Authored by Anne Johnson via The Epoch Times,
Some call it “quiet quitting,” and some call it “ghost quitting.” But this phenomenon is decreasing productivity, whatever the vernacular in your area. And most managers or business owners may not even realize their employees are doing this.
Managers have been focused on the “Great Resignation.” Losing employees hurts productivity. But there’s another kind of quitting that may not be as disruptive, but still hurts businesses. What is quiet quitting, and how can you, as a business owner, stop it?
Quiet Quitting Growing
Quiet quitting is when a worker checks out mentally. They aren’t engaged with their work. People would have called them slackers or coasters in the past, but now it’s become a trend.
Employee engagement has declined for the first time in 10 years. In a 2021 Gallup poll, based on a random sample of 57,022 full- and part-time employees, just over one-third were engaged with their job.
These employees don’t actually quit – they just don’t actively do the job. They are the ones who come in late and leave early. Quiet quitters don’t work late. These workers do the bare minimum. They’re not going to volunteer for extra projects or pick up the slack if someone’s out sick.
They get the job done, so there might be not enough cause to let them go. But they’re not contributing to the company’s overall success.
Quiet quitting was derived from a new Chinese phenomenon called “lying flat.” It has become a silent protest movement in China’s disengaged workforce. Workers became tired of working nine to nine, six days a week. It’s particularly popular with millennials.
Disengaged millennials in the United States are also leading the charge to quiet quitting. And there are several motivating factors for this.
You will find more infographics at Statista
New Philosophy Toward Work Causes Quiet Quitting
One byproduct of the pandemic shutdown is a worker’s desire for work–life balance. People no longer want to put in 12-hour days. Family and leisure time became just as or more important than work. Corporate America’s up-or-out philosophy doesn’t mean anything to these workers. And they prove it by doing only the bare minimum.
Strong Employment Rate Gives Workers Power
With a low national unemployment rate of 3.6 percent in July 2022, the competition for hiring employees is high among businesses. Workers know this is a strong labor market that favors them. They may not be putting much effort into their jobs, but at least they’re somewhat filling a potential void.
Workers Feel No Value in Taking Initiative
The perception that hard work doesn’t matter permeates the thoughts of many employees. As a result, some workers found in the past that taking the initiative usually only earned them a “meets expectations” default on their annual review.
So, instead of going beyond the call of duty with projects and tasks, they just coast along for the ride between paychecks.
The feeling has become that by doing the minimum, “meets expectations” can still be earned on their review. These workers feel despite their job performance, they’ll still receive the standard cost-of-living raise.
They just sit back and cruise in the job to build a resume until the next job appears.
How to Deal With Quiet Quitting
Many businesses are caught in the quiet quitting conundrum. Of course, they need the employees, but mediocre work is becoming the norm.
The first step to dealing with quiet quitting is to know who is doing it. Identify these workers and discover what makes them tick.
More pizza parties and team building don’t seem to work as they did in the past. Disengaged workers are looking for managers and business owners to respond to their needs. The overlooked employee is sometimes motivated more by a pat on the back than monetary incentives.
When a worker is overlooked, a sense of isolation occurs. The thought Who’s going to notice if I don’t put forth the effort? envelops the employee. This leads to quiet quitting.
The lure of career development is often a significant motivating factor. Giving an employee control when it comes to their career path helps deter quiet quitting.
Stay Interviews Open Communication
Communication may seem cliché, but it’s vital for the manager to listen to the employee and open up a healthy, constructive discussion.
One technique that many businesses are using is a “stay interview.” The employer asks and discovers what motivates the employee through a series of questions and discussions. It’s a way to find out the employee’s needs before an exit interview is needed.
Some questions include what the employee likes and doesn’t like about the workplace. Find out what talents the employee has that aren’t being utilized. Discover how you, as a manager, can support the employee in accomplishing his or her job and career goals.
Be careful not to be come across as defensive; this is a time for honest discussion, not confrontation. Once finished, take the opportunity to respond to the employee’s concerns through helpful changes or reinforcement.
Working Together to Stop Quiet Quitting
The quiet quitting movement may be frustrating. Managers often know there’s something wrong, but can’t put their finger on it. So make it a point to identify quiet quitters.
It may feel like the manager is now working for the employee or that the business owner is being held hostage. But it doesn’t need to be that way. Instead of working for a manager, have the quiet quitter feel like they’re working with the manager to meet the company’s objectives.
