Why is Gen Z quitting?
Every week, I talk to HR directors, CHROs, and managers who are exhausted.
They’ve raised salaries and added mental health days. They’ve launched ERGs, updated the office snack selection, and rewritten the onboarding presentation three times. And Gen Z is still leaving — sometimes before the 90-day mark.
And then they ask me the question I hear more than any other: ‘What do they want?’
The honest answer is that they already know what Gen Z wants. They’re just solving the wrong version of the problem.
“Gen Z isn’t leaving because of the money. They’re leaving because of what money can’t fix.”
The Data Most Leaders Are Missing
In my research and consulting work across Fortune 500 organizations, I’ve identified a consistent pattern in Gen Z exit decisions. When asked directly about their reasons for leaving, Gen Z employees cite five drivers — and compensation ranks fifth.
Here’s how the actual ranking looks:
- Manager relationship quality — specifically, whether their direct manager communicates transparently, gives real feedback, and treats them as a capable professional
- Clarity of growth path — whether they can see a specific, realistic trajectory for their career within the organization within their first 90 days
- Authentic company culture — whether what the company says about its culture matches what they experience day-to-day
- Sense of purpose and impact — whether their work connects to something that matters beyond a quarterly metric
- Compensation and benefits — whether they’re paid fairly for the market and role
💡 Organizations that focus exclusively on #5 while ignoring #1 through #4 will continue to lose Gen Z talent at the same rate — regardless of how many salary adjustments they make.
The Manager Relationship Problem
‘People leave managers, not companies’ has been a management truism for decades. With Gen Z, it’s not just true — it’s accelerated.
Gen Z grew up in an era of radical transparency. They’ve watched YouTube creators share their revenue, influencers document their mental health struggles, and CEOs be publicly held accountable for internal culture in real time. They bring that expectation of transparency to the workplace — and when they encounter managers who are closed off, dismissive, or inconsistent, they don’t try to work around it. They start their job search.
What Gen Z needs from a manager isn’t radical. It’s honest, consistent communication. It’s being told directly when they’ve done well and when they haven’t, and it’s being treated as someone with professional judgment, not just a task executor. And critically, it’s being given real feedback before the performance review, not during it.
The managers who retain Gen Z aren’t the ones with the coolest personalities. They’re the ones whose direct reports always know where they stand.
The 90-Day Cliff
Here’s a pattern I see consistently across the organizations I consult with: Gen Z employees who haven’t seen a clear growth path within their first 90 days begin quietly exploring their options.
This isn’t impatience. It’s a response to a specific anxiety that’s unique to this generation: they watched the pandemic evaporate jobs, industries, and certainty overnight. They watched their older siblings and parents get laid off mid-career. They have a fundamentally different relationship with institutional loyalty than previous generations — not because they’re disloyal, but because they’ve seen loyalty go unrewarded.
The solution isn’t to promise fast promotions you can’t deliver. It’s to have an explicit conversation about what the first 6, 12, and 18 months look like — what skills they’ll build, what milestones define success, and what opportunities open up if they hit those milestones. Vague reassurances that ‘there’s a lot of opportunity here for someone willing to put in the work’ land as nothing to Gen Z. Specifics land as commitment.
The Culture Authenticity Gap
Gen Zers are the most research-savvy job candidates any organization has ever faced. Before they accept an offer, they’ve read your Glassdoor reviews — all of them. They’ve searched ‘[Your Company] culture Reddit.’ They’ve looked up your leadership team on LinkedIn to see if they post anything revealing. They’ve asked people in their network who work there.
When the culture they experience on day one doesn’t match what they saw in the recruitment process, the mental calculation begins immediately. It’s not that they expected perfection — they’re realistic. It’s that the gap signals a deeper dishonesty that makes them question everything else they were told.
The organizations that attract and keep Gen Z talent are the ones that show their culture honestly in the recruitment process — including the hard parts. ‘We’re in a high-growth phase, which means things move fast and sometimes get messy’ is more compelling to Gen Z than ‘We’re a family.’ They’ve heard ‘we’re a family’ before. They know what it usually means.
What Leaders Can Do This Week
You don’t need a full consulting engagement to start moving the needle. Here are three things you can implement immediately:
1. Audit your manager’s feedback practices
Ask your Gen Z employees — in a one-on-one, not a survey — one question: ‘Do you feel like you always know where you stand?’ Their answer will tell you more than six months of engagement survey data. If the answer is anything other than a clear yes, the work starts there.
2. Create a 90-day clarity conversation
For every new Gen Z hire, build a structured 90-day conversation into the onboarding process, specifically focused on career path. Not performance goals — career path. What does the next 18 months look like if they perform well, and what skills will they build? Also, what conversations will happen and when? Write it down. Share it with them. Check in on it at 30 and 60 days.
3. Close the culture gap in your recruiting
Audit your careers page and recruitment messaging against what a Gen Z employee would actually experience in their first month. Where are the biggest gaps? Start there. Even small honesty adjustments — acknowledging that the pace is fast, that feedback is direct — signal authenticity to candidates who are actively looking for reasons not to trust you.
“The organizations winning the Gen Z talent war aren’t doing something exotic. They’re doing the fundamentals at a level of consistency and honesty this generation has never seen from an employer before.”
The Bottom Line
Gen Z is not a mystery. They are a generation with specific values, specific fears shaped by specific historical events, and a lower threshold for institutional dishonesty than any generation that came before them. Understanding those three things — and building your management and culture practices around them — is the difference between a revolving door and a talent advantage.
If your organization is experiencing Gen Z turnover and you’re not sure where to start, that’s exactly what I help with.
Ready to stop losing Gen Z talent? Let’s find your specific retention gaps. →
https://calendly.com/indiviticourses/gen-z-leadership-strategy-session
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