their availability with a promotion, though that still beats the 2% of boundary-setters who do.
The trade-off is steep. Always-on workers were 2.8 times as likely as boundary-setters to report worsened burnout, 2.6 times as likely to report worsened work-life balance, and 2.4 times as likely to report worse sleep.
Even time off offers little relief. Some 73% of workers check work messages on vacation, and 51% have answered a work email while away.
Stepping back carries its own risk, and workers know it: 49% worry that setting boundaries could hurt their careers. That fear has some basis. In a 2025 study covered by Fortune, managers rated employees who unplugged after hours as more productive but less committed and less deserving of promotion, even when their performance reviews were identical.
Gen Z feels the pull less than older colleagues
This is where the generational divide shows up. Gen Z respondents were the least likely to feel pressure to respond after hours, at 65%, compared with 72% of both millennials and Gen X.
Feeling less pressure has not spared them the toll. Burnout worsened for 34% of Gen Z workers, the same share as millennials, compared with 26% of Gen X.
Jeff LeBlanc, a lecturer at Bentley University, describes the old bargain as “performative availability” in a recent Fast Company column: treating visibility, rather than results, as proof of commitment. He argues Gen Z’s resistance challenges workplace norms, not a lack of drive. “Gen Z hasn’t shown that they don’t value hard work,” he writes.
Millennials and Gen X, many now in management, may be part of the problem. LeBlanc writes that those generations “might be compounding these expectations” for the workers who report to them.
The cost of showing up
The strain extends well beyond one survey. In Deloitte’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey of more than 22,500 respondents in 44 countries, 48% of Gen Zs and 45% of millennials said they feel burned out.
Those same respondents are rethinking the climb itself. As Fortune reported in June, only 6% of Gen Zs and millennials in the Deloitte survey named reaching a leadership position as their top career goal.
Emma Codd, Deloitte Global’s global inclusion leader, put the stakes plainly in the report: “When showing up becomes more important than being well, inequities deepen, and the cost shows up in burnout, attrition, and lost potential.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
