White paper on Millennials and Generation Z

2020 forced many of us to tackle monumental new challenges while continuing to grapple with long-standing issues, including mental health in the workplace. Indeed, despite rising levels of vaccination in some countries and the reopening of economies, the Deloitte Global 2021 Millennial and Gen Z Survey shows that stress and anxiety levels remain high.

Deloitte Global’s research, which was conducted at the beginning of 2021 and surveyed nearly 23,000 millennial and Gen Z respondents from across 45 countries, reveals that some worrying mental health data trends from the 2020 Millennial Survey have continued into 2021. Millennials and Gen Zs surveyed said that the pandemic has served to increase the stress and anxiety they feel, with women experiencing higher levels of stress.

Despite more discussion about mental health during the pandemic, the survey has also shown that stigma at work endures. Millennials and Gen Zs surveyed remain hesitant about vocalizing their increased stress and anxiety to employers, with nearly six in 10 saying that they did not tell their leader how they were feeling—furthermore, an astounding 49% and 47% of millennials and Gen Zs who have taken time off work for mental health reasons have given their employer a different reason for this absence.. And this stigma is not only in the workplace—approximately half of millennials and Gen Zs surveyed believe that discrimination based on the state of someone’s mental health frequently happens in their country.

This year’s survey serves both as a reminder as to how much remains to be done when it comes to mental health at work and as a call to action for all organizations.