Saturday Sage: 12 Quiet Quitting Remedies
Thanks to TikTok everyone is talking about ‘quiet quitting’.
Definitions of quiet quitting:
- “People who are not going above and beyond at work and just meeting their job description.”
- “Clocking in and doing the bare minimum at work.”
- “You are still performing your duties, but you are no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentally, that work has to be our life.”
- “Doing the bare minimum required to avoid being fired.”
Quiet quitting doesn’t mean that an employee has quit, but they are setting boundaries at work and refusing to go above and beyond in completing their duties.
5 quiet quitting misfortunes:
- You focus on self-serving and neglect other-serving.
- Being underutilized feels ok.
- Feeling entitled is a way of life.
- Lack luster commitment makes work a drudgery.
- A quiet quitting attitude is not attractive to your next employer.
Quiet quitting culture:
Quiet quitting got traction during the pandemic. Remote work set the stage because people found it difficult to set boundaries.
Workplace expert, Lynn Taylor, says, “Younger generations have watched their overachieving parents allow work stress to consume them. They don’t understand the notion that working endlessly for them has been a badge of honor. They have noticed their parents and grandparents to have been so involved with their careers that they suffer emotionally and have simply sacrificed too much to work that hard for that many years”.
5 clues of a quiet quitting culture:
- Negative attitudes about work affect team members.
- People shy away from new projects.
- Team members wait to be asked before contributing.
- Employees withdraw and seem to fly solo.
- Joy is low. Boredom and frustration are high.
Corporate panic over “quiet quitting” is real.
Gallup finds quiet quitters make up at least 50% of the U.S. workforce — probably more.
Gallup says it’s being “psychologically unattached” to employers because their “engagement needs are not being met”. A passive aggressive attitude is not new. But younger generations are turning it into a movement that causes a great divide between the high commitment people and low commitment people.
Kristin Hancock, an Indianapolis-based communications professional, said that for her quiet quitting is a futile pursuit. There have been times in her career when she was dissatisfied with a job and wanted to coast, but she found herself unable to do so. Doing less felt frustrating and made her work feel even less meaningful. Some people will always be driven by ambition, enjoyment, perfectionism, or insecurity to do more than is asked of them, but if you expect everyone to do that, by definition, it isn’t ‘above and beyond’ anymore.
12 quiet quitting remedies:
- Break barriers by focusing on the why of work.
- Celebrate things your company brings to society. Ask, “What are we most proud of?”
- Develop supportive relationships between management and staff.
- Equip leaders to regularly check in with people. Insist that people feel cared for and seen.
- Offer counseling services and benefits to support people.
- Re-visit core values when reflecting on improvement.
- Create a ‘quiet quitting’ team to identify and correct blind-spots.
- Praise others for specific accomplishments. Have coffee with co-workers to praise their contribution.
- Post pics and stories of team members having fun on the job.
- Replace negative comments with positive wins.
- Put up roadblocks when other team members whine.
- Be bold to tell others when you enjoy work.
Bonus Thought: Don’t review your job description every day.
Elise Freedman, senior client partner at Korn Ferry says, “People see ‘quiet’ and ‘quitting’ and they think it’s about quitting, but really what quiet quitting means is someone who has decided, I want to prioritize my well-being …”
How to set boundaries and excel at work:
Quiet quitting is about boundaries. Healthy boundaries set you free. Self-centered boundaries become dungeons.
- Reflect on values to determine boundaries.
- Make boundaries known as soon as you find clarity.
- Don’t make exceptions.
Fuzzy boundaries corrode credibility. Weak boundaries are the same as no boundaries. A boundary worth having is a boundary worth keeping.
“Clayton Christensen had made a pledge to God not to work on Sundays, and a pledge to his family not to work on Saturdays and to be home during the week early enough for dinner and to play ball with the kids while it was still light. Sometimes, in order to keep these commitments, he would go to work at three in the morning.” New Yorker
Warning: New boundaries are disruptive. Be prepared for tough conversations when you set boundaries.
