In the Philippines, where long commutes are part of daily life, Gen Z workers often start the day already managing the strain between work and personal time.
According to the TomTom Traffic Index, traffic data shows that driving 10 kilometers in Manila can take about 27 minutes on average, and a Philippine congressional policy brief similarly cites roughly 27 minutes per 10 km for the City of Manila—an everyday grind that turns commuting into its own second job.
That friction helps explain why Gen Z tends to value flexibility as a form of wellness.
In a JobStreet study, Filipino workers favored stability, flexibility, and work-life balance, with the report noting that many are more likely to stay with employers offering work-from-home or hybrid options.
The ‘infinite workday’ comes to the phone
Hybrid work can shrink the commute, but it also collapses boundaries. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index special report describes an “infinite workday” fueled by digital workstreams: employees are interrupted as frequently as every two minutes during core work hours by meetings, emails, or chats, based on Microsoft 365 signals.
For Gen Z in the Philippines, where work often shares space with family life and limited living space, the boundary problem can be literal. The laptop sits on the dining table; the phone keeps vibrating past dinner; messages blur into “quick replies” that stretch the day into the night. The same tools that enable flexibility can quietly demand availability.
Deloitte’s global 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey adds context to why younger workers push back. Deloitte found that only 6 percent of Gen Z respondents said their primary career goal is to reach senior leadership, with many prioritizing a mix of money, meaning, and well-being in how they make career decisions.
Wellness tech becomes a coping tool
along with boundaries
This is where “digital & lifestyle wellness” shows up in real routines. Gen Z is comfortable using the phone not only for work but also for recovery, such as focus modes to protect attention, do-not-disturb settings after hours, calendar blocks for gym time, and sleep or meditation apps as part of wind-down habits.
The surge in wellness tools comes alongside a larger mental health conversation among young adults. AXA Philippines, citing its 2024 Mind Health Report, reported higher levels of distress among younger employees, with sizable shares of those aged 18–24 and 25–34 saying they are experiencing mental health conditions such as anxiety, stress, or depression.
That pressure is one reason “balance” for Gen Z often looks less like a perfect split and more like setting rules around access—who can reach them, when, and through which channel.
What employers can outsource to apps
There’s only so much an app can fix if the workplace culture assumes constant responsiveness. In the Philippines, flexible work arrangements have long been recognized as an option under labor guidance, including advisories that define flexible arrangements as alternatives to standard work hours or workweeks and emphasize that implementation depends on voluntary agreement and should not reduce benefits.
For Gen Z, policies matter, but so do day-to-day norms—whether teams respect response times, whether meetings are kept within working hours, and whether “urgent” truly means urgent.
In the end, Gen Z’s work-life balance is shaped by very local realities—traffic, family homes, and cost pressures—then mediated through the use of technology.
