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What Is Quiet Quitting?
Increasingly acknowledged as a significant obstacle for businesses, quiet quitting is characterized by employees who are willing to fulfill their basic job responsibilities—but nothing else. They don’t quit their jobs; rather, they quit being committed.
This trend represents a shift in attitudes about the relationship between a person’s identity and their work. When employers understand this shift, they can use that knowledge to mitigate the downsides of quiet quitting and build engaged workforces instead.
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Examples of Quiet Quitting
Examples of quiet quitting generally center around “good-citizen behaviors.” Whereas past labor forces were more than happy to stay late, take on additional projects, or attend non-mandatory meetings and social outings, quiet quitters adhere strictly to their job descriptions and generally reject the notion that they go above and beyond for their employers.
Examples of quiet quitting generally fall into one of three categories.
1. Minimal Engagement
Minimally engaged workers are unlikely to participate in team discussions. If they’re required to attend a work meeting, for example, they might be unwilling to brainstorm solutions to obstacles. Instead, they attend the meeting in body, but not necessarily in mind.
2. Strict Adherence to Work Hours
Often, quiet quitters favor spending time with family or pursuing personal interests instead of working beyond their scheduled hours. These employees tend to:
- decline offers to work overtime, weekends, or during holiday periods, despite incentives or bonuses
- won’t reply to emails or take work calls after hours
- refuse to fill in for absent colleagues or cover emergency shifts
3. Detachment
Detached workers are disinterested in career growth and advancement. They will pass on opportunities to attend professional development seminars or assume leadership roles, sticking strictly to carrying out the functions of their job descriptions.
Why People Quiet Quit
According to a Gallup survey, at least 50% of the U.S. workforce is engaged in quiet quitting. The trend is more common among employees under the age of 35.
Quiet quitters have existed for decades, but in the past, employees who chose not to go above and beyond were often viewed negatively and labeled as lazy by managers and colleagues alike, who viewed them as obstacles to team success.
Advocates of quiet quitting say that workers are merely setting boundaries and prioritizing their own lives.
To understand this growing trend, it helps to consider the purpose of the employee-employer relationship. Theoretically, this relationship is mutually beneficial and balanced, with the employee receiving pay in exchange for performing certain duties for the employer.
Identifying Signs of Quiet Quitting
From an employers’ perspective, the quiet quitting trend is an obstacle to production.
When employees fulfill only the bare minimum requirements of their roles, employers might give extra work to their more engaged team members, a phenomenon known as quiet hiring. This can lead to burnout and resentment among even these employees, making it difficult for businesses to build a truly engaged workforce.
And, growing businesses typically want to make sure an employee can perform other job functions before promoting them.
Here are some signs that your workforce is impacted by quiet quitting.
- The team shows little interest in taking on new projects, suggesting improvements, attending meetings, or engaging in team activities.
- The company has problems with coffee badging and absenteeism.
- The workers are unwilling to perform tasks outside their defined roles.
- The staff communicates less proactively with managers and colleagues.
- The workforce’s productivity stagnates or declines.
5 Steps for Addressing Quiet Quitting
The best way to manage people is to consider their needs and align those needs with the company’s business objectives. When employees feel seen and respected, they’re more likely to demonstrate a commitment to you as their employer—and your growing business is more likely to reach its productivity goals.
Here are five steps to address quiet quitting and foster a more engaged workforce.
1. Define and Redefine Core Job Requirements
Start by clearly defining what’s expected of your employees, then redefine their job requirements when the company’s needs evolve. This demonstrates that you expect employees to adapt to change and shift responsibilities when appropriate.
2. Listen and Invest
At the same time, conducting regular stay interviews will help you understand employees’ needs and concerns. Stay interviews will raise your awareness of professional development, flexible work arrangements, or other resources your employees value. At the same time, they give employees a chance to tell you if they feel they’re getting too many responsibilities dumped on them.
3. Invest in Your Managers’ Interpersonal Skills
Managers with great interpersonal skills can build a culture where employees are more comfortable voicing their concerns during stay interviews, which gives your growing business an opportunity to respond to these concerns.
Many quiet quitters are conflict-averse, preferring to silently disengage rather than address their work concerns openly. If your managers are good listeners and respond to feedback constructively, though, employees are more likely to disclose their concerns and less likely to build resentment and become quiet quitters.
4. Match Your Words with Your Actions
Being transparent with your employees about their promotions and benefits, no matter how small, goes a long way toward building trust. When you’re upfront about their compensation and the milestones your employees need to reach, you nurture a sense of fairness and clarity.
5. Treat Your Employees as Unique Individuals
When you know each of your employees, you can align your business goals with their life goals by rewarding them with meaningful incentives. For instance, if family time is available to them, you might give them an extra vacation day in the summer. Do they enjoy soccer? You can give them tickets to a game for their birthday.
Personalizing rewards shows that you value their individuality, which helps you combat potential perceptions of corporate greed.
Likewise, if you encourage employees to engage in extra tasks that align with their personal interests and strengths—and then compensate them for this, even in modest ways—you show your employees that you see them and appreciate them as individuals.
Wize Words
Quiet quitting is generally bad for businesses and employees. After all, your employees would rather be engaged and excited to attend work than simply punch in and out.
By aligning your employees’ needs with your business objectives, you can reduce the likelihood of quiet quitting and build a more committed team.
Frequently Asked Questions
At an individual employee level, the goal of quiet quitting is to establish boundaries between an employer’s requests and the employee’s job responsibilities. Individual employees want their time and efforts to be respected and acknowledged. Collectively, quiet quitters tend to want corporations to value their employees, improve work conditions, and create a healthier work-life balance.
A worker’s salary or hourly wage is the number-one factor in whether they engage in quiet quitting. This is also known as “acting their wage,” with employees choosing to match their job efforts with the pay they receive. An employer who decides to “act their wage” refuses to take on additional job duties without being compensated accordingly.
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