18 early warning signs your Gen Z employee might quit

One of the earliest warning signs with Gen Z hires is “quiet disconnection” from purpose. They may still show up, meet deadlines, and perform well on paper, but the spark fades from their curiosity. You’ll notice fewer questions in meetings, less initiative in proposing ideas, or a subtle withdrawal from collaborative discussions.

Gen Z professionals, in particular, place a high value on meaningful contribution and growth transparency. When they start feeling like their work is just “tasks” instead of part of something larger, that’s often the first emotional step toward leaving.

What’s worked for me is creating frequent alignment check-ins, not just about performance, but about fit. I’ll ask, “Which part of your work feels most meaningful right now?” or “What would make this project feel more like yours?” Those questions often surface concerns long before resignation ever enters the conversation.

The key lesson: Gen Z doesn’t quit suddenly; they drift first. Spotting that drift early and reconnecting it to purpose is how you turn potential exits into renewed engagement.

A drop in engagement during in-person discussions, especially in the setting of team meetings, is often a leading indicator that they may quit. I have found Gen Z hires to be generally very enthusiastic, energized, and vocal. Therefore, when there is a big drop in sound bites, it might be a great time to check in. This helps diagnose the issue early and, at a minimum, identify potential drivers for the drop in engagement and, in the best-case scenario, you might even be able to address their needs and concerns early enough to avoid a voluntary exit.

A clear sign that a person of Gen Z on your team is planning an exit is if you see they disengage. This can appear as asking fewer questions in team meetings, responding to messages more slowly, or becoming less excited about new work. Most importantly, this generation prioritizes purpose and growth over job security, so disengagement means that Gen Z talent is most likely no longer on a path for growth or alignment with your organizational values.

Another obvious sign is if they start asking you fewer questions about long-term objectives or upcoming new work. When curiosity starts to drift, motivation often starts to fade.

The best way to get in front of this is to regularly schedule one-on-one conversations, with the primary takeaway from those meetings geared towards building connection with the employee regarding not just performance but how they want to grow as individuals beyond the role. Providing feedback, coaching, and clear steps to progression is important if you want Gen Z talent to feel valued. When they feel the organization is invested in their development for the future, it is likely they will engage in the workplace.

Gen Z tends to be a very straightforward generation, and that holds true even during the hiring process. I’ve not yet met one who isn’t open about their short- and long-term plans. But too often, hiring managers don’t listen, or perhaps they assume dishonesty and don’t bother asking.

But as a recruiter, I know that simply inquiring with your Gen Z hires, both during the process and as they settle into their roles, is the best way to discover what their plans are.

Managers need to stop dancing around the topic. If you suspect a worker is considering moving on, bring it up. Don’t resort to petty games or backchannel gossip. Avoid rumors entirely. Instead, communicate. Often, this is all it takes to step in and retain the employee: just conversation and openness. And if they are looking for something more substantial, like a salary increase, it gives you the time to weigh your own options.

One indication that a Gen Z hire may be mentally checking out is a noticeable reduction in proactiveness in cross-functional learning. In our company, where strategy and design are integrated, success is inherently tied to being knowledgeable about the overall business lifecycle. When junior-level employees stop trying to understand the departments that fall outside of their direct reporting structure, they are signaling disengagement.

For example, a junior designer who stops attending the weekly strategy deep dive or a person on the content team who has ceased asking about our proprietary consumer testing methodologies has shifted their mental commitment. They have curtailed their cognitive perspective strictly to either assigned or expected work, which may ultimately mean their level of intellectual commitment to the future of the company has waned. We see a strong correlation between this narrowed focus and resignation notice of employment within the next 90 days, about 72% of the time. This particular type of intellectual disengagement is an important pre-exit behavior that should be noted and monitored.

When we build complex things, whether it’s code or a team, we’re taught to look for the obvious error signals. We watch for spikes in latency, listen for loud complaints, and spot visible friction. But the most dangerous sign of failure is almost always silence.

The most reliable sign a talented young employee is about to quit isn’t that they’re complaining. It’s that the kinds of questions they ask have changed, or worse, they’ve stopped asking them entirely.

The shift can be subtle. A bright, engaged person joins the team asking a ton of “why” questions. Why did we choose this architecture? Why do we define the goal this way? Have we considered another approach? This kind of curiosity is the engine that drives improvement and grinds away at bad assumptions. The real warning sign is when those “why” questions fade away, replaced by simple “what” questions. What’s the next ticket? What is the deadline?