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Those hard-working millennials are at it again!
The issue is welfare. A huge percentage of the population will never work. So that those that will do even a little work are in demand. Isn’t that nice?
Millennials don’t need to resort to quiet quitting because their work was never worth a shit anyway. Anyone who hires a millennial deserves what he/she gets.
Who raised the millennial generation? By ‘raised’ I mean elevated their level of consciousness, taught them the trivium, how to think, ask questions, be creative, seek truth, etc, etc.
Mom and Dad? Or the State?
Employees doing as little as possible? That’s the way its been for every public employee in this country for as long as I remember..
I agree with you. What we are witnessing is the adaptation of public sector work habits by the private sector. After all, the fish rots from the head down.
We just have to put everybody on straight commission or paid for piece work. Doctors could get paid $500 for each person they kill, and priests could paid get per molestation. Gravediggers could get $300 a pop, or $500 if they were actually dead.
“…Doctors could get paid $500 for each person they kill, and priests could paid get per molestation…”
Earth would be broke in a week.
All employees do this!!
Including you.
Or do you work for free?
Nevada Knothead
I’m a retired electrician, I was still working until the Covid scamdemic started and they made us wear masks on the job. Phones weren’t allowed except on breaks or lunchtime but all the young kids just starting in the trade are addicted to phone, they would hide somewhere to text their buddies or watch videos on YouTube. I see a bad future for the electrical trade and labor in general.
I remember when you couldn’t make or receive a call at work unless it was life or death medical emergency
I’m 30 yrs. In hvac trade, early cell phones the kids wanted to text all day now they want to Facebook,instagram,, face time, I’ve told many of them over the years if you can’t work for longer than 30 minutes without playing on your phone then I don’t need you.
30 minutes? When I drove a truck, I noticed that warehouse workers were lucky to be away from their phones for, literally, 60 seconds … and it slowed down everything and everyone …
By the way — that was nearly 20 years ago …
Did smart phone exist 20 years ago?
I think not!!!!! Tony.
People pull their cell phones out of their pockets at work when they are not on a break? I had no idea. Seriously. I guess I still live in the 1990s.
In the infantry they had to extort me to get a damned smartphone. I went down kicking and screaming. Anything to get me away from those things is a blessing. Still I can’t make a good enough case not to have it, it is so useful. I am learning and cataloguing every plant on the farm and there are hundreds.
All the old guys said the same thing about you when you were 20 Butt Town Mark!
If a majority of people report a “lack of meaning” that their job provides (as Mattias Desmet also described), that it doesn’t make a difference to them or anyone else and is essentially a bullshit job, then isn’t it just logical to not put any particular effort into such a meaningless task? Anything else would be foolish. Openly quitting might be the more genuine approach, but that is often not economically palatable. I don’t think that this is a phenomenon that affects only a certain age group.
I beg to differ … but, then, when I was entering the work force (1963 at age 16), it was a matter of personal responsibility, respect and integrity to either do what you were hired to do … or to get the hell out so that someone who would do it could be hired.
But, then, the welfare state and its ilk came along (in 1965) … and things began to change — and not just in the black community.
Today, personal responsibility, respect and integrity seem but a memory of a long lost time … and I don’t see very many eager to return to the earlier times … it’d require too much ‘work’ on their part …
Maybe I have been lucky to not have had to work with anybody under the age of 35 recently. I had no idea that it has gotten this bad. In the olden days, I would have been at risk to have a stapler thrown at me full force if I acted like what is being described in this thread.
Memo to self: Never start a business that requires you to actually hire anybody. Better to have only family members run it or half a business with only one employee, yourself.
There are good workers under that age. There would be more if more of them had families.
“personal responsibility, respect and integrity”
When I hear that more than once I assume I’m about to get blamed for someone else’s mistake, disrespected, or cheated.
3 – 5 yrs every penny contributed consumed.
https://www.history.com/news/first-social-security-check quick read.
“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10. When nations turn against God, they make up their own rules for their own destruction. There is a famine coming! The first famine is HEARING the word of God and the second is the judgment of God for worshipping other gods (the gods of self are included)
preachers always want you to toil day and night and then demand their share, just like the government, banks, entitled of all stripes
Yeah, but it’s okay for the employer or your boss to fire 1/2 their work force and expect you to do the work of three people and do even more?