Self-reflecting: “If I owned this company would I want the people who work for me to have the same attitude I have?”
A final word: DO GOOD!!!!
What are the pros and cons of quiet quitting?
How are you setting and/or keeping boundaries?
Still curious:
Why Self-Care isn’t a 4-Letter Word
3 Ways to Manage Your Calendar: Dear Dan, How Do You Practice an Open-Door Policy
This post is a collaboration between Dan Rockwell and Stan Endicott.
Note: I relax my 300-word limit on weekends.
Next topic. Quiet fireing?
Perhaps. I’ve been reading about this as well.
I’m a big fan of “quiet quitting” and applaud gen z for standing up for the future that our grandparents would have wanted for us. Workers want and deserve a balanced life, and employers have been recognizing and saying this for some time – at least from a health perspective. What if we were willing to lean into the benefits rather than looking for remedies? How can we demonstrate and encourage healthy boundaries? Could this a be prime time to foster bravery/vulnerability and gain creativity and engagement?
Thanks for jumping in, Lindsay. There are some advantages and disadvantages to the quiet quitting movement. The ‘more for less’ approach in organizations leads to burnout and failure when it comes to human beings.
When leaders take advantage of people and set unreachable goals, they force people to disengage.
Our inability to set healthy boundaries is the reason people say things like I’m going to do the bare minimum. Half-hearted effort leads to boredom. It becomes fully dissatisfying.
We are at our best when we give our best in service to something bigger than ourselves. The disadvantage of quiet quitting occurs when work becomes something we tolerate.
It has taken a pandemic for people to drum up the courage to stand up for themselves. In some cases, it’s an overreaction.
This is a time for bravery and vulnerability as you indicate. Bravery to set healthy boundaries in healthy ways instead of saying self-limiting things like I’m going to do the bare minimum.
I want to work with people who are anxious to participate, who strive to bring their best, not someone who is waiting for quitting time. Clayton Christensen’s example speaks to me.
Let me pay respect to people who show up, do a good job, and go home. They don’t aspire to climb the ladder or ‘get ahead.’ They enjoy their work and participate in organizational life with an open hand. Organizations would fall apart without these people. They know themselves, they know what they want, and they deliver quality work everyday while rejecting the hustle to climb the ladder.
Finally, work is part of life, not all of life. Burnout inevitable hits everyone who believes all of life is work. On the other hand, boredom hits everyone who just go through the motions.
It is a good thing that people are speaking up for themselves, but we need something bigger than ourselves to bring vitality into life and work.
What’s the difference between quiet quitting and a normal ebb / flow of employee productivity?
Thanks for the question, Matt. First, I don’t think quiet quitting is new. I did it years ago. I did it poorly, but I did it none-the-less.
Your question points to an important reality. No one is able to give 100% effort 100% of the time. Running around with your hair on fire all day is a disaster that reveals a colossal lack of self-knowledge.
When it comes to productivity. Everyone has two or three peak hours everyday. We should know these hours and respect them.
Quiet quitting at it’s worst suggests a lackluster approach to work.
Two months ago I made a decision to ‘retire’ from my poistion by the end of September. It’s time to move on. It’s time for a change. But I am also 100% engaged, productive, and forward thinking (for the people who follow) for the organization that is still paying me 100% of my salary. Several months ago I considered sliding into the quiet quitting mode. That didn’t sit right with my heart, mind, and spirit. It didn’t seem to honor God, the One to whom I am utilimately accountable. Quiet quitting is a passive way not to address work place problems and HR challenges. No one wins.
A few years ago, the data was all about how a large percentage (50+%) of workers were unengaged or actively disengaged. Management gurus ran around like headless chickens, and here we seem to be, reporting the same data by a different name. I suspect the difference between quiet quitting and active disengagement are functionally indistinguishable. And in a few years, we will call it something else, but we still won’t have found a solution to the fact that most people are less interested in their jobs than in other things.