Recently, the phrase “Quiet Quitting” blew up thanks in part to a viral video posted to TikTok by user Zaid Khan. Since then, millions have watched the video, business publications have weighed in, and nearly everyone has formed an opinion.
I thought it was time to chime in from a different angle – that of the front-line manager. The phrase, while catchy, evokes images of slacking, laziness, and disengagement. However, from the perspective of those doing the ‘quitting’ – it simply means sticking to the job description and refraining from going the extra mile. Certainly not ideal from a management perspective, but not a fireable offense.
This misunderstanding can cause leaders to misinterpret and mismanage a situation. Such a circumstance could lead to hasty responses, damaged morale, and wasted productivity. As a manager who is passionate about fostering engaged and rewarding workplaces, I wrote this article for two reasons:
- First – I want leaders to understand the concept of ‘quiet quitting’. The concept is often misinterpreted, which is dangerous for both leaders and employees. I want to help leaders understand what it is, the historical context behind it, and to be able to talk about it with their staff and colleagues.
- Second – I want to help leaders understand how it comes to exist in their workplaces, how they can prevent it, and how they can counteract the effects (even when they don’t have financial levers).
Once you’ve read the article, I would love to hear your own experiences with quiet quitting, either as the ‘quitter’ or the ‘quittee’.
What is Quiet Quitting?
“I recently learned about this term ‘quiet quitting,’ where you’re not outright quitting your job, but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond.”
Those were the words spoken by creator Zaid Khan said in the viral TikTok video.
Quiet quitting doesn’t mean an employee has actually left their job nor gone on strike. It means they have limited their tasks to those defined by their job description. They might avoid working overtime, voluntary meetings and trainings, or taking on side-projects. An employee who has ‘quietly quit’ continues to fulfil their job duties, but they do not prescribe to “hustle culture”; in short, they do not strive to impress their boss. Like Peter Gibbons from Office Space, they are working just hard enough to not get fired.
The choice to wind down their efforts is generally attributed to one of two things:
- Many employees are burnt out. This happens in part due to the way many jobs depend on employees ‘going the extra mile’. You’ve probably seen workplaces that would unravel if no one was ever willing to start early, stay late, or skip a lunch break.
- Many employees are fed up with a lack of pay raises, recognition, and/or career progression. The flip side of ‘quiet quitting’, termed ‘quiet firing’, is something that’s ubiquitous and employees know it. I’ll cover how the mutually disengaged sentiment came to be in the next section.
Quiet Quitting is not a new concept
Quiet quitting is a new term, but this practice isn’t new. Workers have quietly quit their jobs for years, and generally for the same reasons: poor pay, unmanageable workload, burnout, or lack of growth opportunities.
Most Gen-X’rs and Baby Boomers are familiar with the phrase “work to rule“, a form of labour action in which employees strictly perform the work laid out in their contract. Many more are familiar with the term “retired in place” (RIP), which describes late-career workers doing the minimum as they await retirement benefits.
Why is it blowing up now?
While quiet quitting is not a new concept in the working world, it IS a new concept to many young people just entering the workforce.
I believe the quiet-quitting discussion has resonated so broadly with these young workers for a few reasons:
· There is a new generation entering the workforce, and this realization / decision is hitting them for the first time;
· It’s a universal experience that merits discussion and reflection with peers, and even ‘advice’ from experienced workers who recently went through this themselves.
· TikTok is a highly effective platform for hosting, spreading and amplifying the trending topic. If TikTok existed in the 80’s and 90’s, the discussion might have resonated just as broadly.
Why the change?
While the last few generations have had similar experiences, pundits believe quiet quitting is growing to new highs. I believe this is due to the way employer-employee relationships have changed from the Boomers to Gen-Z’s. For starters, Loyalty – for the most part – is dead. When boomers entered the workforce, there was a greater sense of loyalty towards employers; this was true for a couple of reasons:
- First – companies were often loyal back. If you worked hard, you could carve out a whole career with one or two companies. Good work would be recognized through pay increases and promotions. In addition, your employer might have even shown appreciation through Christmas bonuses, catered staff parties, or even gifts.
- Second – having a good job was seen as privilege. Employees could easily see a connection between their job and their lifestyle. Employees could afford home, a car, and a family – and they felt like they had their employer to thank for that. And if you got laid off or fired, you might have a hard time finding a new job of equal pay and benefits.
In contrast, today’s young workers often see themselves as replaceable cogs in an impersonal machine. Most jobs have been deconstructed to simple functions that can be done by anyone (think Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management). In addition, most jobs are concentrated in a few massive corporations. We’ve replaced small cohorts of skilled workers with armies of unskilled workers. That means pay goes down, and replaceability goes up.
Today’s employees have less opportunities to stand out, making it difficult to earn promotions solely on merit. Even pay raises are hard to come by in today’s massive public ally traded organizations. After all, if you are a corporation with a fiduciary duty to your shareholders, what incentive do you have to increase the pay of an entry-level worker? Many employers would rather keep employees until they quit, and then hire someone new at a base pay rate.
