Not Money, Not Perks – Mental Wellbeing Is What Matters the Most To Gen-Z | Here's Why.

The Great Resignation. Quiet Quitting.

Unless you’re living under a rock, I’m pretty sure, you’d have seen these words tossed around on LinkedIn a little too often.

Some say, this is the doing of the newest generation in the workforce. The Generation Z or more commonly known as ‘Gen-Zers’.

Hustle culture? This generation is not the biggest fan of it.

Instead, they want balance.

They want to be productive, for sure. But they don’t want to be so productive their lives only revolve around work.

They don’t want to take up opportunities which force them to put in their 100% at the cost of their well-being. They question, “Why should we put up with a toxic workplace when we’re underpaid and overworked?”

For them, any place that offers mental well-being is gold standard.

Not money. Not perks.

Mental wellbeing.

It’s no-brainer that The Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting have become so big these days.

Senior professionals, quite simply, don’t like the emergence of such phenomena. All they think that Gen-Z is the absolute worst. More often than not, in direct or indirect ways, you can hear them say:

How dare these young adults say that work is too much work? Why are they so lazy? No work is too much work – when you’re young, you must keep working, keep hustling.

Else, you’re nothing.

But on behalf of all my fellow Gen-Z, I’d really like to ask these folks:

Were you the generation that graduated into chaos?

The Gen-Z generation is one that entered the workforce at the precipice of one of 21st century’s most cataclysmic event yet: the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2020, in a matter of mere days, this generation literally saw the world shut down. Before they knew it, they had to shift their entire lives to their homes.

What was the result? They ended up losing out on some monumental life events.

Younger Gen-Zers lost a chunk of their education thanks to online Zoom classes. Day in, day out, they had to log in to their classes and just be at one spot. The carefree charm of school and college?

All gone.

Older Gen-Zers like me, in that regard, were luckier. At least, we got to live these experiences.

But what we didn’t get was an easy start when we entered the work force.

Within a matter of months, my peers and I saw a lot of job economic changes at once. Right after the pandemic, we had to reorient ourselves from the work-from-office routine to moving our work homewards. And in no time, we witnessed layoffs, salary cuts and so much more – all while struggling to come to terms with a deadly pandemic that no one had any idea about.

Before we knew it, work-from-home went from being a necessary change to an albatross round our necks.

Wherever you’d turn, you’d see us buckling under the pressure of workload that didn’t even seem to exist pre-pandemic and struggle to balance the tightrope between work and home (where home barely existed and work was all that mattered).

Such a scenario just opened our eyes, you know?

Let me demonstrate this with my own experience.

Before the pandemic, I was all for girl-bossing, leaning-in and hustling.

But after the pandemic? I realized that this mentality too has a dark side.

In a year’s time, I literally got the worst burnout that I’d experienced in my life. I was working way more than I would’ve in a non-pandemic scenario. I was struggling to make time for my family, my hobbies and myself – it was always work, work, work from 8 am to 9 pm, with barely any time in between. I became a person I loathed, and I was constantly whining, constantly complaining.

What was worse was? I was constantly under the pressure that I was not doing well enough.

You want to know why?

It was thanks to our dear old friend, social media.

Social media, at its best, is empowering.

It has given people the ability to recognize their own voices. The opportunity to share what they have to offer.

But at its worst? Social media is a constant reminder that we’re just not doing good enough in our lives.

Instagram is Shaadigram, where everyone and their next-door neighbour is getting married. LinkedIn is BraggedIn, where every minor accomplishment is exaggerated to sound as if the poster has one the Nobel Prize. And Facebook? It’s like a vitriolic boomer mixture of both.

Even the most secure, saintliest person in this scenario, would have their confidence shaken.

And for Gen-Zers? The generation that literally grew up with social media? It’s way worse because they grew up with this pressure too. And this pressure never seemed to go away.

So, no matter what Gen-Zers do, they’re constantly agonized by this fear that they’re missing out. And often, this burden is one of the reasons why Gen-Zers are so concerned about their mental well-being.

And now-a-days, they’re not even ashamed to admit it.

For Gen-Zers, mental health conversations aren’t taboo. Rather, they’re a must-have.

If I look back 15 years ago (not 20 years ago, because 20 years ago, I was a toddler who’d think of nothing but Pokemon), any conversation around mental health was in hushed whispers.

It was a taboo of the highest order. Admitting that you’re not okay mentally was… the scariest thing one could do.

But now-a-days? Mental health conversations are the need of the hour. Mental health is just as important as one’s physical health. It’s not easy to just put one thought in your head and be all “Oh, I’ll keep aside what I think/feel and shut up and do the work.”

Mental health wellbeing needs as much care and support as physical wellbeing.

And Gen-Zers know that.

Young adults these days aren’t going to put up with toxicity, if it comes at the cost of destroying their inner peace. Be it at work or otherwise.

And so, when senior professionals these days dismiss Gen-Zers as lazy and conversations around mental health as ‘weakness’, they have to understand this:

Admitting you’re not okay is a very courageous thing. When someone admits that their mental wellbeing is compromised, the cruellest thing that senior professionals can do is to dismiss this as a sign of weakness.

More importantly, building a workplace where your mental wellbeing is taken care of is not some fancy hogwash or a spoilt, entitled request. 

Any person, regardless of they’re from, has the right to be a part of a workplace that ensures their physical and mental safety. A workplace where they get to thrive and be engaged.

It’s about time they realized that.

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