A junior social media manager in the technology sector — let’s call her Heather — was experiencing considerable work stress. After a big layoff, her company started demanding their employees put in “hardcore” hours to increase productivity. The leadership team seemed eager to prove they could “do more with less,” following in the footsteps of tech giants like Meta, Google, and Twitter. Worried about the uncertainty of her role, Heather wondered, “Is this the right place for me?” She began to do the bare minimum, weighing her options. Perhaps it was time to move on.
Like Heather, who was one of our coaching clients, if you’re a new grad entering the workforce, you may be rightfully concerned about job security and advancement, especially as you grapple with college debt, inflation, and fears of a recession. When faced with unexpected or challenging work conditions, you may reactively disengage, become frustrated, and join the 77% of Gen Zs currently looking for a new role.
Your first instinct to quit is natural. It’s a part of your “fight-or-flight” response, the psychological reaction people experience when they sense a looming threat. While this survival mechanism helps you react quickly in a life-threatening situations, it can also cause you to be rash at work. Leaving a company may be the right choice in toxic work situations, but if you’re throwing in the towel just to avoid confronting a difficult situation, it likely won’t serve you long term — and it’s not your only option.
Before you make this big choice, consider using these strategies to analyze and work through whatever challenge you’re facing at work.
1) Figure out why you want to remove yourself.
If you’re feeling disempowered or unmotivated to change the conditions that make you unhappy at work, you need to understand why. Ask yourself these questions to figure out what’s stopping you from tackling your challenges.
Do you think your voice doesn’t matter?
If you joined the workforce in the past three years, you might have missed out on traditional onboarding, team-building activities, and the opportunity to build strong face-to-face professional relationships. Now, you want to establish your voice, but tenured colleagues often dismiss what you say due to your age, experience, or generational divides.
You’re not alone: 16% of Gen Z workers say they can’t express their opinions to leaders at work, and 42% fear they’ll be punished if they do, according to UKG Workforce Institute. However, finding ways to overcome these obstacles and building the confidence to raise your voice is essential to your success — no matter where you work. Whether you stay or leave, you’ll need to address this at some point.
Do you feel isolated in this experience?
If you believe your issues with work only impact you, you may be hesitant to confront and them. However, if you speak to your peers, you will likely realize that others feel similarly and have the same worries or concerns.
Often, when we realize that we’re not alone, we’re more emboldened to tackle a challenge for the collective benefit. When you shift your mindset from “me to we,” you acknowledge that you’re part of something bigger. This new perspective can help you realize that you’re not being selfish for wanting better conditions and it’s worth speaking up for what’s right for you and your peer group.
Do you believe one person can’t make a difference?
As a young professional, it’s easy to feel that you don’t have the experience, ability, or agency to make a difference. Yet, change happens when one person takes action. Throughout history, there have been numerous examples of change being driven by the leadership of one, such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Greta Thunberg, and Malala Yousafzai, as well as members of Gen Z. If you take the initiative to speak out about a problem at work, you’ll likely find others are willing to work with you to solve it.
2) Come up with a plan.
To thrive at work, you need to empower yourself to act. You have the choice and the ability to do something other than quit, and when you do, it may just jumpstart the motivation that you’ve lost. Reframe your position from being “helpless” to “having the agency” to influence the challenging situation. It all starts with making a plan.
Process your disappointments.
Before you can move towards a better future, mourn your feelings about the past. Take time to process the emotions surrounding your situation. Maybe you’re frustrated because work conditions have shifted. Maybe you’re sad about a big layoff. Or maybe ambiguous expectations are causing you stress.
Whatever it is, the past is the past. Feel your feelings so that you can let them go. You can only affect change for the future.
Figure out what needs to change.
Sometimes, we assume changes are impossible to make without ever trying to see them through. This is how Heather, our coaching client, was feeling at her workplace. While her current situation was unsustainable, she was also unsure of how to improve it.
To help her out of this trap, we suggested she use this exercise, and you can use it to: Break down the challenges you’re experiencing into smaller, more specific issues. Then, think about how you would address each if you were in charge. You’ll gain more clarity if you play the role of an objective observer, psychologically removing yourself from the situation.
Try approaching your challenge as a business problem. Shifting your mindset to think like “a boss” will help you see things from a new perspective and maybe even find common ground with the “powers that be.”
