After the last 1 year ish of great resignation, we are reaching the phase of quiet quitting.
What is quiet quitting?
Well in few words is doing just the bare minimum expected of your role to keep afloat. No more chasing the carrot and no putting of extra hours.
Is quiet quitting good or bad?
Well, as everything in life depends on the perspective.
From the employee angle
Again depends on the perspective. What is the reason behind it? Is it to search a more balanced life and be able to focus on other important milestones outside work? I don’t think this would be a bad thing. In fact I do believe we should all search for a more balanced life. In the last few years most of us were unable to really turn off from work as work and home merged together as under the same roof. We tended to work much longer hours and reach a special burnout, where we felt overwhelmed by the whole circunstances, not knowing when it would be allowed or safe to have “normal life” again, plus ending up longer meetings, longer hours. Is it bad to reassess that maybe enough is enough and establish some boundaries? I personally don’t think so.
However, if this is coming from an angle of disappointment in one’s role or career, well not so good. The reality is we need motivation to pack those hours, even the expected 8h. For most of us, there is a really high insecurity about the next few years ahead and don’t even attempt to look into your energy bill. For those that didn’t took advantage of the great resignation now it’s starts to become too late. Too late to risk to go into a new role when security is all that matters: can I pay my mortagage? Can I afford to warm up my house? Can I buy the food we need for the family? In the balance of it all, people will be more willing to face another Monday (or dragging through it) than risk becoming unemployed.
From the companies point of view
Why is your team quiet quitting? Why don’t they feel energized to come to work? Are you giving them opportunities for development and growth? Do you actually care if they succeed? The reality is while there were a lot of people moving about, it’s quite expensive to train new people and get them up to speed. If your existing team on the ground is just ticking the boxes just to go by another day, you will soon enough face a loss in terms of creativity and new ideas which you will need to face upcoming times of uncertainty. The cost of not doing anything will be much higher than try to fix the problems at the source. You might not win the first battle, but you might be able to win the war.
Food for thought
Ultimately I’m a firm believes that most companies would benefit of a good “Marie Kondo” round of decluttering. There are processes and technologies which could be improved, meetings that could be cut. With people returning to the office – at least on a hybrid basis – there is also opportunity to foster those energizing opportunities and get them to think about ways to improve the team’s performance. Leave them room to think and raise their ideas.
Also revisit how accomplishments are being done at your company. Raise your hand if there’s always an element of: “these team was amazing because they worked every single weekend to get this done.”
Why did they had to work on the weekend to get it done? What’s failing? Those are the pressing questions to be asked. It should be: “this team did an amazing job and they managed to logoff at 17h00 to be with their families.”
Whereas some positive stress is needed I think we’ve passed beyond all of that. There is quite something quiet quitting is telling us, and that is perhaps is time to think once and for all how we work together. As leaders you are responsible to ensure you have a healthy team that feels energized to contribute their best ideas for the company to continue to develop. After all, companies are nothing more than a collective of employees, if all of them start to quiet quit there will be no bonus for anyone either. Long term we’re all dead.
Here’s a good article: https://www.bamboohr.com/blog/working-less-more-productive
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