"Gen Z is changing the rules of work-and the results are redefining what professional success looks like in 2025. According to a new Glassdoor report, "career minimalism" is at the heart of this shift: younger workers see their jobs as a means to financial stability, saving real passion and ambition for hours off the clock and increasingly lucrative side hustles."
"Forget the corner office. Glassdoor's latest survey, canvassing more than 1,000 professionals in the U.S., revealed that the younger cohort of workers is skeptical of the concept of management. A striking 68% of Gen Z respondents said they wouldn't pursue management if it weren't for paycheck or title. To be sure, more money and a higher title have always been powerful draws for workers to go into management, but this still signals a rejection of the traditional corporate climb favored by boomers and millennials"
""We've traded the rigid career ladder for the career lily pad," said Morgan Sanner, Glassdoor's Gen Z career expert and founder of Resume Official, calling it "a path where we can jump to whatever opportunity fits best at the moment. In the long run, that kind of flexibility is more sustainable, more realistic, and better suited to today's workplace realities.""
Gen Z embraces "career minimalism," treating jobs primarily as income sources while channeling passion and ambition into time off and side hustles. A majority of younger workers express skepticism about pursuing management unless motivated by higher pay or titles. Despite expressed reluctance, entry into management appears to occur at rates similar to previous generations. The generation prefers flexible, non-linear career moves likened to a "career lily pad," prioritizing opportunities that fit current needs and offering greater long-term sustainability in modern workplace conditions.
Read at Fortune
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]