This is one example of quiet quitting, a trend that has been
dominating social media and especially Tik Tok. In July,
Zaid Khan, a 24-year-old engineer from New York, posted a
video about quiet quitting, and it went viral. Since then the
trend has spread like wildfire with hashtags like
quietquitting, quitting, and quieting.
Does anybody want to work anymore?
Then the mainstream media became covering it.
Like working overtime? No, thanks. Late Night emails,
ignore those.
Quiet quitting is a really bad idea. If you're a quiet quitter,
you're not working for me.
The world is changing. And the way of work is changing. Even
people saying I'm not going back to the office. And if I do, I'm
definitely quite quitting until I find a job that is a lot more
flexible.
Covid was the ultimate reset. Covid was that moment where
people start to ask a bigger question, what do I want from my
life? Do I want to continue working the way that I have? Or
do I want something different? Do I want to continue to work,
which is awesome. But do I also want to be able to enjoy my
family? Do I also want to be able to enjoy my life. So I
think all of these things are coming in stages. And I think
quite quitting is just the trend that's come as a result of the
ultimate reset, which is Covid.
Something like 40% of workers are now saying they plan to
change jobs this year.
The pandemic also triggered the great resignation.
...to retain people, but they're really running scared.
Millions of Americans quit their jobs in 2021. Some for better
opportunities. Some for a career break. The pace of quitting
continued well into 2022. This chart tracks job openings and
labor turnover in the US economy. JOLTs for short.
We do think that quiet quitting is part of the great resignation
story. So it fits into the general story of having a high
level of quits over the past year, year and a half, and
certainly a very tight labor market. And in that type of a
labor market, it makes a lot of sense that workers may not be
willing to work as hard as they have in the past because it's
very easy to get alternative employment.
So the question is what is quiet quitting? Quiet quitting is
referring to a situation where employees are making a choice to
not necessarily go above and beyond what they're being asked
to do. It doesn't mean that they're not doing their job.
They're just not going above and beyond.
Back in my day was called coasting.
For me. My last time quiet quitting was five years ago, I
used to be in tech sales. What I did was work less. I wasn't
putting in the 40 hours anymore. I wasn't giving into the drama
anymore. I wasn't giving into work gossip anymore. I wasn't
answering emails or texts or slack messages. You know, DMs
after the work days, and weekends were free. They were
mine.
Even though it's millennials and Gen Zers who are actively
talking about on social media. Quite quitting has been
happening amongst Gen Xers, which I'm part of the Gen Xers
for the better part of two to three years.
The anti work movement is not a new trend. In 2021, the ‘lying
flat’ or ‘tang ping’ movement took off in China, many viewed
it as an anti work phenomenon. This is a labor protest movement
in China against the country's relentless work culture. Some
argue that quiet quitting is similar to the lying flat
movement. In the US, quiet quitting could also be a
backlash to hustle culture, the 24/7 Startup Grind popularized
by figures like Gary Vee, and others.
I think it is almost direct resistance and disruption of
hustle culture, honestly, and I think it's exciting that more
people are doing it.
When it comes to hustle culture and quiet quitting. We're seeing
from Gen Zers, especially that they're really focused on
ensuring that they have that work life balance, and really
mission driven purpose when it comes to work. And we see this
across Millennials as well.
People are being more honest about the fact that they just
don't want to give beyond the 40 hours of work that they normally
would get because they're tired.
There has been a tsunami of job resignation.
In 2021, the Great Resignation dominated the economic news
cycle on or need to remain in their roles. So in the second
quarter of the same year, US productivity data posted its
biggest ever annual drop. And some economists blame workers
leaving jobs or not trying hard at their current jobs for the
hit to productivity.
Quiet quitting is probably part of the reason for the slowing in
labor productivity. It's hard to tell from aggregate data exactly
why labor productivity has slowed so much over the course
of the pandemic, but it's certainly one of the reasons
that you would expect to be weighing on labor productivity
right now.
Employee engagement also appears to be declining. A recent poll
from Gallup showed employee engagement in the US dropping
for the first annual decline in a decade, dipping from 36%
engaged employees in 2020 to 34% in 2021.
Disengagement, not being engaged, that's affecting the
productivity. Mentally, they're just not there. And they really
aren't giving it their all anymore, and they are just
trying to stay under the radar and they are disengaged, that's
very much been impact productivities.
I do think quiet quitting is a part of the great resignation.
People are so burnt out, we've just gone through and are still
going through a pandemic. We are recognizing that life can be so
fleeting and so short, and we want to spend it doing something
we love. And that doesn't mean work has to be our dream job. I
think that myth of the dream job is slowly or rapidly dying.
People that shut down their laptop at 5, want that balance
in life, want to go to the soccer game, 9 to 5 only, they
don't work for me, I can tell you that.
Labor demand remains a red hot in 2022. That's despite the
looming risk of a recession. Economic downturn could make
quiet quitting a short lived trend.
Well, if the labor market were to turn it, you'd imagine that
quiet quitting would become less of a phenomenon.
While the risk of you are quiet quitter is that the economy
would slow and then you could find yourself in a situation
where you're in a job where you haven't been given the most
effort that you can, and it puts you at a disadvantage in terms
of moving forward at that job. If others have been giving more
effort, they're more likely to have a greater job security than
otherwise. So certainly as the labor market slows, and if we
were to go into a recession could potentially put those
workers at a disadvantage.
In addition to talking to thousands of employees per year,
I talked to thousands of leaders per year, all the way from your
supervisor all the way up to your C-suite CEOs. And I will
tell you that they are bothered by this trend, because it speaks
one of two things. One, we have employees who are doing their
job, but they're not going above and beyond. Two, what have we
done as an organization to these employees that make them feel
like they can't give their best effort.
We're evolving as a culture, we're evolving as a people and
the workplace is evolving. And we need to be okay with it.
Because it's the same concept for me as people saying just
because I didn't have it, means you shouldn't have it too. You
should have to work hard.
Just want to be careful about just saying that quiet quitting
is the the, you know, the Gen Zs and the Gen Ys. I think that it
can be happening all over the place. And the more we stay
engaged and connected and share our purpose, the less of an
issue disengagement will be and then hopefully the quiet
quitting term will start fading to the background and we'll see
both employees being productive and well engaged and employers
being very successful.