Clash of the generations

A few Mondays ago, I got a call from a young team member. “I won’t be coming in today. Rough night,” she said. “Are you unwell?” I asked. “Sort of. Hangover,” she said.

There was no drama, no guilt. Just an easy honesty I wasn’t used to. And I remember sitting there recalling how my twenty-something self would’ve crawled to work, clutching a coffee like a badge of honour.

That call stayed with me. A small moment of honesty that said so much about how work feels different today. A new grammar of ambition that no longer glorifies suffering.

It made me realise that the workplace today is really where cultures collide. Where three generations, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z, show up every morning, carrying different memories of what work is supposed to mean.

The result? A creative field buzzing with ideas, but also brimming with misunderstandings.

Gen X: The builders

For Gen X, work is structured. They grew up in an era when opportunities were scarce and competition was a matter of survival. You showed up, you stayed late, you proved worth. Ambition meant endurance.

They built the ladders, the processes, the rituals of professionalism. So, when they see younger teams frogging (jumping jobs) or ghosting (disappearing), it feels personal, like the rules of gravity have changed. But their steadiness, their bias for commitment, is the scaffolding many agencies still stand on.

Millennials: The straddlers

Millennials inherited that scaffolding and then watched it shake. They entered the workforce in a globalising, digitalising, hyper-competitive India where passion was currency. ‘Do what you love’ was the mantra, but ‘do it all’ became the mandate.

They became experts in adapting: fluent in Gen X discipline, yet alert to Gen Z freedom. Yet they’re also the most exhausted, toggling between KPIs and self-care reels. They are the translators in the middle, often trying to explain one generation to another, while quietly renegotiating their own burnout.

Gen Z: The rewriters

For Gen Z, ambition is best described as modular. A job is not a marriage; it’s a project. They choose alignment over allegiance, wellness over worship. Their vocabulary -- ghosting, benching, revenge quitting -- may sound flippant, but it’s really emotional shorthand for autonomy.

They’re discerning. They want feedback, not follow-up; belonging, not bonding exercises. And they have no patience for performative hustle because they’ve seen what it costs. When they say no, it’s not rejection; it’s recalibration.

Three ambitions, one office

In agencies, which by nature are creative, chaotic and deeply human, these worlds often collide. Gen X values stability; they see work as a calling. Millennials chase meaning, approaching work as an identity. And the youngest, Gen Z seeks balance and work is just one piece of life. None are wrong; they’re just shaped by different economies, technologies, and truths.

The challenge for agency leaders then is to design spaces where these ambitions can coexist.

If you lead teams spanning three decades, here’s a practical lens, a generational coexistence checklist, if you will, to build workplaces that flex.

• Revisit the rules, not the values Keep the integrity of deadlines, but question rituals that no longer serve. Is staying late really passion or just a pattern?
• Design for dialogue, not monologue Replace townhalls with roundtables. Let Gen Z question, millennials co-create, and Gen X contextualise. Ambition today is collaborative, not command-driven.
• Reward outcome, not optics Don’t conflate long hours with loyalty. Measure creativity, ownership, and contribution — not chair time.
• Mentor across, not just down Pair Gen X’s experience with Gen Z’s experimentation. Millennials can be cultural interpreters in the middle.
• Normalise fluid growth A zigzag career isn’t instability; it’s curiosity. Offer lateral moves, passion projects, and sabbaticals.
• Name the friction Don’t tiptoe around generational tension. Surface it. Decode it. Let each group explain their ‘why’. Understanding begins with articulation.

Let’s face it. The future workplace is both hybrid in format and in atmosphere. A place where ambition isn’t one-size-fits-all, but one-size-fits-now.

While hustle built the industry, hesitation is humanising it and somewhere in between lies the real work: learning to listen across generations. If agencies can master that, they won’t just retain talent; they will also attract it.

-Rutu Mody-Kamdar, founder, Jigsaw Consultants