Managing Quiet Quitting Among Employees
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NEW Definition of Quiet Quitting
"Quiet Quitting" (QQ) is an emerging term for a frequently occurring phenomenon in businesses and organizations which can have slightly different meanings, depending on who is using it:
- Employees may define QQ as (moderately) engaged workers with a fairly reasonable amount of work-related activities and boundaries.
- Employers may define it as willfully underperforming workers who are (always) demotivated and are (usually) doing menial tasks instead of the essential and critical duties that are required.
- Scholars define it as the process of coming to work to achieve the minimum requirements of one's role in the time that the employee is at work. This is usually accompanied with the employee's unwillingness to do overtime and with no room or willingness for stepping outside one's designated work obligations or to "go the extra mile". In other words, QQ is the silent withdrawal of extra duties or labor to mitigate what is perceived as unreasonable work-related pressures.
What Quiet Quitting is not
- It is important to note that QQ is not synonymous to actual quitting a job but rather to doing only what the job requires as per the job description and the contract of employment.
- The QQ phenomenon is also dissimilar to work-related behaviour of "Acting your Wage", fulfilling your job description to the best of your ability, but doing so within the eight-hour working day, which implies that the amount of labour one puts in a job reflects the rewards one is getting for performing that particular job.
Similarities of Quiet Quitting Behavior
- QQ versus Work-to-rule
QQ is similar to "Work-to-Rule" (a work-related strike or slowdown) which is a job action in which employees do no more than the minimum required by the rules of their contract or job. The workers who use either QQ or the Work-to-Rule method usually aim for a more fulfilling work-life balance. In most cases these workers focus on reducing job burn-out and avoid to volunteer for unpaid duties.
- QQ versus Truancy Behavior
QQ behaviour is also similar to truancy behaviour where employees shirk from responsibilities and duties. Truancy behavior is often depicted by schoolchildren and young students and can also be termed: "Wagging School Behaviour".
- QQ versus Quiet Firing
QQ behaviour is tantamount to quiet firing which happens when the employer, bosses or supervisors try to get the employee to leave the job through not raising salaries, disregarding employees' ideas, avoiding or omitting the employee from the opportunity to attend meetings or by simply downgrading employee(s) from their roles. QQ is normally done by employees while quiet firing is commonly done by employers.
Causes of Quiet Quitting
There are various causes of QQ behaviour at workplace, including:
Signs of Quiet Quitting
Signs to show an employee is silently quitting include resistance to perform new tasks, unwillingness to volunteer for tasks, repeatedly producing low quality work or results, failure to meet work deadlines, a demotivated employee, searching for new job opportunities and even an employee pretending to be busy. These signs are obviously similar to
Pre-Quitting Behaviours (PQBs) that indicate that an employee might actually quit his job and resign.
Managing and Dealing with Quiet Quitting
The productivity and growth of most organizations is hinged in employee performance. Hence it is important that organisations and managers quickly
detect signs of QQ early and
address the root causes well before the behavior spreads.
For this reason managers and organisations are advised to monitor QQ behavior among their employees on a regular basis. When left unattended, quiet quitters may end up becoming loud quitters who will be actively disengaged and spread their dissatisfaction to others within or outside the organisation. This affects the organisation's reputation and growth.
The manager should approach any QQ employee professionally and
engage into an open and honest discussion with them in order to come up with a fruitful solution.
Note that a team in an organisation is only as productive as its least productive member. That's one more reason why there is the need to quickly identify the signs of this truancy-like behavior early and
take action swiftly.
⇨ I look forward to any builds and ideas concerning managing QQ.
Sources:
Joshua King (2022) "What is Quiet Quitting? Keep your Job, Change your Mindset", Vol 43 of great investments, Amazon digital services
Simon Kramer (2022), "Silent Quitting : A Guide to Quiet Quitting", Simon Kramer
Jim Harter et all (2022), "Wellbeing at Work: How to Build Resilient and Thriving Teams".
23-1-2023
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