A new healthcare workforce study reports that 70% of Gen Z healthcare workers expect to look for a new role (inside or outside their current organization) within the next year. Only 44% of Gen Z feel “very loyal” to their current employer. Those numbers seem to confirm Gen Z stereotypes:
- They aren’t loyal
- They’ll leave a job at the first opportunity
- They expect promotions too quickly
- They don’t want to “pay their dues”
If you’re an employer, that’s enough to make you question investing heavily in developing someone who may already have one foot out the door.
But keep reading.
The same research showed that 95% of Gen Z respondents said long-term job security is important. In addition, 65% said they expect to remain with one employer for at least five years.
Huh?
They expect to look for a new role. But they also want stability and expect to stay with one employer for years. The two findings actually don’t contradict each other. Together, they suggest how the next generation sees work, learning and loyalty.
Maybe they don’t want to leave. Maybe they want to grow.
The study, 2026 Healthcare Workforce Barometer, was conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Strategic Education, Inc. and Workforce Edge. It surveyed 1,514 full-time, patient-facing healthcare workers and 304 healthcare employers.
Important disclaimer: This is research within the healthcare industry, not workers’ compensation. Nobody should assume their findings automatically transfer to every industry or every Gen Z employee. But I would be equally cautious about ignoring what the data is telling us. Consider it a hypothesis worth testing in our own industry and across all generations.
Among Gen Z respondents, a strong majority felt professional development mattered: 89% said clear opportunities for advancement matter, 71% valued the speed of career progression, and 86% believed education or learning new skills would help them advance. They’re not afraid of work, but they do have clear expectations for progress in their careers.
To paraphrase, they’re asking: If I give you the next five years of my career, who can I become while I’m here?
That’s a fair question. Employers need an answer.
The following important statistics come from the same report but are not specific to Gen Z employees:
- 26% “have a great deal of trust that their employer will support their long-term career growth”
- 23% “trust their employer a great deal to be a partner in helping them advance their career”
Meanwhile, for employers:
- 47% point to “a lack of opportunities for career advancement, professional development, or education opportunities as the main reasons why employees leave”
These are the report’s exact words, and they should make every employer uncomfortable. Employers have a credibility problem with their own teams: they know development matters, but their employees aren’t convinced they’ll provide it. Eighty percent of healthcare employees say advancement matters, but only 26% trust their employer to support it. That 54-point gap is worth paying attention to.
Jill Anelli, Tanner Health’s senior vice president and chief human resources officer, told HealthLeaders, “People stay when they know they have a future in that organization.”
Retention isn’t simply about convincing someone not to quit. It is giving them a reason to stay.
A 24-year-old entering our industry today doesn’t just want to learn how to do the job. They want to know where it can lead and how far they can go.
For instance, someone may enter workers’ compensation as a trainee claims adjuster, but what’s next?
- Senior adjuster?
- Catastrophic claims specialist?
- Supervisor?
- Risk manager?
- Nurse case manager with the right credentials?
- Operations leader?
- Compliance specialist?
- Executive?
One of my favorite cartoons that I’ve used often in presentations on this subject asks two questions:
What if I train them and they leave? Developing someone who leaves can feel like an investment made for somebody else’s benefit.
What if you don’t train them and they stay? You now have an under-equipped employee on the team, and you’re the reason.
The survey found that 75% of healthcare employees are interested in continuing their education, and 81% would be interested in an employer-sponsored program. Yet only 48% of healthcare employers have a comprehensive workforce education strategy.
Talk about a disconnect.
Taking all of this into account, imagine interviewing a talented 25-year-old and being able to explain not merely the job you’re offering, but the education, certifications, mentoring and career pathways that can follow it. Now you’re not just offering employment, but a future. As one of the report’s section headers clearly states, “Purpose gets people into healthcare. Growth keeps them invested.”
A certificate sitting on someone’s wall is nice. Being better equipped to have a difficult conversation with an injured worker matters more. Understanding medical issues well enough to ask better questions matters more. Learning leadership skills that prepare someone to mentor the next generation matters more.
Education becomes professional development when employees can connect what they’re learning to what they can do, and what they can do to who they can become. Not education for education’s sake, but education that changes behavior, develops people, and creates possibilities.
Here’s the takeaway for two potential readers of this blog:
Employers: Resist interpreting Gen Z’s appetite for advancement as impatience. Instead, ask yourself whether you have shown them a future worth staying for.
- Have you identified the skills they’ll need to reach their potential?
- Are you providing education, coaching and mentorship to help them develop those skills?
- Do your youngest employees know what opportunities could exist two, five or ten years from now?
This week: pick one entry-level role, map its next two steps, and share the map with the person who holds it.
Gen Z professionals: If your employer invests in your development, invest in it too. Be curious, find mentors, ask questions. That approach has defined my career since 1980. Professional development isn’t something an employer does to you. It’s something you do together.
Whichever reader you are, here’s the good news: 86% of Gen Z healthcare workers believe education and new skills will help them advance, and 80% of all healthcare workers say clear opportunities for advancement matter to them.
They believe they can advance. They want to learn. They want to develop. They want to see what’s next.
The data is clear about what Gen Z wants, and just as clear about what many employers haven’t built. Every year that we wait, the people we most need to keep are deciding whether we mean it.
Instead of hoping they’ll stay, show them what their next five years look like. If you want help building the education that connects one step to the next, start a conversation about custom training. Gen Z doesn’t need convincing that growth matters. We do.
