>About two years ago the term “quiet quitting” was added to the workplace vocabulary. It refers to employees who are no longer willing to go the extra mile for an employer
The fact that not doing additional free work is framed as "quitting" is both ridiculous and sad.
>Quiet quitters are hard to handle, both on the job and in performance reviews, because they continue to complete their assigned workload to the same (often high) standard, giving their managers an uneasy feeling but nothing specific to complain about.
Why would there be anything to complain about if the work someone is assigned is completed on time and to a high standard? I don't understand.
>“But it’s hard to deal with while keeping everyone else engaged. In particular it’s a challenge to ensure that the first job employees on the team don’t assume this behaviour is the norm.
God forbid other team members start to respect their own time rather than giving it to their employer for free.
I think it’s more about exploiting the gap between the bar for the role and the bar to get fired. Perhaps “ideally” there’s no gap there to exploit. But practically there will be. Moreover, because the bar to fire is usually driven by completely separate mechanisms in an organization, there’s no clear backpressure to force more alignment between the two. So I think it’s less about the respect of an employee or an employer - it’s not that the employees are doing anything wrong - and more what are the systemic consequences of the size of this gap potentially changing and/or employees biasing more towards the ‘not fired’ bar. What happens if everyone swings left? Whose responsibility should it be to manage that and who is actually empowered/incentivized to do so? Who’s at the wheel here?
The employee is at the wheel here. That’s the realization that’s setting in. Want more engagement? Make the work more engaging. Or just realize that you get what you pay more.
What the “bar for the role” gap is really is the zone you work in when you don’t care about getting ahead. Getting ahead has never been mandatory, at least post the first few years at work (often the first few levels in most corporations have an expiry date you need to matriculate through or be let go). Once you’re in a terminal role it’s supposed to be ok to stay there and not put in that extra to get ahead. It should be ok for people to not always be striving and reaching higher and higher. Often other things in life become more important - children, last years with parents, your maker hobby. That’s ok.
> The fact that not doing additional free work is framed as "quitting" is both ridiculous and sad.
Yeah, that's something I thought was strange in the article. My understanding of quiet quitting was that you did the bare minimum to not get fired, not "not going above and beyond".
> “Quiet quitting” first hit the internet in March 2022 when a Gen-X career coach and employment influencer named Brian Creely used the phrase when discussing an Insider article about employees “coasting” at work. After that, the phrase went viral on TikTok, particularly among the app’s younger, Gen-Z-dominated user base.
I think the term shifted because one of the early descriptions was "only doing what you're paid for", which can be interpreted as either "coasting" or "restricting to 9-to-5".
That or they're actively trying to shift it to stop people from realizing coasting is a thing.
I think your definition is correct and "the extra mile" simply refers to above the minimum. It wouldn't be a phenomenon if it referred to the normal amount of work that was expected.
extraordinary amounts of hours buys less and less. it feels like the ambition dissolved when the rewards dwindled -- which is (maybe sadly) a behavior that I find hard to find fault in.
What employees want: Better Work-Life Balance, Wages that keep up with Inflation.
What employees get:
> I still have my KPIs to meet so I can only be understanding up to a point. I actively encourage my team to avail of our employee assistance programmes and I try to lead by example by doing a relaxation class at lunchtime (provided on-site) or going outside to get some air if it’s not lashing down.
“I also keep back some of my budget to spend on small rewards like sweet treats when everyone is in the office, buying eggs at Easter or standing them the occasional lunch.
"Quiet quitting is really hard to tackle, largely because the employees concerned are doing their jobs; they are just not willing to go above and beyond."
Employees are generally willing to go above and beyond if employers are willing to go above and beyond--extra pay for the extra effort.
Amen. You can’t treat employees as disposable things and then complain they aren’t working harder.
I think people are waking up to the reality that money has diminishing returns beyond a certain point. Owning a house, a car and taking vacations can improve your life. But owning a bigger house, more expensive car and luxury vacations gets old very quick (and doesn’t make one more “happy”).
What we’re really craving at that point is a sense of connection with others and a feeling of belonging. Having an external impact. Believing in and contributing to something beyond ourselves. So no amount of excessive self-indulgence/consumption can fill that void.
So people are now willing to trade that extra monetary reward for their time back to do that and more.
For a lot of people I don’t think it’s that money is only good up to a point.
It’s the revelation they’re unlikely to ever have that kind of money. That working harder doesn’t do any good, no matter what they’re told, it will always be out of reach.