This is a double-edged sword for employers. Because of the way jobs are structured, it’s easy for people to switch between jobs. And right now, with low unemployment and a labor shortage, many companies are willing to offer higher starting wages to lure in workers. Oddly enough, many employers are more flexible with starting salaries than they are with pay raises and retention. This has led to a workforce incentivized to change jobs (whence, the ‘great resignation’). That’s bad strategic HR policy, but it’s what we have. As a predictable side-effect, just 36% of people reported being engaged with their job according to a 2021 Gallup survey.
In short, corporations have simplified jobs, expanded workforces, and reduced pay, thereby creating a situation where staff are replaceable and unloyal. And by adding layers between front-line staff and leadership, it’s become difficult to recognize, reward, and inspire staff.
What can managers do about quiet quitting?
While it’s true that many problems are built into the workplace DNA, a skilled manager can overcome most of them. This is NOT my opinion, it’s a proven fact. In a recent study, analysts looked at data from over 13,000 employees and 2,800 managers and found that:
- Managers rating highest at balancing relationships with results saw 62% of employees willing to give extra effort versus 3% quiet quitting.
- Managers rating lowest saw 20% of employees willing to give extra effort and 14% quiet quitting.
So we know that quiet quitting is – for the most part – in a manager’s control. So – what can be done?
Start by recognizing that no one works for free.
Your new hires might go the extra mile while they strive to make a good impression and fit in. Over time, they will gravitate towards the baseline UNLESS they have a reason not to. You should immediately start thinking about what is in your control to keep them going hard.
Accept that you will always have some people who are just in it for the paycheque.
Even the very best managers still have somewhere between 5 – 20% of staff doing the bare minimum. There are people who really enjoy a stress-free job and have no desire to get promoted. You might have some people who are near retirement and don’t care to unduly push themselves. As a sidenote – NEVER prejudge someone based on proximity to retirement. There are many late-career employees who go full tilt until the day they retire (and often beyond). It’s okay to have some staff who perform their jobs to the letter and nothing more.
Connect the work to the individual through weekly 1-1’s.
When someone goes above and beyond, it’s because they are inspired to do so. That’s the manager’s job to cultivate this in individuals. You must find ways to ensure the work serves them, not just how they serve the work.
There are a few ways that employees might naturally be inspired to do exceptional work:
- They are working towards a promotion or a raise.
- They truly enjoy their work.
- Additional production means additional benefits (e.g. commissions, piece-work pay, or equity)
If none of these exist, then the employee has no natural motive to do more than the job description. That’s where the skilled manager comes in. When this is the case, a manager needs to learn the employee’s aspirations outside of their current role and find ways to link them to their current role. As a manager, you can help employees discover how the work they do now will help them transition to the next stage in their careers. Developmental side-projects, training, or peer coaching are some of the ways to drive this. I’ll share some surprising anecdotes of this tactic in action in the following section.
You can inspire employees in ANY work environment at ANY level. And it’s not hard.
I’ve heard this before, even from my peers: “What if you, as manager, have no means to inspire or incentivize exemplary work?” I don’t hate many things, but I hate this sentiment with all my heart. I don’t believe that there is ever a situation where a manager has no way to build and manage an inspired team.
I once witnessed a man inspire excellence from a group of pre-teens picking up garbage on the road as punitive community service. (how do I know this? I was one of the kids). All he did was get to know us, treat us with respect, offer positive reinforcement, and occasionally offer us some cheap snacks. We loved that guy and hustled to pick up garbage.
In my own role, I managed a call center employee who aspired to produce horror movies. When I inherited her, she had already ‘quietly quit’ (even underperformed on occasion). I inspired her by helping her find ways to link the skills she was building in her current role with the work she hoped to do someday. We worked together to come up with side-projects that gave her the experience she needed while simultaneously delivering value to the organization. She was incentivized to work efficiently on her main job so she could free up time to work on her side-projects. She shortly became so engaged with her work that she became one of my star people.
HOWEVER – I know that some managers are given unreasonable expectations on their time, lack skill, or are given poor direction. If this is the environment in which you manage, you have to do one or both of two things:
Hire the CORRECT people.
Begin by personally acknowledging that you cannot offer upward mobility and/or regular pay increases – so don’t hire people who are motivated by those things. Instead, look for people who have a track record of staying in the same job for a long time, who are self-motivated but not too ambitious, and enjoy monotony (these people do exist).
This is a tough pill to swallow when we’ve all heard that you need to fill your roster with self-motivating ambitious go-getters. Unfortunately, these people will hate their job (and it will show); they’ll soon quit their job and you’ll be right back to the interviewing table.
Make sure that job descriptions are iron clad.
If you’re not able to reward great work, then at least make sure the job description clearly outlines the minimum requirements. That way, if you can’t drive performance through inspiration, then you can at least drive it through performance management.
Final Thoughts
Quiet quitting is nothing to be afraid of. Remember, quiet quitting is about employees doing just the work outlined in the job description – nothing more, nothing less. If this behaviour causes problems for your organization, then that means you need to review your job descriptions. You should be able to operate smoothly even if every employee under you chooses to quiet quit (though, if that ever happens, it means you’re doing a poor job managing your staff).
If an employee is doing LESS than the job description, that is not quiet quitting; that is underperforming and should be treated entirely differently.
Quiet quitting doesn’t happen to good managers at any rate that should concern you. If you have a quiet quitting problem, then what you have is actually a management problem.