In Heather’s case, the big problem was significant stress caused by unreasonable expectations around her productivity. She broke it down by first considering why her manager hadn’t taken the time to speak with her individually about the workload changes (smaller issue 1). Then, she realized that her manager, too, was probably given more responsibilities from the division head (smaller issue 2). As a result, the team was being overworked without understanding why (smaller issue 3). When she came to this realization, Heather saw that the situation wasn’t personal. Every team member, including her manager, had been impacted by the recent layoffs.
Through this exercise, Heather identified what was driving her frustration: the trickle-down effect of the leadership team’s lack of transparency. If her manager had initially discussed the needs of their department with her and her team, they could have more thoughtfully distributed projects and avoided overwork. Further, her expanded job scope didn’t leverage her strengths, and she felt underappreciated despite her hard work.
Now, Heather knew what she wanted to change: She needed more transparency and recognition from her manager.
3) Start building your influence.
Influence is about building a strong foundation of trust with other people in order to open communication channels and make sure your message is heard and accepted. While you may not feel you have the power to make direct changes in the workplace, you do have the ability to influence people in decision-making positions, as well as your peers.
The key is to build connections with these people. Once you’ve formed a foundation of trust and respect, your feedback and ideas will carry more weight. Heather, for example, needed to be strategic in gaining her boss’s trust before outwardly pitching her ideas.
To start building influence, consider the following strategies:
Strengthen your professional relationships.
The goal is to have vulnerable, open discussions with people in positions of power — but as a first step, you just need to get to know them. Ask them to grab a coffee or lunch to learn more about their career journeys, perspectives, and motivations.
If you feel comfortable, comment on the recent changes or issues at your organization — not to criticize them, but to ask their opinions. Then listen with the intent to understand. Once you’ve heard them out, respectfully share your point of view. The discussion will be more productive if you come off as impartial (not looking to place blame) and meet them where they are.
The way to exert influence is to change other people’s views and behaviors. You can do this by approaching these opportunities with curiosity to show your interest in finding common ground. This may take time — a few lunches or a few coffees — but when the time is right, and trust has been established, offer your honest feedback. The decision-maker will be more likely to take it seriously.
Hone your communication style.
Influential communication is all about catering to your audience. As you build relationships with your own boss or other key decision-makers, pay attention to their communication styles. Are they more visual (relying on charts and data to understand)? Or are they moved by personal stories (swayed by emotional narratives about you and your colleagues)? When sharing ideas, shift your style to accommodate the leader you want to influence. They’ll be more likely to hear and understand you this way.
For example, an empathetic leader may be influenced by hearing a story about how the new in-office mandate is impacting your mental health, whereas a data-driven leader may appreciate the same information in form of reported stats. Whatever approach you take, be clear and focused in your storytelling.
Demonstrate your expertise.
Showcasing your knowledge, capabilities, skills, and experience on a particular subject will build your credibility and reputation at work. This, in turn, will increase your influence. How do you do this? Identify a problem that your company needs to solve, and then use your expertise to propose potential solutions. It doesn’t have to be the big problem. In fact, if you start proving yourself in smaller steps, your boss and other leaders will be more likely to listen when you speak out about a larger issue.
For example, if technology is your strength, think about how you can leverage those skills to meet a need expressed by your manager or a leader in your organization. Maybe you know how to automate or streamline a difficult process, or how to use AI to improve productivity. When you solve a problem for someone else, you become more trustworthy, increasing your influence over that person.
Get the support of your peers.
Finally, build peer relationships with your Gen Z cohort with the goal of creating a psychologically safe space to discuss the challenges you’re facing at work. Consider joining or creating a Gen Z employee resource group (ERG). If your company doesn’t have those, a Slack channel will do. Use these spaces to share your concerns. Your discussions will help you identify and prioritize the changes you want to advocate for as a group. When you’re trying to make a change at work, there can be power in numbers.
. . .
In the end, our client Heather initiated a one-on-one conversation with her manager. She clearly and directly shared her concerns while acknowledging that her manager was probably feeling overextended, too. She expressed her interest in understanding the reasons behind the organizational changes and explained that she would have appreciated knowing sooner, as understanding the impact of her work gives her purpose and keeps her motivated.
By doing the work described above, Heather was able to approach the situation with a sense of clarity, agency, and a solution-focused mindset. She even identified ways to streamline her responsibilities and free up more time in her schedule. She didn’t quit. Instead, she built skills that will serve her for the rest of her career.
In your own situation, remember that it’s natural to avoid challenging situations at work. Still, learning how to manage them constructively is a growth opportunity. Before you quit your job, consider the costs and benefits. If you see more gains than losses in staying, don’t just stick it out — take the initiative to improve your situation.