When this happens, it means they’ve stopped trying to understand or improve the system. They have resigned themselves to just executing tasks within it. They’ve concluded that the machine is unchangeable, and they are better off spending their intellectual energy somewhere else.

I remember a gifted junior machine learning engineer who, for her first six months, challenged every feature engineering decision we made. Her critiques were sharp, insightful, and they made our models better. Then, it felt like it happened overnight. She just stopped. Her work was still excellent, but those challenging questions in our stand-ups vanished.

When I asked her about it, she gave a simple, polite answer about trusting the process. Two months later, she resigned. She had found a company that she felt was still asking “why.” It taught me that when your brightest people stop pushing back, it doesn’t mean they’ve accepted the status quo. It means they’ve accepted it isn’t going to change.

Right now, one early sign is reflected in the way a Gen Z hire takes in new information. Their pace generally remains constant, so if there is a sudden drag in the rate at which they work their way through the simple steps, then their interest is slipping. In many ways, the shift is evident in quiet moments as they take time before using tools that previously felt easy or take more time before asking for clarity, which they previously asked for with no hesitation. The truth is, this slow change is indicative of something deeper because they stop feeling like they are progressing in the role, and their engagement thins out in ways that are easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention.

At the same time, their conversations remain polite as the spark fades, and their questions become lighter. More importantly, their effort starts to seem mechanical rather than purposeful. What this really means is that leaders have a short window of time to step in with some clear direction to give them a reason to stay before the slide becomes permanent.

One early warning signal is a sudden change in engagement with their routine communication. The flow of construction and design work relies on consistent back-and-forth engagement among the crew, designers, and suppliers, so I notice very quickly when a younger hire stops responding to updates or stops contributing during quick site huddles. The work gets out of balance because the rest of the team continues to move forward and the worker’s pace begins to pull out of rhythm.

Another sign appears when they stop asking small clarifying questions that normally come up when we are checking layouts or selections for finishes. A little bit of curiosity goes a long way in keeping the job clean, but if the worker doesn’t embrace those questions, that silence means they have moved their consideration elsewhere. That transition will happen weeks prior to any formal discussions and almost always indicates they are preparing to leave.

The Gen Z employees I’ve worked with tend to care a great deal about the bigger picture: why something is important, why we’re doing it this way, how it contributes to the overarching mission. When they stop and only ask how to do the job, I see it as a signal that they’re about to mentally check out. A sense of curiosity is one of the first things that atrophies when you’re in job-search mode.

A common early warning sign that a Gen Z employee might quit is when their communication rhythm starts to slip. Things like missing deadlines often, delayed responses to emails or Slack messages, or showing less initiative in meetings are a few examples.

Typically, these actions alone don’t mean much, as anyone can have a bad day or week. However, if multiple of them happen often, then it’s a matter of concern. Gen Z values transparency and mental health more, so when consistency in communication drops, it’s often a red flag that they’re preparing to leave or don’t find fulfillment at work.

First off, watch out for more sick days or personal time than usual, especially when it’s out of the blue. If someone suddenly needs tons of weird excuses, like going to the dentist all the time, they’re probably just not into their job anymore.

Also, you’ll notice when their energy changes. If they used to share ideas, question things, or care about how things turned out, but now they just agree with everything, they’re probably checked out and are getting ready to look for a new job. Some people even act the opposite. If they were annoyed all the time and now they’re super chill and happy, that might be because they’ve already decided to leave.

And if they work at the office, look at their desk. If they start taking their stuff home, they’re getting ready to leave.

A sure sign that your Gen Z hires may be planning to leave is a sudden and noticeable reduction in their digital communication frequency and tone. My experience running the Espresso Translations agency, which deals with global communication based in London, means that I see digital patterns every day. Unlike past generations who may have become less vocal in person, a Gen Z professional may signal their imminent departure by subconsciously pulling away from the primary online channels they typically dominate. They may go from using Slack or Teams daily to only checking them once or twice to check for meetings they need to attend. The tone of their written responses can change from friendly or highly engaged, perhaps using their typical set of emojis or informal language, to strictly formal and terse communication. When someone who generally responds to messages within five minutes is now taking four hours to acknowledge a simple query and their email messages are void of any of their usual personality quirks, this is a good indication they are mentally checking out.