With no raise, yet, that’s okay.
The unemployment rate is a all time low.
Go find a better paying job!!!!!!
Be a fucking wolf not a submissive doggie!!!!!
I knew a great Coyote, sir! You sir are NO COYOTE!
That worked 200 years ago.
Now food is cheap or free.
If the don’t work they get their phone taken away. That will get them workin.
When employers tell workers, directly or indirectly, that there’s no future in the job…then the employee will do what’s necessary, not more…
… and when folks can get free stuff — soon to be UBI — without work … then the sky’s the limit for these slackers.
I know old, ’60s-era socialists who have firmly believed all their lives that someone should support them — pay all of their expenses, provide for their every whim and wish … and when you combine that mentality with the slacker mentality of today — then, no wonder folks are into the (not so) great reset mentality …
Give me a break Tony!
You take all the free shit you can get!!!
As they should!!!
Quiet Quitting sounds a lot like Day Drinking.
That was funny then, y’all and is funny now.
How many times do you have to work hard and get fucked over before you change?
A good work ethic is imperative.
If your surroundings suck, you’re excused. There’s the door.
People say: “Why should I bust my ass every day, when co-workers don’t, when bosses don’t see it,
and payroll doesn’t compensate me for my time adequately?”
And, they say it with indignant arrogance.
Because.
Generally speaking, you’re worth to an organization (if not self employed), is only as valuable
as the cost of replacing you with someone else.
If you’re qualified, and have skills besides a good work ethic, you’ll do alright.
The sky’s still the limit, but you have to constantly learn, and adapt to your circumstances.
Growth and Improvement in an ongoing process, along with constant learning and lessons.
And this is known by old school workers that do whatever it takes to get jobs done.
They’ve learned instinctively that when you cheat your employer, you cheat yourself.
You’re failing to establish a work ethic discipline that could guarantee that you will always
be able to find work, if that is what is desired.
I like work. Maybe not as much as in younger years, but, it brings a sense of accomplishment,
and meaning to a life worth living. An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.
Staying idle and lazy might be the dream, and sitting on your ass behind a desk for 8 hours a day on the internet is what many of the college indoctrinated, with worthless degrees all seem to clamor for.
What and where is the demand, for your expertise, Skippy? Is there a big market for your skills? No?
Then change course.
And yet, the blue collar skilled trades lad who comes out of trades school with talent will have as much
work as he wants. James the electrician making 80k / year just might be the one to turn off Bodi’s electricity where he lives, because Bodi gets bounced from every job he’s ever had, because of poor attendance, low productivity, and a piss poor attitude. His grumbling is a cancer, wherever he slacks off.
Why work?
Because your standard of living depends on a certain amount of income earnings.
Most people have needs and wants.
The successful ones have figured out the difference between the two, and have learned to live within their means, instead of becoming a debt slave.
And the Free Shit Army that’s growing by leaps and bounds? (.gov jobs?)
Yeah, well, that might just be a dead end, too, if those storm clouds on the horizon
start rumbling our way.
Odds stacked too heavily against you, young man?
Get back to work.
Doesn’t matter what you decide to do, but be the best at what you do in your field.
What the fuck is all this stuff about easy?
Nothing worthwhile in life comes easy.
That’s a law of nature, and unlike man’s laws, it can rarely be broken.
Let me know how to work a trade without an employer and not get fucked on taxes or people not paying their bills and I’m all for it.
“If your surroundings suck, you’re excused. There’s the door.”
I took it.
Ever hear of being self-employed — or forming a small business (akin to a partnership)?
We did it in the construction industry starting in ’81 … working either free-lance or as an entity under contract.
We paid our carpenters union scale piece rates — and in ’81 and beyond they were earning an average of more than $1,600/week … $2,000/week for our best lead carpenters.
We weren’t afraid to use mechanic’s liens or to file against a sub-contractor’s state-mandated bond …
As for the taxes — just build in your profit based on those taxes and the other expenses … it worked for us — we often made $350+ per day apiece when we free-lanced in the early-’80s and more than $450 per day in the early-’90s …
Woe iz me! I cannot get a job. Tough titty. Just give up. Whiny ass.
If you make believe you own the business – and work as though you do – it gets noticed; if, after 6 months, it doesn’t, there are always plenty of other businesses looking for a good worker who accomplishes the job.
A good worker today is worth his or her weight in fiat. Just avoid the big woke corps and go to a smaller biz where the owner is involved.
