Gen Z workers are less likely than older colleagues to feel pressure to answer messages outside working hours, but a survey suggests that after-hours availability brings limited career rewards while increasing the risk of burnout.
In a June 2026 poll of 1,006 US employees by Software Finder, 69% said being available after work had not meaningfully improved their careers. Only 8% linked it to a promotion, while 12% said it had helped secure a pay rise or bonus.
The personal cost was more widely reported. Forty per cent said remaining available had damaged their work-life balance, 38% said it had increased their stress and 32% said it had worsened burnout.
Gen Z workers report less pressure to stay available
Gen Z respondents were the least likely to say they felt pressure to respond after hours, at 65%. The figure was 72% among both millennials and Generation X.
However, the lower level of pressure did not remove the strain. Burnout had worsened for 34% of Gen Z workers, the same proportion as millennials, compared with 26% of Gen X respondents.
The findings come as opportunities for career progression appear to be narrowing. Workday data showed that promotion rates fell in 10 of the 11 industries it tracked during the first half of 2025.
Jeff LeBlanc, a lecturer at Bentley University, has described the pressure to remain visible outside normal hours as “performative availability” in a recent column for Fast Company. He said it involved treating visibility, rather than results, as evidence of commitment.
“Gen Z hasn’t shown that they don’t value hard work,” Mr LeBlanc wrote, arguing that younger workers’ resistance was challenging workplace expectations rather than demonstrating a lack of ambition.
He also suggested that millennials and Generation X workers, many of whom are now managers, “might be compounding these expectations” for employees who report to them.
The high cost of being always available
The Software Finder survey found a clear difference between workers who remained available at all times and those who set firmer boundaries around their personal time.
Some 57% of always-on workers said their availability had helped their careers, compared with 8% of those who maintained stronger boundaries. But only 17% of the always-on group credited it with securing a promotion, against 2% of boundary-setters.
The health costs were considerably higher among those who stayed connected. Always-on workers were 2.8 times more likely to report worsening burnout, 2.6 times more likely to report a deterioration in work-life balance and 2.4 times more likely to say their sleep had suffered.
Disconnecting can also feel risky. Nearly half of those surveyed, or 49%, said they feared setting boundaries could harm their careers.
That concern is reflected in a 2025 study in which managers rated employees who stopped working after hours as more productive but less committed and less deserving of promotion than colleagues with identical performance reviews.
Time away from work often fails to provide a complete break. Seventy-three per cent of workers said they checked work messages while on holiday, while 51% had answered a work email during time off.
Burnout reshapes career ambitions
The pressure extends beyond the question of whether workers answer messages in the evening. Deloitte’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, covering more than 22,500 people in 44 countries, found that 48% of Gen Z respondents and 45% of millennials felt burned out.
The same research indicated that reaching senior leadership was becoming a less prominent ambition, with only 6% of Gen Z and millennial respondents naming it as their main career goal.
Emma Codd, Deloitte Global’s global inclusion leader, said: “When showing up becomes more important than being well, inequities deepen, and the cost shows up in burnout, attrition, and lost potential.”
