Every generation that enters the workforce finds its work ethic tested. For Generation Z, the complaint is the reluctance to remain contactable once the workday is over.
New survey data suggests the market they are questioning is unbalanced. In a June 2026 survey of 1,006 U.S. employees by Software Finder, 69% said that being available after hours did not significantly improve their career. Only 8% give him a promotion and 12% a raise or bonus.
Costs are easier to find. Forty percent of those surveyed said that after-hours availability had worsened their work-life balance, 38% said it had increased their stress, and 32% said it had worsened burnout.
This gap between sacrifice and reward is emerging as employers become more and more stingy when it comes to advancement. Workday data reported by Fortune showed that promotion rates fell in 10 of the 11 industries it tracks in the first half of 2025.
Permanent workers get a small benefit at a big price
The survey divides respondents between permanent workers and those who set stricter limits on free time. The always-connected group reports more benefits: 57% say their availability has helped their career, compared to 8% of people who set boundaries.
Promotions are another story. Only 17% of permanent workers attribute their availability to a promotion, although this still exceeds the 2% of those who set the limits.
The compromise is steep. Workers who were always available were 2.8 times more likely than those who set limits to report worsening burnout, 2.6 times more likely to report worsening work-life balance, and 2.4 times more likely to report poorer sleep.
Even time off offers little relief. Some 73% of workers check their work messages while on vacation and 51% have responded to a work email while away.
Taking a step back carries its own risk, and workers know it: 49% worry that setting boundaries could harm their career. This fear has some basis. In a 2025 study covered by Fortunemanagers rated employees who unplugged after work hours as more productive but less engaged and less deserving of promotion, even when their performance ratings were identical.
Generation Z feels less attraction than their older colleagues
This is where the generational divide appears. Gen Z respondents were the least likely to feel pressure to respond after hours, at 65%, compared to 72% of Millennials and Gen Xers.
Feeling less pressure did not spare them the price to pay. Burnout worsened for 34% of Gen Z workers, the same proportion as Millennials, compared to 26% of Gen Xers.
Jeff LeBlanc, a lecturer at Bentley University, describes the old market as “performance availability” in a recent Fast Company column: treating viewability, rather than results, as proof of engagement. He says Gen Z’s resistance is challenging workplace norms, not a lack of dynamism. “Gen Z has not shown that it does not appreciate hard work,” he writes.
Millennials and Generation X, many of whom now hold leadership positions, could be part of the problem. LeBlanc writes that these generations “could make these expectations worse” for the workers who report to them.
The cost of the presentation
The tension extends far beyond a single investigation. In Deloitte’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennials Survey of more than 22,500 respondents across 44 countries, 48% of Gen Z and 45% of Millennials reported feeling burned out.
These same respondents are rethinking the climb itself. As Fortune According to a report released in June, only 6% of Gen Z and millennials surveyed by Deloitte named reaching a leadership role as their top career goal.
Emma Codd, global head of inclusion at Deloitte Global, laid out the challenges clearly in the report: “When being present is more important than being healthy, inequalities widen and the cost is burnout, attrition and loss of potential. »
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