“Quiet quitting”: A revolution in how we work or the end of working hard?

There’s a new term for ticking off and doing the bare minimum at work: “quiet abandon.” The phrase is filtering through career sites like LinkedIn, where some job coaches and executives are warning against the practice, and on TikTok, where workers are going viral explaining why they’re jumping on the silent bandwagon.

What everyone can agree on is that the term does not mean that an employee has quit, but that they are putting limits on their work and refusing to go above and beyond to fulfill their duties.

The emergence of the phenomenon of silent abandonment is no accident, experts say. It’s partly a byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic, when millions of workers lost their jobs as the disease shut down the economy. While most have found new jobs or been rehired, the country’s workforce remains smaller than it was before the health crisis. This is putting more pressure on existing employees, who are often asked to do more for the same pay.

“People see ‘quiet’ and ‘quitting’ and think it’s about quitting, but really what it means to quit smoking is someone who has decided, ‘I want to prioritize my overall well-being and things outside of work,” Elise Freedman, senior client partner at consulting firm Korn Ferry, told CBS MoneyWatch.

But, he added, “That’s different from someone who’s disengaged.” Instead, it’s about doing what is required of them, not volunteering for an ambitious project, agreeing to work nights and weekends, or otherwise making a extra effort in the way Americans are traditionally encouraged as a way to prove their worth to an employer. .

It is also no coincidence that the movement comes after the name Great Resignation, when a record number of Americans quit or changed jobs. With employers struggling to make new hires, for the first time in years employees have gained more power to find better-paying positions, demand higher wages and even unionize to promote better working conditions and benefits.

A new paradigm?

To some extent, quietly quitting may represent an evolution of the Great Resignation, with Americans rejecting employer’s cheerful expectations that they will put in more hours each week without extra compensation. Whether the trend grows from a spark to a roaring fire that broadly reshapes cultural attitudes toward work and work practices may depend on whether workers retain control over employers.

At the same time, labor productivity has been choppy since the pandemic, with some economists suggesting the stress has hurt workers’ output.

Still, there’s a certain irony in calling the trend “quitting” when workers are still showing up to work and doing their jobs.

“It just means you do the work you’re asked to do during normal work hours and then do the time and live your life,” one observer wrote on LinkedIn. “So we’ve become so obsessed with work and culture that doing your regular job is now known as QUITTING?! That’s crazy.”

Other experts caution against jumping on the bandwagon, especially for workers who have traditionally faced barriers to career advancement, such as people of color and women. For one thing, people of color typically benefit from being visible to their bosses, leading to opportunities to learn new skills and earn promotions, while setting firmer limits on work won’t necessarily pay off, the expert said. corporate mentoring Jha’nee Carter, owner of The HRQueen, the popular TikTok video on the topic warned minorities about silent abandonment.

“It’s been a controversial post,” Carter told CBS MoneyWatch. “Studies prove it [people of color] they do not have the same resources as their white colleagues. That’s why it’s important that we go further: it puts us in front of the people we need to talk to.”

Generational differences

The trend also appears to be marked by generational shifts, with Generation Z and millennial workers increasingly questioning the hustle and bustle culture embedded in corporate America amid the pandemic.

Across all age groups, about 25 percent of workers said they are doing the bare minimum at work in an August survey of 1,000 employees by ResumeBuilder.com. But about 30 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds said they are doing the bare minimum, compared with just 8 percent of workers over 54, the study found.

Meanwhile, some conservatives and senior workers are quietly criticizing the idea of ​​quitting, deriding it as “lazy,” self-indulgent and unprofessional.

Despite these differences, experts say the debate could ultimately benefit both employees and employers by revealing how communication between workers and managers must change in the modern workplace.

“If someone is running out and saying, ‘I’ll mail it in,’ that’s an opportunity for a real conversation between an employer and an employee,” noted Matt Spielman, performance director and head career coach. steadfast turning point partners. “Quitting in silence is a manifestation of people not having honest, adult conversations.”

Quitting quietly may also indicate that a growing number of employees are disengaged from their jobs and their employers, which benefits neither party, Spielman said. This can result in companies failing to get the best out of their staff, while workers put in long hours in unsatisfying work.

“Free work for an indifferent boss”

In fact, the pandemic appears to have caused a shift in employee attitudes toward their jobs, with Gallup finding that 34% of workers described themselves as busy at their jobs in 2021, down from 36 % in 2020, the first such decline in a decade.

Workers who are attracted to the idea of ​​quietly quitting should first question their motives and goals, Spielman said. “I hope they ask themselves, ‘Is this how I want to spend this much of my time?’

Instead, employees could reimagine their days, figure out what kinds of tasks burden them and start a discussion with their managers, he recommended.

But some experts suggest that quietly quitting shows that more workers are just questioning the labor pact and whether their bosses are living up to their end of the bargain. Some employees acknowledge that their managers didn’t go “above and beyond” for them during the pandemic, Ed Zitron, CEO of public relations firm EZPR, noted in a blog post.

Ultimately, more workers are questioning why they should invest 120% when their employers aren’t making the same effort to meet their needs.

“Also, it’s becoming alarmingly obvious to most workers that there is absolutely no meritocracy: working hard doesn’t mean you’ll get far, and going further rarely, if ever, gets you anything other than free labor for an indifferent boss,” Zitron. he wrote.

Some people say that silent abandonment has been around for years, if it doesn’t have a catchy name, brought on by the demands of life, such as caring for children or aging parents. Former teacher Maggie Perkins, 30, of Athens, Georgia, said she started doing it in 2018 after the birth of her daughter.

“I needed to start leaving immediately when my contract was up so I could go to her daycare without getting fined, and also to spend a few precious hours with her before going to sleep as a baby,” Perkins said, now executive function consultant, who posted on the trend on TikTok.

He added: “In toxic work environments, [quiet quitting] it’s made my employers feel frustrated that I can’t be emotionally overcharged or manipulated.”

Disadvantages: promotions and payment

Of course, there could be downsides to quietly quitting, career experts say.

Job security, for example. Some economists believe the US could slip into a recession amid high inflation and rising interest rates. These declines are often associated with rising unemployment as companies cut jobs to cope with slowing demand.

“The ones doing the least would be the first to go,” Spielman noted.

When bosses consider who to promote, they can look for workers who go above and beyond their job requirements, Freedman noted. “With this choice [of quiet quitting]there will be slower promotions and less visibility, and possibly less rewards,” he added.

And other experts warn that some groups of workers who have historically faced barriers to advancement at work, such as people of color and women, should think twice before embracing the idea of ​​quitting smoke in silence HRQueen’s Carter said these groups still face unconscious bias and need to be aware of it.

He added that people should first advocate for themselves, talking to their bosses about getting a promotion or a raise, before they quit their jobs.

“I don’t think you should give eight hours a day to a bad manager who isn’t going to raise your salary — I’m not saying trade your time for it,” he said. “But you have to be aware of what’s going on in America and play the game.”

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