Gen Z workers are 16 times more likely to distrust their colleagues

NEW YORK, UNITED STATES — Gen Z employees are far more isolated at work than any other generation, with 1 in 5 having taken time off due to workplace loneliness in the past year, according to a report from Fortune.

Gen Z’s workplace trust gap dwarfs older generations

“We’re living in a world where we’re hyper-connected online and yet experiencing high rates of loneliness and anxiety. Gen Z might simply be feeling this mismatch most acutely,” said Carrie Varoquiers, Chief Impact Officer at Workday. 

The survey found Gen Z workers are 16 times more likely than Gen X to distrust coworkers, 12 times more likely to feel completely disconnected from colleagues, and nearly 8 times more likely to feel lonely at work.

Over 4 in 10 Gen Z staffers rarely or never discuss anything beyond work tasks with colleagues — and over a third say they have no coworker they trust enough to discuss personal issues.

Pandemic starts left Gen Z without social fundamentals

The Workday report identified a root cause common across respondents: “Without the in-office rituals older colleagues learned from (think: shadowing a manager, overhearing how a deal gets done, or casually chatting after a meeting), Gen Zers are still working through how to lean on their colleagues and build shared trust.”

Among Gen Z workers surveyed, 39% report difficulty making friends at work.

A separate measure found 1 in 5 Gen Z employees feel lonely at work often or very often.

The trust deficit carries tangible business costs: 6 in 10 employers report having fired a Gen Z hire straight out of college, while only 8% of hiring professionals believe Gen Z is prepared for the workplace.

Less than 25% of Gen Z respondents themselves believe their generation is ready for work — a rare instance of a workforce demographic and their employers agreeing on a problem while differing sharply on whose job it is to solve it.

BPO providers and offshore staffing firms employ large Gen Z cohorts across delivery centers in the Philippines, India, and other high-volume markets where this demographic is increasingly the frontline workforce. 

The disconnection findings are a direct operational risk signal: attrition and performance gaps driven by social isolation are structurally more common in remote-first or distributed environments, the exact conditions BPO workers spend their careers in. 

Providers who build deliberate onboarding rituals, peer trust mechanisms, and social infrastructure are managing a measurable business risk the data now quantifies.