For decades, career success had a shape everyone recognised. You started at entry level, you climbed, and you measured your progress in titles, pay rises, the size of your team and the size of your office. It was linear, hierarchical, and – for the generations who grew up with it – deeply motivating. Status was the incentive, and the ladder was the route.
That model is collapsing. In a recent #FromXtoZ podcast chat myself and Danielle Farage talked about some of the findings from a Deloitte survey of nearly 23,000 young workers across 44 countries.
Gen Z and Millennials aren’t mourning the loss of the career ladder. They’re building something entirely different in its place.
From Ladder to Web
The Deloitte research is striking not just for its scale but for the clarity of its findings. When asked about their career goals, only 6% of Gen Z respondents cited reaching a leadership role. Let that sit for a moment. The entire architecture of the traditional workplace – the management tiers, the promotions, the performance reviews oriented around “progression” – has been built on the assumption that people wanted to move up. For most of Gen Z, that assumption is simply wrong.
What they want instead is harder to map on an organisational chart but no less purposeful: a web of experiences that weaves together skills development, wellbeing, financial security, and meaningful impact.
Success, for this generation, isn’t a destination at the top of a structure. It’s a living, evolving combination of things that matter – and that combination looks different for every person.
This isn’t aimlessness. It’s a rational response to the world they’ve inherited.
The Incentive Has Changed
Previous generations climbed because climbing worked. A promotion meant more money, more status, a bigger car, a better postcode. The rewards were tangible and socially legible. You knew you’d arrived because other people could see it.
For Gen Z, many of those rewards have either diminished or disappeared entirely. Housing markets have made the traditional milestones of adulthood feel remote for many young workers. Corporate loyalty has eroded in both directions – companies have spent decades demonstrating that employees are expendable, and Gen Z has noticed.
Why sacrifice your wellbeing climbing up a ladder when there’s no guarantee the rungs won’t be pulled out from under you?
Into that vacuum has come a different kind of motivation. This is a generation that grew up knowing that careers in purpose-driven organisations, with values-led work, are not just idealistic fantasies – they are real, viable options. The awareness of what’s possible has fundamentally reshaped what people are willing to work towards.
Learning as a Lifestyle, Not an Event
One of the most revealing findings from the Deloitte research concerns how Gen Z approaches learning. 70% say they develop skills on a weekly basis, and 67% invest time outside of work to keep pace with their field. This is not a generation waiting to be trained. It’s a generation that has internalised the reality of working in a world where the skills required today may be obsolete in eighteen months.
Context matters here. Gen Z is entering the workforce knowing they are likely to have around thirteen different careers across their lifetime. They are also the first generation to build their careers during a genuine AI revolution, with two thirds worried that automation will eliminate jobs and 61% concerned it will close off traditional entry-level pathways. The anxiety is real. But so is the response: learn constantly, broaden relentlessly, and never assume that what you know today is enough for tomorrow.
Alongside technical and digital skills, the research is clear that soft skills are considered essential by this generation. 85% identify communication, empathy, leadership and networking as must-haves – a recognition that in a world where AI handles more and more of the tactical work, distinctly human capabilities become more – not less – valuable.
The Management Gap Nobody Is Talking About
While most of the discussion around Gen Z at work focuses on what young people want, the Deloitte research also finds something equally important on the other side of the relationship: managers are failing the people who report to them – not out of indifference, but because the system won’t let them do otherwise.
The data shows that managers currently spend around 40% of their time firefighting and only 13% on developing their people. This is a structural failure with generational consequences. Gen Z is the cohort most openly hungry for mentorship, guidance, and the kind of hands-on development that comes from working alongside someone who will bring you into the room, explain the dynamics, and help you navigate the complexity. That “second row” learning – sitting in on a client meeting, being invited into a senior conversation not because you’re needed but because you’ll grow from it – is increasingly rare, and its absence is felt.
What This Means for Organisations
The companies that will thrive with Gen Z talent are those willing to retire the ladder as their primary organisational metaphor. That means rethinking how progression is defined and communicated, building genuine flexibility into career pathways, and investing in managers who have the time and skills to actually develop people rather than simply manage output.
It also means taking seriously the values that young workers are looking for. Purpose is not a soft extra that Gen Z want alongside their salary – for many, it is the primary reason they choose one employer over another, and the first thing that erodes when the day-to-day reality of a job fails to live up to its promise.
The Career Ladder had a good run. But the Career Web is already being built, whether organisations choose to support it or not.
You can check my full podcast chat with Danielle here – https://open.spotify.com/episode/26Bau1QR1cnMQIBUfQNWS8?si=cbce79a111e345f9 or through the image below:
Talent Trends & Insights 