Gen Z pushes back on ‘performative availability’ as only 8% of workers say it won them a promotion
Only 17% of always-on workers credit their availability with a promotion, though that still beats the 2% of boundary-setters who do.
Key points
- In a 2025 study covered by Fortune, managers rated employees who unplugged after hours as more productive but less committed and less deserving of promotion, even when their performance reviews were identical.
- Stepping back carries its own risk, and workers know it: 49% worry that setting boundaries could hurt their careers.
- Always-on workers were 2.8 times as likely as boundary-setters to report worsened burnout, 2.6 times as likely to report worsened work-life balance, and 2.4 times as likely to report worse sleep.
Jeff LeBlanc, a lecturer at Bentley University, describes the old bargain as “performative availability” in a recent Fast Company column: treating visibility, rather than results, as proof of commitment.
As Fortune reported in June, only 6% of Gen Zs and millennials in the Deloitte survey named reaching a leadership position as their top career goal.
Additional details
- LeBlanc writes that those generations “might be compounding these expectations” for the workers who report to them.
- Burnout worsened for 34% of Gen Z workers, the same share as millennials, compared with 26% of Gen X.
- Forty percent of respondents said after-hours availability has worsened their work-life balance, 38% said it has raised their stress, and 32% said it has worsened burnout.
- Always-on workers get a small edge at a steep price The survey splits respondents into always-on workers and those who set firmer boundaries around their time off.
- In Deloitte’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey of more than 22,500 respondents in 44 countries, 48% of Gen Zs and 45% of millennials said they feel burned out.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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