Have you had a hard-working employee change seemingly overnight? One day they are hustling, available at all hours, and always ready to go above and beyond, and the next day they disappear at 5:00 and no longer answer emails or texts within minutes. What happened? Why is your star employee suddenly so lazy?
If this scenario sounds familiar, you might be dealing with a quiet quitter. But if you believe quiet quitting is laziness or a desire to be unproductive, you’re wrong. Quiet quitting is a reaction to burnout and a lack of reward for hustle — and it’s within your power to fix.
Where did the term ‘quiet quitting’ come from?
Bryan Creely (@alifeafterlayoff), a career coach and YouTuber, posted a TikTok about quiet quitting in March 2022. Creely explained that quiet quitting is about saying “no” to hustle culture and simply completing the requirements of your job. The term went viral when another TikTok creator, Zaid Khan (@zaidleppelin), posted a simple video about quiet quitting that currently has more than 3.5 million views. As of this writing, the hashtag #quietquitting has been viewed nearly 160 million times. Clearly, quiet quitting resonates with people. Since the term quiet quitting first appeared, discussion about it has swept across workplaces and social media, pitting employees against employers.
Why did this idea gain such instant popularity? One answer is the COVID-19 pandemic. Fear, isolation, and quarantine put our lives under a microscope, and for the first time, many workers saw clearly how little separation they had between work and their personal lives. Working from home demolished a boundary between work and life in a way that quickly became untenable. People began reevaluating their priorities and goals, and for many millennial and Gen Z employees especially, “going above and beyond” for their employer fell to the bottom of the list.
The pandemic isn’t the sole reason for quiet quitting, however. To understand the factors that have led to this trend, you must understand what quiet quitting really means.
What is quiet quitting (and what is not)?
There’s a common misconception that quiet quitting means that employees are being lazy or unproductive. Some people also think quiet quitting means quitting a job without notice, but that isn’t true either. Quiet quitting means doing the requirements of your job but not going “above and beyond” for no reward.
Yes, it’s a weird label, and one that doesn’t accurately reflect the meaning of the term, but it’s important to understand the intention of the trend.
What does quiet quitting look like in practice? It looks like employees logging off at the end of the day and not logging back on until the next workday begins. It means employees meeting their deadlines but pushing back against unreasonable timelines. It means that employees no longer subscribe to the idea that work comes before everything else, that they must always say yes to their bosses no matter what the ask, and that they will only get ahead if they work over 40 hours per week. A “quiet quitter” is an employee who does their assigned job well but doesn’t jump to take on more responsibilities without tangible rewards.
Quiet quitting is not an employee who slacks off, misses deadlines, or badmouths their company to their coworkers. Those are separate issues that should be addressed before they can contribute to a toxic work environment and negatively impact morale.
The disconnect between workers and employers
At Payscale, we see a disconnect between how workers and employers view quiet quitting. In our 2023 Compensation Best Practices Survey, we ask HR leaders and compensation professionals to define their stance on quiet quitting. Although we are just starting to analyze the data, the comments so far are interesting.
Some indicate that in the current employee-driven job market, workers do not seem motivated to meet minimum requirements. Examples given include not arriving on time to work. This is a problem, but it is not “quiet quitting.”
Other comments mentioned employees self-selecting into the “meets expectations” level of job performance. This should not be punished. After all, these employees are meeting expectations. If there is a concern that “meets expectations” isn’t good enough, you need to reevaluate your performance review and rewards process.
We also saw blame put on “quiet quitting” for negatively impacting morale and decreasing productivity across teams. However, again, if an employee has “quiet quit,” they are still doing their job. The “quiet” part of quiet quitting also means that the employee in question is not making a fuss, so impact to morale should be minimal to nonexistent. Even if all employees adopt the same work rhythm, as long as expectations are being met, there shouldn’t be a problem. If you believe that employees “meeting expectations” for their job are “underperforming,” you need to either check your reaction or revise the job requirements.
Many workers take issue with the idea that quiet quitting is novel or controversial. On Reddit, one commenter had this to say (bold ours):
“I resent the term ‘quiet quitting,’ as a person who is protective of their time outside office hours. This doesn’t make me a bad employee; it makes me a better one. I’m very good at my job, and am able to do it better than some in fewer hours, and I don’t suffer from burn out because I make sure I get time to switch off. Measure my performance on the work I do, not the time I’m available.”
The comments on the original TikTok videos on quiet quitting are also illuminating. Workers express that they are tired, burned out, and feel unappreciated. Quiet quitting is a response to a lack of meaningful motivation.
