Gen Z Isn’t Breaking Your Rules. You Never Explained Them.

Two stories crossed my feed this week that, read together, say a lot about managing Gen Z employees. One is about a text message. The other is about a job search. And both, I think, are really about leaders.

Here’s the thing. When a young employee does something an older manager doesn’t expect, the easy story is that something is wrong with the young employee. These two stories point the other way.

What happened this week

The first story is a piece by Jeff LeBlanc, a learning facilitator in Boston University’s online MBA program, published by Fortune and The Conversation on September 28. LeBlanc surveyed 250 Gen Z professionals, and clear structural expectations, fairness and empathetic engagement came up again and again.

His best example is small. A young café worker texted her Gen X boss that she was running late. Her reasoning:

He’s super busy, so I felt a call was going to take up too much time. So I texted. I thought it was more considerate.

Gen Z employee quoted by Jeff LeBlanc, Fortune / The Conversation, September 28, 2026

Her manager read it the opposite way. To him, a text was too casual for something that serious; a phone call would have signaled she took it seriously. Same action. Two completely different meanings. Neither person was being rude.

LeBlanc also points out what Gen Z’s early working years looked like: classes went online, internships went remote, and when people came back in person, masks could make faces harder to read. A lot of the unwritten signals older workers picked up by watching were simply harder to pick up.

The second story is Fortune’s September 25 report on a Robert Half survey: around 55% of Gen Z professionals plan to look for a new job before the end of this year, compared with 32% in 2025. More than half believe switching employers could boost their salary. Robert Half’s Dawn Fay put it this way:

When they feel stalled or don’t see room to grow, they seem to be comfortable exploring new opportunities rather than waiting for those circumstances to change.

Dawn Fay, Robert Half, via Fortune, September 25, 2026

To be fair, this isn’t the whole picture. The same Fortune piece notes the job market is tough: entry-level postings made up 38.6% of all postings this March, down from 44% in 2023, according to ZipRecruiter, and Atlanta Fed data showed the pay bump for switching jobs (4.8%) barely beat staying put (4.6%). Glassdoor’s Daniel Zhao said many employed workers “feel stuck in their jobs.” Planning to look is not the same as leaving. But it does tell you where people’s heads are.

Managing Gen Z employees starts with the rules you never wrote down

Here’s what I take from these two stories together. In both, a young person is reading the situation and making a reasonable choice based on what they can see. The text was considerate from where she stood. Looking for a job is reasonable if you can’t see a path where you are.

What they can’t see is the leader’s job to show.

I’ve watched this happen in education for years. Back in 2015, in The Millennials are here!, I wrote about the moment I scanned a training room of future teachers and realized the next generation had arrived. Every generation walks into a workplace built by the one before it. The rules feel like common sense to the people who wrote them. They’re not. As LeBlanc puts it, the norms we learned reflect “the workplaces, technologies and moments in history in which we began our careers.”

So when a manager says “they don’t know how to communicate,” I’d ask: did anyone tell them how you communicate? Does “Friday” mean Friday at 9 a.m. or Friday at midnight? Is a text okay for running late? Who would know that on their first week?

Loyalty is earned in the first year, not assumed

In The Next Turn, I argue that we’re living through two turns at once: the definition of work is changing, and the structure of work is changing. Young employees make the first turn easy to see. They’re asking, out loud, what the exchange is — what do I give, what do I get, and where is this going? When that exchange stops making sense, they start looking. That’s not a motivation problem. It’s a design problem.

One line from the book sums up what that Robert Half number is telling us: “Organizations do not get loyalty upfront. They get scrutiny upfront.”

I’ll admit that can feel unfair if you came up in a time when you paid your dues and waited your turn. I understand that. But waiting your turn only works when people can see the turn coming. With AI absorbing more of the routine tasks new hires used to learn on, the path from “new” to “trusted” is getting harder to see, not easier. If leaders don’t make it visible, nobody will.

And another line I keep coming back to: “Gen Z is not the problem. Gen Z is the clearest signal.” When half your young workforce says they might look elsewhere, that’s information about your organization, not a verdict on a generation.

This is also where schools and employers meet. We talk a lot in education about preparing students for their future, not our past. The workplace has the same job on the other side of graduation. If we want young people to succeed in it, somebody has to explain how it works.

What leaders can do this week

• Write down three unwritten rules. How should people tell you they’re late or sick? What does a deadline mean? When is a text fine and when is a call expected? Put it in onboarding, not in someone’s head.
• Be specific about time. Following LeBlanc’s advice, give a day and a time. “Friday” means different things to different people.
• Make the path visible. For every early-career role, can you show what the next 12 to 24 months could look like and what someone has to show to get there?
• Check the exchange early. Don’t wait for an exit interview. At 90 days and again at six months, ask: is this what you expected, and what would make the next year worth it?
• Train managers to translate. The managers who lead young teams well aren’t the strictest or the softest. They’re the ones who explain the why.

Frequently asked questions

Why do Gen Z employees communicate differently at work?

Part of it is timing. Many Gen Z workers started college or work when classes and internships moved online, so they had fewer chances to pick up unwritten office norms by watching. Boston University’s Jeff LeBlanc argues the differences are mostly about context, not competence.

Why are so many Gen Z workers looking for new jobs?

A Robert Half survey reported by Fortune in September 2026 found about 55% of Gen Z professionals plan to look for a new job before year-end, and more than half think switching could raise their pay. Robert Half says young workers tend to explore when they feel stalled or can’t see room to grow.

What is the best way to retain young employees?

Treat retention as a design question. Explain expectations clearly, show a realistic growth path, give frequent feedback, and check in on whether the job is meeting expectations well before someone starts looking.

The rules were never common sense

Every workplace runs on rules nobody wrote down. That was always true. What’s changed is that a new generation is asking about them out loud, and a tight job market is telling them to keep their options open. Leaders can treat that as a problem, or as the clearest signal they’ll get.

If your organization is working through how to lead across generations while AI changes the work itself, this is what I help leaders with every week. You can find me at JeffUtecht.com.

So I’ll ask you: what’s one unwritten rule in your workplace that a new hire would have no way of knowing?

Sources

• Gen Z isn’t bad at workplace communication—your company is bad at explaining its rules — Jeff LeBlanc (Boston University), Fortune / The Conversation, September 28, 2026
• Despite the entry-level job apocalypse, half of Gen Z are planning to look for new work elsewhere before the end of the year — Emma Burleigh, Fortune, September 25, 2026