Why should they bother to work extra to win a rigged game when the prize is money that won’t get them ahead in any way?
Sometimes it doesn't even mean extra pay. It can even just be some genuine and sincere recognition that they are doing it. Extra pay should be the standard of course, but many employers are just come off as entitled, like they are 'owed' that extra free work and just take it for granted.
I really don’t like the term “quiet quitting” though. A person who is doing their job well according to the working hours in their contract is not quitting anything. Why is there even an expectation for the whole f’in company to go above and beyond?
If that happened, would they rate everyone “5/5 - leading performance/goes above and beyond” in performance reviews?
Even if they did, they wouldn’t hesitate to lay them off if that helps them improve quarterly earnings (and lets the CEO keep their multi million $ stock bonus).
Oh you’re right. It’s a fantastic piece of branding, right up there with “death panels”. It immediate sounds like the worker’s fault since quitting is an active verb, even though as you said they’re doing exactly what is asked of them.
Not only had companies been pushing people to work harder for less, the pandemic gave them the opportunity to disparage those who weren’t happy about it!
> I still have my KPIs to meet so I can only be understanding up to a point.
If the KPI was set under the assumption that employees were going to work more than they are contractually required to, then that's not the employees problem. That's the fault of whoever set the KPI. They wrote a check they can't cash, and THEY should be the one to take the fall.
Either lower the KPI, or hire more and pay more so you have the resources to achieve them.
Funny how they can view the employees not doing extra labor as a problem. Meanwhile the management is effectively admitting incompetence. Isn't that a bigger problem?
"Either lower the KPI, or hire more and pay more so you have the resources to achieve them."
Nah, it's a lot easier to just overwork people until the good ones leave and the stuck people burn out, then fire them when you miss targets and then fire the line managers when you subsequently miss targets again because the team turned over.
I worked very hard for my current employer. Then they closed all of our offices and forced us into full time remote work (which I do not like, at all). And pay reviews for the past two years have been so insultingly small that my pay today in inflation adjusted terms is significantly lower than when I started 4 years ago. I made myself VERY loudly heard by my manager at the last round of pay reviews.
Since then I have been firmly in the bare-minimum camp. Call it quiet quitting if you want. I get my job done but I take my sweet time. I try to meet deadlines but I don't work extra hours if they're at risk. I feel poorly treated so I responded in kind.
This is the expiration date for any job. You hit the 2 year mark you need to be out or actively looking. The internal raise has never met inflation or market demand.
The corporate world could use some employee-oriented alternatives to the employer-biased term "quiet quitting". How about "workload rightsizing"? Or maybe "compensation matching"?
These kinds of articles never seem to provide a good explanation for why the workplace should go back to how things were before “quiet quitting” became widespread. Employers’ complaints seems particularly puzzling in the light of the idea that so-called quiet quitters “complete their assigned workload to the same (often high) standard”. What are you complaining about, then?
So why should things go back to the way they were? Is it because that is the natural and righteous order of things under heaven, that employers pay for 40 hours of work a week but their employees will give them 50, 60, or 80 hours? What is it about such quietly abusive arrangements that makes them “professional”... or fair, for that matter?
The idea that doing more than the 9-to-5 is “counterbalanced by social capital, wellbeing and career success” is kind of analogous to the idea that artists should be thankful when they are paid in “exposure” instead of money. Also, the idea that small rewards such as candy are sufficient to recognize employee’s large sacrificies is cheap and insulting. Don’t buy Easter eggs, silly employers, but rather, pay toward employee’s nest eggs. Or just pay overtime rates for the overtime you’re requiring from your employees, you KPI-monging cheapskates!
" I try to lead by example by doing a relaxation class at lunchtime " - and once they've finished this class they are asking their workers to stay late and have they seen the KPIs and what are they going to do about it...
Imagine if you randomly and frequently got paid a bonus just because the company wants you to succeed and not quit. And then we read articles about an epidemic of only getting paid your contractual salary. Quiet firing?
Imagine raises, if they even come, do not keep up with the cost of living, thus employees are paid less year-over-year even if they do get raises. Quiet firing.
It didn't take a pandemic for quiet firing to become the de facto standard. That's just "how business works."
Management-created crises, allegedly to "inspire the troops," may be seen as a form of quiet firing. And not just for the lackluster employees who fail to pitch in, but even for the rank and file whose morale can be impacted.
