"I don't want to be the team leader"...What is the "deliberate unboxing" that Gen Z office workers prefer?

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The trend of "conscious unbossing" is spreading among office workers in Generation Z (born in the mid-to-late 1990s and early 2010s).

'Intentional Unboshing' refers to a tendency to delay or avoid being promoted to an administrator as much as possible. It is analyzed that the desire for promotion has faded as more people pursue work-life balance, so-called "work-life balance."

Recently, the British media The Guardian and The Times reported that the trend of "deliberate unboshing" is spreading among Generation Z.

The media analyzed that "Generation Z is more interested in 'growth' such as improving individual capabilities than success in the workplace," and presented the results of research by local talent management (HR) companies.

According to a survey on promotions conducted by global recruitment consulting firm Robert Walters last month centered on Gen Z in the UK, 52% of respondents said they "do not want a middle managerial position." Of these, 69% recognized that "middle managers have high stress but low compensation." 16% of the respondents said they wanted to avoid middle managers completely.

On the other hand, they were found to be more interested in individual growth than workplace success. Seventy-two percent of the respondents said they prefer to spend time on personal growth and skill accumulation rather than managing their subordinates.

Gen Z has less loyalty to the company, said Lucy Bissett, director of Robert Walters. "Avoiding the role of a middle manager could be a problem for employers later on."

This situation is not much different in Korea. In a survey of 1,114 office workers of the MZ generation (born in the early 1980s and early 2000s) conducted by Job Korea, a job platform, last year, 54.8% of the respondents said they had no intention of getting promoted to executives.

For that reason, 43.6% of the respondents said, "It is burdensome to take responsibility."

Then, executives thought it would be practically difficult to get promoted (20.0%), executives thought it would be impossible to work-life balance (13.3%), they did not want to become executives (11.1%), and they did not want to work long at the company (9.8%).

Reporter Park Sun-young of Digital News Team