One of the hottest new business terms in the news is "quiet quitting." But what does it actually mean, and how can it harm your business?
Defining "Quiet Quitting"
Although much of the discussion and the great majority of Google searches around the term "quiet quitting" began in the late summer and autumn of 2022, many agree that the phrase itself was first coined by Mark Boldger. Boldger, an economist, first used the term at a 2009 economics symposium.
Although definitions vary and the phrase has not yet been included in a formal dictionary, the general consensus surrounding the idea is that it refers to employees and workers who have stopped doing anything but the bare minimum required to keep their jobs. In other words, employees are not actually or physically quitting, they are merely attending and doing only enough to avoid being reprimanded or fired.
Caroline Mimbs Nyce, a staff writer at The Atlantic magazine, rightly points out that quiet quitting is not about actually quitting, as workers keep their jobs but simply do less of the work associated with their positions. A September 2022 Forbes article also defined quiet quitting as the process in which burned-out and unsatisfied employees put forth the least amount of effort possible.
The phenomenon has been widely described and commented upon in numerous informal TikTok videos, and has also been discussed extensively in such major business news outlets as Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.
One interesting aspect of quiet quitting is that there is a wide generation gap in how workers view it. A recent poll by YouGov found that more younger workers agree that "employees should do the work they're paid for--no more, no less," while the majority of older workers stated that they agreed with the statement "employees should always go above and beyond at work."
How It Harms Your Business
Employees quiet quit for real reasons. Often, quiet quitting is associated with employee burnout, when workers feel like they have given their employer or their position their heart and soul, but no longer feel that their job is fulfilling any of their needs or really requiring their best skills.
Employees also cite challenging work conditions and many years' worth of a work-life balance that required the needs of work to come before the needs of their personal lives as reasons for quitting quietly. Many workers also feel that their work is not adequately valued by their employer or recognized in an appropriate level of compensation or benefits.
These are all valid concerns. Most importantly for businesses, employees engaging in quiet quitting for the concerns listed above (and many others), can result in a variety of negative outcomes for businesses, employers, and managers.
One of the most obvious negative consequences of quiet quitting is the lower productivity of burnt-out or quietly quitting employees. Employees and workers are the life blood of most businesses. When more employees are less engaged and perform much less work, the quality of any company's service or product will suffer.
Quiet quitting can also lead to poor or no communication between employees and employers or managers. Front-line and essential workers and employees should be a valuable source of information and even innovation for their companies. But when employees start to view any interaction with their employing company as a waste of time, management will definitely see their outcomes plummet. Unengaged workers can offer poor customer service, or make many more mistakes at their jobs.
Dysfunctional work relationships, such as those when employees quit communicating with employers, or view all work requirements as impediments to balancing or managing their personal lives, lead to a lack of company unity, and this can also negatively affect your business's success.
Business owners, employers, and managers need to understand what quiet quitting is, and how it can affect their employees. When they do, they will be better positioned to work with their team members to learn why they are disengaged from their jobs or their companies.
Every business that wants to be successful has a better chance of being so if they take their workers' concerns seriously. Reaching out to your employees or colleagues to learn about and address their concerns will help you avoid the negative results of this new workplace phenomenon.