Creating too many tasks to possibly accomplish, another inspirational management tactic, can sometimes backfire in a similar fashion.
>> thinly veiled anger among those in the 35 to 45+ age
At 48 I'm on the edge of this group. I look at my cohort outside tech and the words "failure" spring to mind.
I look at my cohort in tech, who are pulling in great money, and still trying to quite quit. IF you want that 200k a year tech gig you're going to have to eat some shit to get there and stay there.
+1 to the parent. We're in an tech industry downturn, a.k.a layoffs galore, and the people who visibly do the minimum are the first on the chopping block. I've seen a couple get the axe already.
What a fucked up article. The manager on the piece is implied to be upset people aren't worried about KPIs when grieving dead loved ones. They say that they try to reward people with snacks instead.
> Quiet quitting refers to doing the minimum requirements of one’s job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary.
It seems a lot of people interpret this is meaning, for example, not working an hour late on occasion.
I got the impression it also means things like, say, you suspect a problem with instructions you were given, but you're not going to bother to investigate or mention it to anyone, since that would be more effort, you just don't care, and your butt is covered if you just follow instructions.
This latter example -- at least speaking up if you notice a problem -- could arguably be considered part of the job. And it avoids conflating the issue with "hourly job" or "work hours" concerns that lead to responses like it's only about "if you want more work, then pay more money".
>About two years ago the term “quiet quitting” was added to the workplace vocabulary. It refers to employees who are no longer willing to go the extra mile for an employer
The fact that not doing additional free work is framed as "quitting" is both ridiculous and sad.
>Quiet quitters are hard to handle, both on the job and in performance reviews, because they continue to complete their assigned workload to the same (often high) standard, giving their managers an uneasy feeling but nothing specific to complain about.
Why would there be anything to complain about if the work someone is assigned is completed on time and to a high standard? I don't understand.
>“But it’s hard to deal with while keeping everyone else engaged. In particular it’s a challenge to ensure that the first job employees on the team don’t assume this behaviour is the norm.
God forbid other team members start to respect their own time rather than giving it to their employer for free.
I think it’s more about exploiting the gap between the bar for the role and the bar to get fired. Perhaps “ideally” there’s no gap there to exploit. But practically there will be. Moreover, because the bar to fire is usually driven by completely separate mechanisms in an organization, there’s no clear backpressure to force more alignment between the two. So I think it’s less about the respect of an employee or an employer - it’s not that the employees are doing anything wrong - and more what are the systemic consequences of the size of this gap potentially changing and/or employees biasing more towards the ‘not fired’ bar. What happens if everyone swings left? Whose responsibility should it be to manage that and who is actually empowered/incentivized to do so? Who’s at the wheel here?
There's also a gap regularly exploited by employers, between "worker does extra" and "worker actually gets paid for it."
I feel it would be a mistake to try to analyze just one of those without the other.
The employee is at the wheel here. That’s the realization that’s setting in. Want more engagement? Make the work more engaging. Or just realize that you get what you pay more.
What the “bar for the role” gap is really is the zone you work in when you don’t care about getting ahead. Getting ahead has never been mandatory, at least post the first few years at work (often the first few levels in most corporations have an expiry date you need to matriculate through or be let go). Once you’re in a terminal role it’s supposed to be ok to stay there and not put in that extra to get ahead. It should be ok for people to not always be striving and reaching higher and higher. Often other things in life become more important - children, last years with parents, your maker hobby. That’s ok.
> The fact that not doing additional free work is framed as "quitting" is both ridiculous and sad.
Yeah, that's something I thought was strange in the article. My understanding of quiet quitting was that you did the bare minimum to not get fired, not "not going above and beyond".
You're right:
> “Quiet quitting” first hit the internet in March 2022 when a Gen-X career coach and employment influencer named Brian Creely used the phrase when discussing an Insider article about employees “coasting” at work. After that, the phrase went viral on TikTok, particularly among the app’s younger, Gen-Z-dominated user base.
https://www.thestreet.com/dictionary/quiet-quitting
I think the term shifted because one of the early descriptions was "only doing what you're paid for", which can be interpreted as either "coasting" or "restricting to 9-to-5".
That or they're actively trying to shift it to stop people from realizing coasting is a thing.
That was the original definition as I remember it.
Of course the article’s definition works better if you want to paint all workers as lazy mooches who are lucky for every day they’re not fired.
