What Should Be Done About ‘Quiet Quitting’?

Social media is a hot topic and many employees are leaving their jobs to pursue “the idea of going beyond and above at work,” as @zaidleppelin, a TikTok user said in July. This post has been shared more than 3,000,000 times and helped popularize the term “quiet quitting.”

According to employment specialists, quiet quitting is a new name for an old concept: employee engagement. This follows the “Great Resignation”, which occurred following the reopening of an economy that had been shut down by the pandemic. Many offices never recovered their full strength due to the sheer number of people moving on, 4 million per month at its peak. This has resulted in high levels of burnout among those who remained.

The whole concept of work has been rewritten. Quitting is one-way employees show their dissatisfaction with current conditions.

Washington Post:

“If someone is giving their all in 40 hours, and then want to live for the rest of their life isn’t labeling/labeling this behavior quiet quitting derogatory?” asked a HomeAway employee earlier this week via Blind, an anonymous corporate messaging platform.

One Palantir employee replied, “Quiet Quitting: Doing what you’re paid for.”

Regardless of the definition, the goal remains the same: to separate employees’ identities from their jobs while giving them more time and energy for other investments.

It is certainly generational. There is also a general belief that life is more than just work. It’s not just about the children and spouses; it’s also about finding time for other hobbies. This is why employers still have a lot of resistance to employees returning to work.

Quiet quitting can be reflected in complaints from colleagues who feel they are being forced to work harder due to their colleague’s disengagement.

“It could also manifest as complaints from colleagues regarding the silently quitting employee,” Grasso stated. “Colleagues might feel frustrated that they have to pick up the slack, or may feel shut out.”

These signs “should sound alarms to any manager to intervene rapidly,” Grasso advised.

“Much like quiet quitting has become a popular trend on social media,” it could also be an infectious attitude at work as employees begin to share notes and realize that their experiences with work taking more than it is giving can be shared.

Michelle Hay, the global chief human officer at Sedgwick (a business solutions company), told the Post that quiet quitting “speaks about the tired and frustrated feelings that many are feeling on the tail end” of the pandemic. People are shifting their priorities and social disconnection could be part of that shift.

This is not the end for western civilization. It is a quiet revolution, however, that will eventually be resolved. People want to work harder for less. This doesn’t work if you aren’t a member of a union. Once that is clear, unionization becomes more common. Companies will be forced to match the benefits and salaries offered by unions to keep workers happy.