The workplace culture has been witnessing some pretty drastic changes in the past few years. Where at one time employees were all about ambition and climbing that corporate ladder, now, on the other hand, the concept of anti-ambition has seen a steady rise in popularity.
The professional sector has always pushed employees to be ambitious, to never take their current position as the final one and instead to keep pushing to climb higher, in both prestige and importance.
But over the last decade, this traditional, almost instinctive drive has begun to shift, especially among younger generations. A growing number of young workers, particularly Gen Z and even Millennials, are redefining what it means to succeed.
They’re sceptical of the old hustle or grind culture and increasingly inclined to reject the relentless pursuit of promotions and titles in favour of balance, mental well-being and autonomy.
What Is Anti-Ambition?
Since time immemorial, ambition has always been a word pushed by managers, executives, all these billionaires and wealthy founders, toward young workers joining the workforce. They keep hyping up how ambition is the thing that drives the world and how everyone needs to be ambitious to survive the rat race.
This ambition is supposed to push that young employee to work harder, longer and with more focus to rise in their status faster, earn more and collect titles like trophies.
However, now, there has been a significant shift, especially in the last few years, where Gen Z and Millennial workers are actively rejecting this concept of ambition, instead choosing to follow the path of anti-ambition.
Recent surveys around the global workforce seem to reveal this as well, with many not feeling “ambitious” in the traditional career sense, and another finding that many young employees have no interest in climbing the corporate ladder.
Aarav, 24, a Bengaluru-based data analyst, speaking with India Today, said, “I don’t dream of becoming a manager anymore. I’ve seen my seniors burn out by 30. If ambition means being permanently stressed, I don’t want it.”
According to a recent India Today report, a Gen Z workforce survey revealed, “52 per cent of young adults prioritise emotional stability over career growth, while 41 per cent say they would willingly accept lower pay for predictable hours and psychological safety.”
Read More: Why Are Gen Z Giving Less Of Themselves To Work Out Of Choice?
Anti-ambition at the workplace can include declining promotion if it means longer working hours or staying on-call 24/7, passing up leadership roles if they don’t come with adequate compensation or autonomy.
Furthermore, instead of going above and beyond, employees are choosing to do only what their job demands, while also laying emphasis on leaves, personal time and boundaries over higher status or salary.
It is not surprising that this phenomenon is taking off these days, considering that burnout culture has been plaguing the younger generations for some time now. The World Health Organisation (WHO) also officially recognised it in 2019 as an occupational phenomenon under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).
As per the WHO, “Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”
The COVID-19 pandemic also had a big impact on this shift taking place among employees, and not just that, but to the point where they are no longer satisfied with the conventional workplace rules, and are intent on changing them.
As per a 2022 report by The Spill, a 360Learning survey found that “48% of people are now happiest outside of work, and 37% acknowledge that work became less important following the pandemic.”
Irene Anggreeni, a mental wellness coach and psychotherapist, commenting on this explained, “I think the great resignation was triggered by the vast amount of time we had to actually slow down and re-evaluate our priorities. The lockdowns served as disruptions in our autopilot, hustle mode. With much fewer distractions, we finally came face-to-face with who we are inside, what we find important in our lives, whether our illusion of success or happiness was still holding up to the reality of the moment.”
Startups, a UK media publication, in their 2023 report, quoted Alice Martin, a Gen Z employee at a global marketing company based in London, saying how the rise of anti-work or anti-ambition could be because of “a growing awareness that for many people hard work does not necessarily equal financial stability. We see lots of very hard-working people that get paid unfairly as well as people achieving success through non-meritocratic means. I think that makes a lot of young people a little jaded about the point of working.”
Besides anti-ambition, this concept is also known by other terms, including quiet quitting or soft ambition, where it’s not laziness or a lack of goals, but the realisation that fulfilment can come from other avenues as well.
The young workers are also tuning into the fact that nothing, no promotion or salary hike or corner office, is worth destroying their personal happiness or mental health over.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: India Today, The New York Times, The Guardian
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
This post is tagged under: Anti-Ambition, young professionals, young employees, employees, ambition, rat race, career race, Career Burnout, Changing Work Norms, corporate india, hustle culture, mental health at work, Modern Workplaces, Office Culture India, Work Culture, Youth and Work, Youth Workforce
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