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A new Gen Z corporate phrase has taken the workplace by storm: “lazy girl jobs.”
Coined by a 26-year-old TikToker in late May, the phrase conveys Gen Zers’ desire for low-stress jobs that provide a good salary, benefits, flexibility, and work-life balance. It’s similar to other lingo attributed to the professional Gen Z set, like “quiet quitting” and “bare minimum Mondays.” As expected, the trend has garnered a few eye rolls from older generations who think Gen Zers are woefully ill-prepared for corporate America and, quite frankly, languorous.
On the contrary, although Gen Z employees are certainly vocal about their work style preferences, it may be a sign of what all workers, regardless of age or gender, want from their jobs and a repulsion for the hustle and grind culture of decades past.
According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report, 52% percent of U.S. workers say they are “quiet quitting” or disengaged at work, and the share of employees who say they’re thriving at work sits at just 23%. Those “quiet quitting” say changing their organization’s culture, pay and benefits, and well-being would improve the workplace conditions and morale.
“The lazy girl job label is undoubtedly speaking to younger workers,” says Jennifer Tosti-Kharas, a professor of organizational behavior at Babson. “But I think anyone could want a better work-life balance and actually should want that.”
The takeaway for employers is to reevaluate their workplace culture and the equilibrium between personal and professional success.
“I would just remind HR managers that this is not necessarily that people aren’t doing their job, or they aren’t delivering for the organization,” says Tosti-Kharas. “But it’s just this notion: What does it mean, in an employee’s mind, to go above and beyond? And if that’s something that the organization wants to think about, how do they make the expectations clear in advance?”
Daena Giardella, a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan and leadership consultant, says, “It’s important to look at this as a social message that’s not about laziness but really about people wanting to have full lives and feel like they do have meaning and can have time for either their own personal fulfillment or creativity.”
She adds: “It has to do with a much larger post-COVID phenomenon of people wanting the life part of their work-life balance.”
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
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Watercooler
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