Quiet What? Quiet Quitting.
What It Is, What It Means for You, and How Employees and Companies Can Grow Together through the Newest Employment Trend.
Quiet quitting. Acting your wage. “If I do my job well enough, I get to do other people’s jobs, too!” Doing the bare minimum. Setting healthy boundaries. “Nobody wants to work!”
If you’ve spent any amount of time recently researching the current professional climate across social media platforms and industry news sites, you’ve probably heard all about the new, contentious movement referred to as quiet quitting.
The most recent employment trends, such as the still-stressful Great Resignation wave, paired with recovering from the pandemic and a rollercoaster ride of inflation have been a tumultuous journey the last year. But, nothing could have prepared us for the deluge of buzzwords and controversy that is our current, highly charged professional topic. It’s time to take notes, folks – quiet quitting is shaping the future of work. What are we going to do about it?
Quiet Quitting – I’ve Heard about It, but What Is It Exactly?
So, what is quiet quitting and why should we care? Well, the first part of that question isn’t so easy to answer. Quiet quitting has taken on a variety of meanings as intricate as the people who use it.
Some exhausted, burnt-out employees, who feel like they’ve repeatedly given their all without receiving any sort of reward, associate quiet quitting with scaling back, setting healthy boundaries, and simply doing what their job description requires, as opposed to continually going above and beyond. For many, living through an abrupt, unexpected pandemic has reminded us how quickly health, happiness, and the future can change, resulting in a greater emphasis on work-life balance and less tolerance for feeling unappreciated.
Conversely, some stressed, possibly impatient, and often reluctant-to-evolve managers may see quiet quitting as ungrateful employees trying to capitalize on a job-seeker’s market. Savvy business leaders commonly pride themselves on cutting the best deals that benefit themselves greatly. However, a completely different connotation surrounds the idea of employees trying to secure as much money and as many perks as possible, while creating the lowest-stress and easily manageable workload.
So what’s the truth? Quiet quitting is somewhere in the middle. While there are certainly some lazy employees out there trying to get away with the bare minimum at the cost of their employers, there are also those breaking their backs to help absorb extra responsibilities relinquished by a recent employee who resigned, compensating for layoffs due to department budget cuts, and just trying to keep up with the ever-changing demands of today’s chaotic business climate. But the most important principle to understand is that quiet quitting presents businesses with an extraordinary opportunity for growth if handled properly.
What Does Quiet Quitting Mean for Employees and Businesses?
That’s it. You’ve had enough. You’ve worked seemingly endless days, been late to family dinner so you could finish up pressing projects before leaving the office, and you’ve built yourself into the go-to person management can rely on to get complicated tasks completed. So when an opportunity for advancement became available and the higher-ups chose to hire from outside the company instead of promoting from within, you caught yourself questioning why. Why have you been compromising your happiness, and maybe even your health, when it feels like there’s no payoff? This scenario can commonly play out in three primary ways:
The Dream – You’ve reigned in your work, you’re no longer going above and beyond, and you’ve adopted the mantra that “This isn’t the ER. People’s lives are not depending on my work.” Your employer has noticed this change in your behavior and you’ve had an open, honest conversation about what triggered this disengagement. They’ve shared with you areas in which they would like you to improve in order to be considered for future advancement opportunities, and they’re taking steps to reinforce their appreciation for the above-average work you provide already, as well as making sure they are appropriately compensating you for that work, whether that involves a salary increase or added perks.
The Silent Treatment – Your employer may have noticed your change in behavior, but they’re choosing not to discuss it with you. Maybe they think you’re retaliating for not being offered the recent promotion, and they’re still confident in the decision they made. Perhaps they simply think it’s something you’ll get over eventually if they just ignore it. After all, keeping you at 80% may still be a better financial decision than firing you when considering the cost of onboarding a new employee. Instead of either party discussing what is making them unhappy, you’ve both fully committed to a fierce silent treatment battle that would make ‘The Plastics’ proud. (That’s so not fetch.) Ultimately, your professional relationship with your leaders will suffer, you’ll grow frustrated, and you’ll likely end up pursuing a new job elsewhere. Maybe you’ve outgrown your current position and that was what you needed all along, or maybe two stubborn parties have just ruined a previously great setup.
Quietly Pay the Price – Much like the last scenario, this option is entirely based on a lack of communication. But instead of just ignoring the problem, your employer has accepted your behavior as the new standard and is participating in it’s own modern trend: quiet firing. The website Teambuilding defines quiet firing as “when management creates non-ideal work conditions to make an underperforming employee quit.” Examples of this include stalling career advancement, denying or minimizing pay raises, intentionally assigning mundane work, exclusion from upcoming projects, lack of support, and not offering feedback. Much like the last scenario, you’ll be gussying up that resume and lint rolling your business suit in no time.
How to Move Forward through the Quiet Quitting Trend.
Quiet quitting won’t just disappear with the changing of the seasons. In fact, the drop of professional engagement related to this new trend has been growing in momentum since the second half of 2021. In a recent article published by global analytics and advice firm Gallup, at least half of the current workforce is guilty of quiet quitting – if not more. So how can businesses minimize and prevent quiet quitting?
“Employees are the heart and soul of a company,” shares Marci Caudle, founder of TenFootLine. “In order for companies to succeed, employees need to feel committed to the goals and success of the business. They can’t show up and do their best work every day with one foot out the door.”
To minimize the likelihood of your employees quiet quitting, focus on these three proven management principles:
Communication Is Key – Regular check-ins with the members in your department are crucial. Building a strong relationship with your team can help you determine if a recent change in behavior is actually quiet quitting or perhaps just a temporary side-effect of the unpredictable world currently surrounding us. The world offers a constant barrage of negative news. By encouraging open and honest communication, you’re empowering your employees to feel like they can bring concerns or opportunities for improvement to you for discussion, as opposed to letting it fester and negatively impact the team.
Encourage Employee Development – According to a report by Gloat, one of the top reasons employees pursue new jobs is because they crave more growth opportunities. Even if you’re limited on the number of formal promotions, there are still plenty of ways to cultivate further development throughout your team. Empower your employees to feel comfortable managing up, encourage them to pursue learning opportunities in areas that benefit both them and the company, and consider sending members of your team to educational workshops and conferences to bring fresh, new ideas back to the office. In the words of entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”
Perform a Self-Audit – There’s always opportunity to improve, both for your employees and your company. Now that you’ve built an even stronger relationship with your team and have made their development a priority, make sure you take their feedback and suggestions seriously. Implementation of these ideas can help improve morale, productivity, and company culture. If you’ve been powering through a grueling busy season and notice that several employees seem to be burning out, make a point to incorporate ways to show you appreciate their hard work and perhaps try to schedule a fun activity to help the team blow off some steam. Or, once the workload starts to return to normal, consider closing the office early and rewarding the team with an unexpected half-day on a Friday.
Creating a Successful Strategy to Retain Top Talent and Minimize Quiet Quitting.
Have some of your employees become disengaged? Concerned you’re still in danger of losing important members of your team as The Great Resignation continues? If you want to avoid diving back into the trenches of the war for talent, it’s imperative that you have a strategy in place to retain your top talent, and that includes minimizing their desire to quiet quit. That’s where TenFootLine comes in – we’re a full-service talent acquisition consulting company passionate about creating and implementing high-performing recruitment teams, hiring techniques and retention practices for our clients. We can help you lay out the appropriate processes and tools to ensure you are communicating effectively with your staff and gathering important feedback throughout your employees journey. Schedule a free 30-minute call to discuss your needs today!
