For the last 15 years, Deloitte Global’s annual Gen Z and Millennial Survey has tracked how these generations experience work and life. Careers and priorities have been shaped by many factors, including rising financial insecurity, societal concerns, and a global pandemic—alongside a growing agency in aligning professional decisions with personal values.
This year’s results—which show most respondents prioritizing gradual growth, continuous learning and well-being over fast career progression—once again point to the resolve and adaptability of these generations.
Mental health is improving
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Mental resilience on the rise
One crucial aspect which the survey has probed for the last seven years is mental health. And, on the surface, this year’s numbers bear good news: 63% of Gen Zs and 66% of millennials rate their mental health as good or extremely good, up respectively from 52% and 58% last year. Moreover, about four in 10 say their mental well-being has improved over the last 12 months, with the same proportion saying it has stayed the same.
This points to encouraging levels of good mental health among Gen Z and millennial workers, especially considering the amount of disruption and uncertainty the world is currently experiencing.
But digging deeper into the survey’s findings reveals a more nuanced picture. About one-third of respondents (35% of Gen Zs and 30% of millennials) feel anxious or stressed most or all of the time, with around nine in 10 of all respondents saying they feel this way at least some of the time. Among those who feel anxious or stressed, around three in 10 cite work as a major contributor. And nearly half of respondents say they feel burned out (47% of Gen Zs; 45% of millennials).
Juxtaposing these numbers against the perception that mental well-being is improving bears the question: is mental health truly improving, or has the baseline shifted, with stress now a widely accepted feature of daily life?
Stress as the baseline
The survey reveals a number of factors driving ongoing stress and anxiety. Chief among them this year—and since 2022—is long-term financial security: 44% of Gen Zs and 39% of millennials name it as their main stressor, ahead of the health of their family, and day-to-day finances.
Work-related factors also play a part in contributing to stress. Long working hours and lack of recognition or reward are the most frequent causes here—cited by about half of those who say their work contributes to their stress and anxiety across both generations. However, the third highest contributor differs between Gen Zs, who point to not having enough time to complete their work, and millennials, who are more concerned about fairness in workplace decision-making.
Another emerging source of stress in the workplace is worth noting too. Despite many respondents being positive about how AI will support their growth and career over time, 58% of Gen Zs and 54% of millennials say they regularly experience ‘digital fatigue’, driven by constant alerts and the need to switch between multiple tools and platforms.
From supportive workplaces to conscious work design
While the survey indicates that work remains a contributor to stress and anxiety for some, the data also shows that meaningful progress has been made by employers to support workplace well-being. Seven in 10 respondents believe their organizations take employee mental health seriously, and 65% have seen policies being put in place to support it—with both indicators being significantly higher than two years ago. Confidence in managers’ ability to support mental health—a vital ingredient in building the trust and psychological safety needed for people to report and address mental health challenges—is also improving.
These trends are encouraging. But the survey’s latest results show that more remains to be done to tackle chronic stress at work and to embed well-being as a foundational element of excellence. Indeed, they point to how employers can capitalize on the gains made: by moving beyond providing policies, support resources, and manager training to designing work and environments that enable well-being, alongside mitigating stress and burnout.
In practice, this means truly embedding psychological safety as a foundation of workplace and team culture; enabling people to express themselves—whether that be ideas or concerns—without fear of negative consequences. And it means relooking at key elements of work, such as: the design of roles around realistic workloads; the setting of clear priorities and responsibilities within teams; taking measures to protect cognitive resilience as more AI tools are introduced; and providing dedicated training that build not just AI fluency but also judgement, collaboration, and growth.
Doing this systematically and over time can help organizations to shift the focus away from the need for workers to build individual resilience, and towards collective norms that help embed well-being, not stress, in the workplace.