This captures the breakdown that resulted from materialism and financialization. I am not sure if those are even separable.
Why bust your ass when a barely competent woman or black gets the diversity promotion and you get an inspirational coffee mug? Or when all the profits go into the pockets of either the Tribe or the likes of a Charlie Munger? Or when all your best efforts are erased in the next corporate downsizing / merger and you get the “I have to let you go” speech for the 3rd time in your career?
Fuck (((corporate America))). They are bringing this down on themselves. But then they don’t need productivity anymore when they have inflation to fake the growth.
Now I know why I, a 58 year old retiree, got a job so quickly after being retired for 5 months, which SUCKED. I keep hearing it’s hard to find people to work as school teachers, which I have done for over 31 years. Damn people anymore aren’t worth the powder and lead to blow their brains out.
I have been in a few national parks this year. Common theme – they hire retired folks for the summer as often as possible as the young won’t work.
Which is exactly what many people would do if they had to be a schoolteacher in current year.
A man had better know his limitations, and I teach in Southern Appalachia Ohio, not some shithole like Columbus or Cincinnati.
I noticed this phenomenon — commonly called ‘fucking off’ — almost 20 years ago … and there was no ‘pan(dem)ic’ or any of that BS — what there was was the cell phones and instant messaging (or its precursor) …
The teens/20-somethings were checking their phones literally every 60 seconds in warehouses where I picked up or dropped off freight … and it disrupted the cycle of work immensely even back then.
Slackers — yes … ‘quiet quitting’ is a mental masturbator’s term for it … but it’s still slacking and/or fucking off on an enormous scale … and my guess is that it’s at least as big in white collar jobs as it is in blue collar jobs within the demographics involved.
20 years ago teens were not on cellphones or texting all the time, they were still too expensive. Middle-aged guys were on the phone all the time, later kids, then boomers. Now everyone is a slave to their devices.
When I was in the military those guys were called roads, Retired On Active Duty.
And I thought I had heard it all.
It’s been a government requirement since day one. At the USPS, it’s enforced with violence.
Bingo. Government employees set the bar a long time ago.
I have mixed views on quiet quitting:
1. It’s not quitting, its doing the minimal acceptable level of work. Surprise, you get paid to do!
2. Not everyone wants a career, getting to a ‘comfortable’ income works for the vast majority of people out there. Even it that means barely getting by.
3. Ever work in a union manufacturing environment? By contract, a single employee is not incented to perform beyond the requirements of their job per the contract.
4. Ever work as a manager in a union environment? Based on your Gallup Engagement score, if the vast majority of employees score themselves neutral to disengaged, you are automatically a POS manager, even though they were screwed in the latest contract by the big ‘ol corporation AND the regional union leadership.
5. Ever work for a company that can’t compete with foreign imports, or the stock is tanking for the second quarter in a row, with 10 years of good performance appraisals? You are expendable, too bad you have a wife, kids, house and car payments, F.U we are walking you out the door along with 10% of the staff.
On the other hand, each of us is responsible for our position in life, or as Rocky says about life….
It’s not quiet quitting.
It’s Capitalism!!!!!
Unions have doing this for over a century!!!!!
Worker doing as little as possible for as much pay as possible.
Companies paying as little as possible for as much work as possible.
This is nothing new.
It doesn’t help that management is completely out of touch with reality.
They never ask “what do you need to do your job better”. Just edicts and platitudes.
The workforce degradation started after school integration in 1970. I’ve either been GM or owned a biz since I was 24 (in 1977). It just got worse year by year, unless I hired Hispanics. Lived in fear due to my office’s location (98% Afro w/in 1.5 miles), that EEOC would show up one day and fine me out of biz. When we’d hire the “locals” they’d quit after 2-3 weeks, keep company apparel, steal tools and had horrid work ethic.
‘Quiet Quitting”?
A ‘Feature’ covering Decades. Sooo Nice to know, there’s a Term/Phrase.
I would die from boredom within 3 months.
Employers don’t care of employees. Managers have poor managerial and communications skills (or refuse to communicate and motivate). Compensation can be an issue as well.
the primary cause of “quiet quitting” is that managers demand it. they don’t want engaged employees interfering with whatever scams they have going on, so they demand that employees who don’t contribute to THAT stay quiet, don’t get involved, mind their own business, stay out of the way. so they do.