Courtesy of Zehra Naqvi, Sam Farber, Joshua Roizman
- Gen Z is more interested in working from the office than any other generation.
- Many young workers think face-to-face interactions will help them grow their careers.
- But when managers aren't in the office, these workers might miss out on those opportunities.
Sam Farber doesn't want to be the smartest person in the room. But if he's working from his bedroom, that's inevitable.
That's why Farber is excited to start his first full-time job next month. It'll be in person five days a week at JPMorgan in Chicago.
Farber, 22, wants to learn from older colleagues — by sitting in on phone calls, listening to presentations, and grabbing coffee with execs.
"At JPMorgan, you're probably never going to be the smartest person in the room," he told Insider. "And that's a great thing — when you're able to absorb from so many smart individuals."
Farber is one of many Gen Zers excited to work IRL, in part, to study colleagues who've grown up in the business. The trouble is, those more-senior people aren't always around. Established workers who ghost the office often find that skipping the commute benefits their quality of life — giving them time for things such as taking care of kids. But these people's work-from-home setups might not be so good for the greenest employees, who often learn by observing and interacting with higher-ups.
It's clear many workers aren't rushing to the office, despite some employers' efforts to call them back. Badge-swipe data from Kastle Systems indicated the occupancy rate for mid-July at more than 2,600 buildings monitored by the company across 10 large US metropolitan areas averaged 49.1%.
And it's not just a US issue. While office occupancy rates tend to be higher in Asia and Europe than in the US, a November McKinsey Global Institute online survey of some 13,000 full-time employees across six countries found only about 37% said they worked from an office five days a week.
Gen Zers see the office as a place to grow
Despite having grown up online, Gen Zers dislike working from home more than other generations. Among Gen Z, 57% want in-person jobs, according an online survey of about 3,100 US job seekers conducted by Jobslist in the final months of 2022. The same survey found only one in three millennial and Gen X workers prefer IRL. For boomers, it was 37%.
The Gen Z sentiment checks out for Farber.
"We have things like Slack, but I believe there's an overabundance of softwares trying to make it easier to work from home," Farber, who worked in the JPMorgan office during an internship last summer, said. "You can't replace being in the office and that comradery."
In Farber's case, he should have plenty of company at the office. JPMorgan, like other large financial firms, is requiring many workers to be in the office most days.
Zehra Naqvi, a 24-year-old at a financial-services company, said she works from her office every day because she gets her questions answered quickly and because she gets a fast read on how she's doing.
"Having people on my team who had been doing the job for a year give me feedback on how I talked to a founder or how I explained something — that really helped my growth," Naqvi said.
She's also grown more confident in presenting herself, which is crucial for her career, she said.
"Being in the office was really helpful for me to find my footing and lean into becoming the leader that I am now," Naqvi said.
"To a degree, you are performing," she said, adding that being in the office helps her be more aware of how she comes across to other people.
Without mentors, the office space loses purpose for Gen Z
Much of what Naqvi learned, and what Farber hopes to learn, comes from watching others.
Davina Ramkissoon, a workplace psychologist in Dublin, said some fresh-faced workers worried they wouldn't get the development opportunities they wanted.
"Sometimes you just learn via osmosis — and seeing different experiences happen in real time," she said.
Joshua Roizman, a Gen Z employee at a software-development company, said he understood why some in other generations might not want to schlep back to the office.
"If I was an older millennial, I wouldn't have the drive to come back to the office if I have a kid at home and I could take him to school," Roizman said.
Yet Roizman, 25, has gone into the office just to sit on a Zoom call with his manager who's remote, he said.
"I was yearning for this idea of 'off-the-cuff' wisdom that I believe mentors or older folks give," he added. "You don't get that when you're on a Zoom call."