How India Inc employers are reading Union Budget 2026’s long-term growth bet

For decades, Indian work­places ran on an unspoken bar­gain: show up, stay loyal, wait your turn and suc­cess will fol­low. Gen­er­a­tion Z, Gen Z or Zoomers, never signed that con­tract. By 2025, India’s Gen Z pop­u­la­tion (those born between 1997 and 2012) stood at an estim­ated 377 mil­lion, accord­ing to the BCG–Snapchat report The $2 Tril­lion Oppor­tun­ity: How Gen Z Is Shap­ing the New India. Once on the mar­gins, Gen Z has now moved firmly into the work­force main­stream, already account­ing for one in four work­ers. The report estim­ates this share will reach 36% by 2030 and nearly half the work­force (47%) by 2035.

And employ­ers are being forced to con­front an uncom­fort­able truth: the old rules are no longer work­ing.

BEYOND PAYCHEQUES

Gen Z entered the work­force amid over­lap­ping dis­rup­tions: a pan­demic, eco­nomic volat­il­ity, rapid digit­isa­tion, and now arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI)-led trans­form­a­tion. Accord­ing to Anshuman Das, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Co-founder of recruit­ment ser­vices firm Career­net, these con­di­tions have fun­da­ment­ally reshaped how this gen­er­a­tion eval­u­ates work.

Rather than pri­or­it­ising long hours or rigid hier­arch­ies, Gen Z places greater value on learn­ing, clear career pro­gres­sion, pur­pose, and flex­ib­il­ity. Roles are assessed not only on pay but on growth poten­tial, qual­ity of ment­or­ship, team cul­ture, and align­ment with organ­isa­tional val­ues along­side expect­a­tions of mod­ern ways of work­ing.

For employ­ers, this marks a fun­da­mental shift in the tal­ent equa­tion. Das notes that Gen Z is vocal, research-driven, and quick to move on when expect­a­tions around growth, recog­ni­tion, or cul­ture are not met. Merit-based advance­ment is pre­ferred over seni­or­ity, lead­ers are expec­ted to be digit­ally flu­ent, and man­agers are val­ued more as coaches than con­trol­lers.

Yet des­pite mount­ing evid­ence, many Indian organ­isa­tions con­tinue to struggle with exe­cu­tion.

While many Indian employ­ers believe they under­stand Gen Z, exe­cu­tion often tells a dif­fer­ent story. Accord­ing to Career­net’s Das, the gap lies in per­sist­ence with leg­acy hir­ing and man­age­ment mod­els. Zoomers place far less value on fixed struc­tures and formal hier­arch­ies and far more on speed, trans­par­ency, and respons­ive­ness.

Slow hir­ing cycles, lim­ited digital inter­ac­tion, and delayed clar­ity around role pro­gres­sion or com­pens­a­tion can quickly erode trust.

To stay rel­ev­ant, Das argues, annual apprais­als must give way to con­tinu­ous, coach­ing-led feed­back, and per­form­ance sys­tems need to be redesigned around skills and learn­ing. Man­agers must be trained in emo­tional intel­li­gence and devel­op­mental lead­er­ship, while flex­ib­il­ity must be embed­ded into sys­tems.

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