I think your definition is correct and "the extra mile" simply refers to above the minimum. It wouldn't be a phenomenon if it referred to the normal amount of work that was expected.
Well, more people used to have ambition to "move up", get raises, bonuses, and promotions.
extraordinary amounts of hours buys less and less. it feels like the ambition dissolved when the rewards dwindled -- which is (maybe sadly) a behavior that I find hard to find fault in.
What employees want: Better Work-Life Balance, Wages that keep up with Inflation.
What employees get:
> I still have my KPIs to meet so I can only be understanding up to a point. I actively encourage my team to avail of our employee assistance programmes and I try to lead by example by doing a relaxation class at lunchtime (provided on-site) or going outside to get some air if it’s not lashing down. “I also keep back some of my budget to spend on small rewards like sweet treats when everyone is in the office, buying eggs at Easter or standing them the occasional lunch.
"Quiet quitting is really hard to tackle, largely because the employees concerned are doing their jobs; they are just not willing to go above and beyond."
Employees are generally willing to go above and beyond if employers are willing to go above and beyond--extra pay for the extra effort.
Amen. You can’t treat employees as disposable things and then complain they aren’t working harder.
I think people are waking up to the reality that money has diminishing returns beyond a certain point. Owning a house, a car and taking vacations can improve your life. But owning a bigger house, more expensive car and luxury vacations gets old very quick (and doesn’t make one more “happy”).
What we’re really craving at that point is a sense of connection with others and a feeling of belonging. Having an external impact. Believing in and contributing to something beyond ourselves. So no amount of excessive self-indulgence/consumption can fill that void.
So people are now willing to trade that extra monetary reward for their time back to do that and more.
For a lot of people I don’t think it’s that money is only good up to a point.
It’s the revelation they’re unlikely to ever have that kind of money. That working harder doesn’t do any good, no matter what they’re told, it will always be out of reach.
Why should they bother to work extra to win a rigged game when the prize is money that won’t get them ahead in any way?
Inconsistent rewards were used to extract consistent over performance, and that parlor trick no longer works.
“We can no longer overwork and underpay the help. What do?”
Sometimes it doesn't even mean extra pay. It can even just be some genuine and sincere recognition that they are doing it. Extra pay should be the standard of course, but many employers are just come off as entitled, like they are 'owed' that extra free work and just take it for granted.
I really don’t like the term “quiet quitting” though. A person who is doing their job well according to the working hours in their contract is not quitting anything. Why is there even an expectation for the whole f’in company to go above and beyond?
If that happened, would they rate everyone “5/5 - leading performance/goes above and beyond” in performance reviews?
Even if they did, they wouldn’t hesitate to lay them off if that helps them improve quarterly earnings (and lets the CEO keep their multi million $ stock bonus).
Oh you’re right. It’s a fantastic piece of branding, right up there with “death panels”. It immediate sounds like the worker’s fault since quitting is an active verb, even though as you said they’re doing exactly what is asked of them.
Not only had companies been pushing people to work harder for less, the pandemic gave them the opportunity to disparage those who weren’t happy about it!
> I still have my KPIs to meet so I can only be understanding up to a point.
If the KPI was set under the assumption that employees were going to work more than they are contractually required to, then that's not the employees problem. That's the fault of whoever set the KPI. They wrote a check they can't cash, and THEY should be the one to take the fall.
Either lower the KPI, or hire more and pay more so you have the resources to achieve them.
Funny how they can view the employees not doing extra labor as a problem. Meanwhile the management is effectively admitting incompetence. Isn't that a bigger problem?
"Either lower the KPI, or hire more and pay more so you have the resources to achieve them."
Nah, it's a lot easier to just overwork people until the good ones leave and the stuck people burn out, then fire them when you miss targets and then fire the line managers when you subsequently miss targets again because the team turned over.
That's what they're complaining about - that it's no longer easier to just overwork people, because the people are refusing to be overworked.
... and they have no mechanism for firing managers in that situation. Right?
I worked very hard for my current employer. Then they closed all of our offices and forced us into full time remote work (which I do not like, at all). And pay reviews for the past two years have been so insultingly small that my pay today in inflation adjusted terms is significantly lower than when I started 4 years ago. I made myself VERY loudly heard by my manager at the last round of pay reviews.
Since then I have been firmly in the bare-minimum camp. Call it quiet quitting if you want. I get my job done but I take my sweet time. I try to meet deadlines but I don't work extra hours if they're at risk. I feel poorly treated so I responded in kind.