“The best and worst person doing the same job also get paid the same…that changed my entire mindset.”
“You don’t get rewarded for hard work. You just get extra work.”
“My above and beyond requires an above and beyond salary.”
What causes quiet quitting?
We’ve established quiet quitting isn’t born out of laziness. It exists because of burnout, lack of rewards and recognition, and no clear path to advancement. Let’s break this down.
Burnout: In 2019, the World Health Organization recognized burnout in its International Classification of Diseases.
“Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:
- feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
- increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
- reduced professional efficacy.”
One of the main causes of burnout is when a person takes on more at work than they can handle. According to a survey by Asana, seven out of 10 employees experienced burnout in 2021. Work/life balance needs to be more than a bullet point on your company’s careers page. Instead, it should be an essential strategy that’s prioritized in manager trainings as part of your culture.
Lack of reward/recognition: A lot of employers like to believe their employees are as invested in the company as they are, but unless your employees own meaningful equity in the company, their labor is given in exchange for a paycheck.
There’s a long-standing view that if you work hard, you will be rewarded, but workers who “quiet quit” aren’t seeing the fruits of their labor. When you combine burnout with a lack of rewards, it’s understandable that employees will become less motivated.
No career advancement: Many employees have realized being indispensable in their current position is trapping them in that position. When someone does their job too well, their manager is often reluctant to replace them, which means hard workers sometimes see no opportunities to advance their careers. This is a common reason for top performers to job hop. It’s often easier to find a more senior position with a new company than to get a promotion within the current organization. The other option is to become less engaged.
What can you do about quiet quitting?
Let’s think again about the star employee whose performance seems to have changed overnight. When was the last time that person got a raise? A promotion? Any kind of reward or recognition for their hard work? If they haven’t received any of these things, what is their motivation for continuing to exceed expectations?
Some say quiet quitting is really a response to quiet firing. An employee might feel quietly fired if they:
- Receive low raises (or worse, no raises)
- Have limited PTO or are berated for taking PTO
- See significant increases in workload with no increase in pay
- Take on the job responsibilities of vacant senior positions without a promotion
- Are pressured to work after hours or on weekends with no additional compensation
So, what can you do to prevent quiet quitting?
1. Examine your company culture
Are you truly prioritizing work/life balance for your employees? Look at activity on intraoffice communication platforms. Are people messaging each other after hours? Are managers sending emails on the weekends? If your company culture is all hustle, you might have employees who are experiencing burnout.
Try this: Emphasize that working outside of office hours is optional and actively discouraged. Make sure this policy is especially modeled by everyone who manages anyone. If the nature of the business requires work to be done outside of typical business hours, create an on-call system and make sure employees get flex time in return for working outside of regular hours. Intervene if you see anyone being pressured to work beyond their contracted/expected hours.
2. Be clear about advancement and growth
It’s not uncommon for a role to evolve beyond the requirements in the original job description, especially as the person who fills the role grows and learns. You can discuss this with potential employees as early as the interview stage. Talk with them about how you see their role expanding and what the timeline might look like for new responsibilities to be added. This way, role expansion is expected and understood, and your employees don’t feel you’ve pulled a bait and switch on them. Be up front about how you determine progression along the pay range and how their career path might evolve.
Additionally, keep an eye on open positions and notice how long it takes to fill vacancies. If you’ve had an open position for a few months, one or more people are covering the responsibilities of that open role. This could be a sign someone is due for a promotion.
3. Properly compensate and recognize your employees
Pay is one of the biggest reasons someone might ‘quiet quit’. If they aren’t being rewarded for extra effort, what’s the motivation to go above and beyond?
You need to compensate competitively throughout an employee’s tenure, not just at the time of hiring. Profit-sharing and variable pay can also provide an incentive to be more productive, but it’s imperative that base pay is competitive with market rates.
Of course, money isn’t everything. You also need consider social capital and how perks and recognition can motivate employees even more than monetary incentives. Flexible schedules, remote work, or adding more PTO could go a long way in helping prevent burnout and incentivizing your employees to do their best work. Recognition is also important. This includes showing appreciation, crediting employees for their contributions, and valuing the positive qualities brought to the table by individual team members. Ultimately, you should want your employees to know each other’s strengths and work together as a team.
Conclusion
Quiet quitting isn’t going anywhere. Although the label may not be accurate, what’s important to understand is that quiet quitting is a reaction to how employees are treated rather than a desire to be unproductive. Motivating and engaging employees to do their best work begins with seeing them as people with lives outside of their jobs. The sooner organizations understand this, the better they will be at addressing the real problems with work cultures that are hampering growth.
