Gen Z Want to Work Less

Entrepreneurs are often known for putting in long hours, but 26-year-old business owner Ajla Brama thinks we should be working fewer hours.

The investor, who has over 345,000 TikTok followers, told Newsweek: "People need to be people and have a life outside of work. Shorter workdays means living a fuller life, more time spent with family, happier overall, and could even translate to a more bustling economy since people would have more time to dine out, shop, etc."

Many people in her generation think the same. An exclusive poll run by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on behalf of Newsweek on May 17 found that 35 percent of Generation Z adults said that the ideal working day would be six hours long.

While the majority of Americans say that they are ready for a four-day working week—and employee burnout continues to cause issues for businesses—younger workers seem keen to cut down their working hours.

In the poll, 1,500 U.S. adults were asked what should be considered the most reasonable number of hours per day for a full-time employee to work.

The majority, 46 percent, said that eight hours a day was the most reasonable, followed by 20 percent who said six hours.

But the difference in generations was vast. While Gen Z adults overwhelmingly said that six hours was the most reasonable, older generations including Millennials, Generation X and Boomers were much more likely to say that eight hours was the most reasonable.

Gabrielle Judge is a full-time content creator from Colorado and the founder of The Anti Work Girlboss. At 26 years old, she is on the cusp of Generation Z and Millennial and believes that we should all be looking at our working hours.

"The workday should be shorter if the work takes less than eight hours a day," Judge told Newsweek. "The modern day nine-to-five concept is from American labor unions in the 1800s that was quickly implemented at scale from Henry Ford. The eight-hour workday no longer has as much relevance in the corporate world."

After having her own experience with nine-to-five office work, Judge set about to change the way people think about employment.

"I am an older Gen Z, so I did go into the office full-time for a super short time before the pandemic began. I reflect often on those days where I had to go into the office every day at exactly 8 a.m. and I could not leave until exactly 5 p.m. I think about all of the tasks I would brainstorm to keep myself busy and fill up the time," explained Judge.

"This way of working is no longer relevant due to remote working. I understand going above and beyond is a strategy to get a promotion or raise. But why did we allow that method to happen as employees?"

The Anti Work Girlboss came from Judge's desire to spread the message that nine to five was not working. Now she has over 100,000 followers on TikTok as @gabrielle_judge where she shares insights into work, tech and money.

"'Anti Work' is about de-centering our nine-to-five role from our identity to gain freedom in whatever way we define as an individual," she explained. "We see this value system happen quite often in the US—one of the first few questions we all get asked when meeting someone new is, 'What do you do for work?' When we attach our identity and self-worth to our job, we become more susceptible to exploitation, abandoning our rights and boundaries, and so many other disempowering habits."

Ajla Brama shares her knowledge of careers, money and investing with her followers across TikTok and Instagram @ajla_talks, and agrees that working hours need an overhaul.

"Just because people are required to be at their job for eight hours doesn't mean they are working efficiently," said Brama. "Ask anyone who works if they are actually 'working' the entire time. If employees can finish their tasks in a shorter amount of time, why not have shorter workdays?"

In the exclusive survey results, 14 percent of Gen Z even said that a workday of less than six hours would be preferable. While only 9 percent of Boomers agreed that a shorter working day was acceptable.

Sam Franklin is the CEO and co-founder of recruitment platform Otta. He told Newsweek: "In the wake of the pandemic, people—particularly the younger generation or Gen Z—are reevaluating the importance of work as part of their life. The rhetoric of grafting to prove yourself to employers for high reward now feels outdated.

"Companies will need to ensure they can attract people from all generations. If they are going to attract the younger generations, they need to remain relevant. Part of that will be offering the flexibility and shorter work weeks that this group desires," he added.

Gen Z employees have previously been slammed for being "a massive headache," and have even been branded lazy. But Brama doesn't see a problem with that either.

"So what if we are? Being lazy is great. If being lazy means spending less time in a cubicle, then sign me up for a lifetime subscription," Brama said. "Lazy people find faster ways to get things done. Bill Gates himself said, 'I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.' I'm with Bill on this one."

So what does Gen Z want from work? Work-life balance and ability to learn, said Judge. "We are looking for flexible careers that offer many opportunities to learn new skills. My generation is more focused on learning valuable skills we can then specialize and monetize for ourselves to create an opportunity of work-life balance versus staying at the same company for decades out of loyalty.

"Our job's job is not to fill our emotional cups to the brim, nor be our personality. Jobs are a transaction of your effort and time for money and benefits, and Gen Z absolutely adopted this ideology in the workplace."

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