In recent decades, Iranian government organizations have faced an increasing challenge in retaining young employees, especially Generation Z. A generation that has grown up with values such as speed, meaning, justice, continuous learning, and two-way feedback, often suffers from motivational erosion in bureaucratic and tradition-oriented government environments. The present study aimed to identify and analyze the lived experience of Generation Z employees of the retention phenomenon in government organizations and to design a model in this field. The research approach is qualitative and interpretive phenomenological. The statistical population included Generation Z employees (born in 1997 and later) working in government executive agencies. Sampling was purposeful and snowballed, and 25 in-depth interviews were analyzed. The data were processed and analyzed using three-stage content analysis. The findings showed that the retention of Generation Z in government organizations is the result of the interaction between five main dimensions including facilitating factors, inhibiting factors, contextual conditions, mental strategies, and consequences. By carefully categorizing the extracted themes and codes, a conceptual model of the retention of Generation Z in government organizations was drawn. This model shows that effective retention of this generation is only possible under conditions where the organization can provide a context for participation, learning, meaning, psychological support, and growth. Also, the conflict between the values governing government organizations and the mental values of Generation Z is one of the main factors of human capital erosion. This research is innovative at two theoretical and practical levels: theoretically, it redefines the concept of retention in the psycho-semantic framework of Generation Z, and practically, it identifies and categorizes the key dimensions of the indigenous retention model. The findings can serve as the basis for designing human resource policies tailored to generational requirements in the public sector.