In the past year, some employees have been "quiet quitting" where they do the bare minimum instead of going above and beyond at work.

Similar to 'work to rule' or presenteeism, the phenomenon has become widely talked about on the popular app TikTok, where many Generation Z employees are promoting the practice.

Damien McCarthy is the CEO of consultancy firm HR Buddy and he has worked with Generation Z.

He told Newstalk Breakfast that we should cut them some slack.

"Quiet quitting actually always existed in workplaces and it's actually very damaging and quite unfair and inaccurate and untrue to just brand Gen Zs as the people who are quiet quitting", he said.

"It seems an awful lot more in the present time that quiet quitting may have something to do as a reaction to COVID and I suppose or return from a wellbeing point of view to the hustle and bustle of normal life."

"Many of us would have made promises to ourselves that we weren't going to go back to the same pressures and stress of life."

"A resilient bunch"

Mr McCarthy said that workplaces need to positively embrace the challenges that a new generation brings, as they have with others in the past.

Generation Z is "quite a resilient bunch", according to him, as they've lived though recession and most recently the pandemic. 

"They value things like diversity and inclusion, most definitely mental health and well being more so than any age demographic gone before them."

"Ageism"

He said that the the current view of the generation is "unbalanced".

"They're the future of the workplace. The youngest of Gen Z-ers at the moment is 10 years of age and the majority are Gen Z are heading off to school this morning, you know, so  it's a bit unfair to start branding generation like that." 

"If you were to do that to another age demographic, it would be called ageism."

Listen back to the full conversation here.

Main image shows a Gen Z man using smartphone SeventyFour Images/Alamy