Quiet Quitting

The newest expression in the employment world seems to be “quiet quitting.”  While this isn’t actually anything new, it seems to have taken wings.

Frustrated employees or lazy employees, take your pick.  Are quietly quitting…which doesn’t mean leaving without giving notice.  It means doing the absolute bare minimum amount of work while still collecting a pay check.

This isn’t new, it’s just more common.

What is Causing Quiet Quitting

I have heard and read many different thoughts on this topic ranging from lack of management support, lack of training, lack of a connection with the workforce and just plain laziness on the part of the employees doing it.

The part that I think isn’t fully being addressed is the effects of remote work on this topic.  While many people believe remote work is the perfect solution, I’m hearing more and more employers AND employees express frustration with it.

I estimate that about 50% of the people working remotely are not actually able to efficiently and effectively perform their jobs remotely.  Before you start yelling that you are more effective from home, remember, I’m talking about the other half of the workforce…not you specifically.

Some of these people just can’t concentrate in a home work environment.  Some of them just do not want to work from home. They need the separation between home and work life.  They need to be around other people to generate ideas and feel connected to the team and company for which they work.

Thus, at least part of the quiet quitting is from feeling alienated from the rest of the company.  No one knows what they are doing exactly or what they are not doing…so they start to coast.

The other area that is causing Quite Quitting is pay rates.  New hires are starting at the same salary as seasoned employees.  I’ve seen this in retail, manufacturing, the medical community, etc.

While it is often viewed as justification or rationalization for quietly quitting, employers are seeing it as fraud.  If you have ten years of work experience and suddenly start performing like a recent hire, what does that mean?  Could be you just realized you have ten years of work experience and are being paid the same as an entry level employee, or a little bit more.  So, you are compensating for this slight by acting like an entry level employee.  In your mind, you may feel justified in backing off, giving the work effort that you feel is what you are paid to do, not what you are capable of doing.

Quiet Firing (or Loud Firing)

I am beginning to see layoffs.  I believe this will continue and lead to a large number of layoffs and/or terminations.  From the employers I’ve spoken with, the first people to go will be the remote workers.  Not all of them, just the ones they can’t justify keeping…and of these many of them will be the ones who have been quietly quitting for months (or years).  Then, the ones who have been there for a while and have slowed down, backed off and quietly quit already.

If you’re one of workers who is happy at home and producing measurable work, you have nothing to worry about.  If you’ve been coasting along, quietly quitting either at home or at work…you might want to dust off your resume.