QUIET QUITTING: NEW TERM, OLD BEHAVIOR

#ActYourWage, Do Your Job, Working at Work, Morale Adjusted Productivity. These are all different expressions for the same concept – Quiet Quitting. If you haven’t heard the phrase taking over social media in the last few months, rest assured that your employees have. And that they are talking about it. But what is it? Is it a real thing? And how should you respond?

what is quiet quitting

According to this NPR article, the phrase originated from a TikTok user’s seventeen-second video where he explains that quiet quitting happens when you’re “not outright quitting your job, but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond.” You still get your work done, but you’re rejecting the hustle culture mentality that your life has to be your work. He emphasizes that “your worth as a person is not defined by your labor.”

In other words, quiet quitting has nothing to do with quitting. It’s more a philosophy for doing the minimum work necessary to keep a job. Those who identify as quiet quitters reject the idea that life should revolve around work, and they resist the expectation of giving it their all or going beyond the job description. They believe in setting boundaries and completing the tasks assigned to them within the time they are paid to do them. No more working off-the-clock and checking messages every time the phone dings. They argue it is a way to safeguard their mental health, prevent burnout, and prioritize family and friends.

Critics say that it’s passive aggressive behavior, won’t accomplish what workers really want and puts more burden on their co-workers. Hamilton Nolan, writing in The Guardian, notes that workers in past generations felt this same sense of “collective malaise,” but rather than coasting at work they channeled their frustrations into creating unions. They didn’t quit and they weren’t quiet. They loudly fixed what they knew was wrong.
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According to Gallup’s 2022 Employee Engagement Survey, the proportion of workers engaged with their job remains at 32%, but the proportion of actively disengaged workers increased to 18%. These are the “loud quitters” who have most of their needs unmet and spread their displeasure and are also the most vocal in their own TikTok posts. The share of those in the middle, who are just not engaged at all, is 50%. They meet Gallup’s definition of people who do the bare minimum and are psychologically detached from their jobs. It is important to note that the increase in dissatisfaction is primarily among remote millennial and Gen Z workers. But these generations are becoming disengaged for the same reasons as anyone else, which we’ll cover shortly.

​WHO IS QUIETLY QUITTING?

If Gallup’s data doesn’t show a significant change in how workers feel about their jobs over the last few years, then is quiet quitting even real? Many suggest that it’s just a new name for an old behavior and it is a normal feature of the American workplace. It’s actually less about an employee’s willingness to work harder and more creatively and more about the manager’s ability to communicate effectively and with empathy, build rapport, establish reasonable expectations, and provide the workflow efficiencies needed for everyone to do their jobs well.

We’re also likely talking about quiet quitting more than it’s actually happening. A recent Axios poll of younger workers found that only 15% were doing the minimum at work, despite a lot of them admitting that it sounded “appealing.”

Maybe those who coined the term and evangelize the idea of quiet quitting are realizing what those of us with more years in the workforce eventually learned – sometimes a job is just a job and doesn’t have a deeper meaning. And to get fired, you have to be bad at your job, not just coasting along. With employers constantly saying they can’t find enough workers, there is unprecedented job security for employees right now, reducing the incentive to work harder. Companies can’t afford to fire employees, and there are plenty of jobs open if someone does get fired.
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The reality is that whether we call it quiet quitting or burnout or something else, the behavior isn’t new. And low employee engagement is a symptom of poor management.

​HOW SHOULD YOU RESPOND?

Managers need to learn to have conversations with their employees and get to know them as individuals – understand their life situations, strengths and goals. Then they need to have an honest conversation with each employee about the expectations of the job, using a job description as the guide.

No job description? Then that is the first thing that needs to be addressed. A job description is the most effective tool you have to clearly articulate  expectations to an employee. In addition to the knowledge and skills they’ll need to be successful, it should list the primary and secondary responsibilities of a person in this position, the number of hours they are expected to work each week and whether and how often that includes nights and weekends.

Second, managers need to create accountability for their entire team as well as all the individuals that make up that team. If you have an environment where some are held accountable and others get away without meeting expectations, disengagement will be common. Employees also need to see how their work contributes to the team’s goals and the organization’s larger purpose. Your culture should be one where every employee is engaged and feels they belong.

Finally, support the quiet quitters who define it as setting healthy boundaries and reclaiming their personal lives. Those employees who grind around the clock with limited time for self-care lose the ability to be their best selves, impacting the success of the organization. These are the workers who burn out and burnout can look a lot like quiet quitting. It appears as disengagement and often comes from expending too much effort for too little reward.

You support them by having a conversation and coming to agreement on whether the assigned work can be completed to the expected standards during the time they are being paid to work. If it can’t be, what resources are available to them to increase efficiency and prevent them from having to work overtime? Work-life balance is a key expectation now and it is not reasonable to rely on employees constantly going above and beyond the job description. If you want more, then explicitly convey that and expect to compensate the employee accordingly.

Your employees are your number one asset, and the funeral profession sees up to 30% of graduates leaving the profession after five years. Reasons cited for this include long hours, low pay and poor company culture. But these reasons are in a manager’s control. The answer to quiet quitting is out-loud conversations about your company’s culture, expectations, and goals. Employees will voluntarily go above and beyond when they feel valued, and that is how we retain and engage employees.

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CANA has resources to support businesses that want to improve their job descriptions, employee expectation rubric, and annual evaluation process. Three Tools for Improving Your Business is an online and on-demand course that takes a deeper dive into these important parts of managing staff, and it’s free for CANA Members (and just $15 for everyone else) with 1.0 CEU from the Academy! CANA Members can also access these tools and consult with Education Director Jennifer Werthman on how to improve their employee engagement and retention.

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Jennifer Werthman is the Education Director for the Cremation Association of North America (CANA). A former high school science teacher, she has over 25 years of experience in education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Science Teaching from Clemson University and a master’s degree in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment from Walden University. During her ten years working for the American Foundry Society, with the last five serving as the Director of Education, she was responsible for the administration of the AFS Institute’s workforce training programs as well as for facility, operations, staff and budget management. Jennifer joined CANA in 2015, overseeing all of CANA’s education programs, including development of the association’s online courses and planning annual meetings. She is also an adjunct instructor for Worsham College.