> past two years
This is the expiration date for any job. You hit the 2 year mark you need to be out or actively looking. The internal raise has never met inflation or market demand.
The corporate world could use some employee-oriented alternatives to the employer-biased term "quiet quitting". How about "workload rightsizing"? Or maybe "compensation matching"?
Maximizing operational efficiency through labor cost/benefit analysis.
Tightening contractual relationships to avoid leaving money on the table.
Fighting against the epidemic of "quiet firing."
I'm misunderstood quiet quitting to be the people who did the least amount of work possible while still keeping their job.
This "9-5 engaged worker" is certainly a new one on me
It's a shifting of the goalposts, to make "just" meeting the expectations of your job seem like you're being lazy and unengaged from the work.
These kinds of articles never seem to provide a good explanation for why the workplace should go back to how things were before “quiet quitting” became widespread. Employers’ complaints seems particularly puzzling in the light of the idea that so-called quiet quitters “complete their assigned workload to the same (often high) standard”. What are you complaining about, then?
So why should things go back to the way they were? Is it because that is the natural and righteous order of things under heaven, that employers pay for 40 hours of work a week but their employees will give them 50, 60, or 80 hours? What is it about such quietly abusive arrangements that makes them “professional”... or fair, for that matter?
The idea that doing more than the 9-to-5 is “counterbalanced by social capital, wellbeing and career success” is kind of analogous to the idea that artists should be thankful when they are paid in “exposure” instead of money. Also, the idea that small rewards such as candy are sufficient to recognize employee’s large sacrificies is cheap and insulting. Don’t buy Easter eggs, silly employers, but rather, pay toward employee’s nest eggs. Or just pay overtime rates for the overtime you’re requiring from your employees, you KPI-monging cheapskates!
" I try to lead by example by doing a relaxation class at lunchtime " - and once they've finished this class they are asking their workers to stay late and have they seen the KPIs and what are they going to do about it...
Imagine if you randomly and frequently got paid a bonus just because the company wants you to succeed and not quit. And then we read articles about an epidemic of only getting paid your contractual salary. Quiet firing?
Imagine raises, if they even come, do not keep up with the cost of living, thus employees are paid less year-over-year even if they do get raises. Quiet firing.
It didn't take a pandemic for quiet firing to become the de facto standard. That's just "how business works."
Management-created crises, allegedly to "inspire the troops," may be seen as a form of quiet firing. And not just for the lackluster employees who fail to pitch in, but even for the rank and file whose morale can be impacted.
Creating too many tasks to possibly accomplish, another inspirational management tactic, can sometimes backfire in a similar fashion.
https://archive.is/WsV54
> “complete their assigned workload to the same (often high) standard”.
If I hire an employee and he completes their assigned workload to a high standard, how is he not an excellent employee?
>> thinly veiled anger among those in the 35 to 45+ age
At 48 I'm on the edge of this group. I look at my cohort outside tech and the words "failure" spring to mind.
I look at my cohort in tech, who are pulling in great money, and still trying to quite quit. IF you want that 200k a year tech gig you're going to have to eat some shit to get there and stay there.
+1 to the parent. We're in an tech industry downturn, a.k.a layoffs galore, and the people who visibly do the minimum are the first on the chopping block. I've seen a couple get the axe already.
"Quiet pay cutting: you always had employers who did 0% annual raises but it's a creeping malaise"
I think in the future we will have higher pay, but none will be on fixed positions
What a fucked up article. The manager on the piece is implied to be upset people aren't worried about KPIs when grieving dead loved ones. They say that they try to reward people with snacks instead.
What a bunch of absolute psychopaths.
Is this satire?
bro, if you want your employee work more, just pay your employees more. what's so hard to understand about it?
Or hire more people.
Forty hours already feels excessive. I’m not gonna spend more time rotting in front of a screen for a pay bump.
> Quiet quitting refers to doing the minimum requirements of one’s job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary.
It seems a lot of people interpret this is meaning, for example, not working an hour late on occasion.
I got the impression it also means things like, say, you suspect a problem with instructions you were given, but you're not going to bother to investigate or mention it to anyone, since that would be more effort, you just don't care, and your butt is covered if you just follow instructions.
This latter example -- at least speaking up if you notice a problem -- could arguably be considered part of the job. And it avoids conflating the issue with "hourly job" or "work hours" concerns that lead to responses like it's only about "if you want more work, then pay more money".