Quiet Quitting, a pervasive phenomenon, refers to completing the bare minimum requirements of one’s job and the task given and putting less effort, time, and enthusiasm than necessary. Here, the employees fulfill their responsibilities, stay in their positions, and receive compensation but are less willing to engage in citizenship behavior such as helping colleagues, volunteering for extra tasks, or contributing to team meetings (Daugherty, 2024). A Gallup survey conducted in June 2022 among employees aged 18 and over found that quiet quitters ‘make up at least 50% of the U.S. workforce—probably more.’ According to Gallup’s ‘State of the Global Workplace 2023 Report,’ 59% of employees worldwide are quiet quitters at work (Harter, 2023).
We need to address the underlying issue of engagement at the workplace, which refers to the employee’s psychological investment in an organization. Here, people working in an organization face numerous day-to-day challenges of being micromanaged, pressure from the team leads to more significant difficulties like competitiveness in today’s market, the pressure to be “the perfect one” and have all the technical and people skills in your resume, which make the employee feel helpless and leave them with only one choice of disengaged and in other words aquiet quitter.
Quiet quitting is not only a silent killer for the employees who might limit their potential but also for the company’s overall profit and reputation. The lack of productivity by such a population can have significant economic implications, affecting the whole economy and putting the governance of an entire nation in question. Some recent studies show the link between engaged employees with fewer sick leaves, more creativity, good workplace relationships, and higher productivity and, on the other hand, the opposite for disengaged employees (Rosalsky, 2022).
According to recent McKinsey research, quitting quietly can have cost almost equal to leaving. High staff turnover has well-known consequences, including decreased initial output from less-experienced workers, substantial recruitment and onboarding expenses, and lost production from unfilled vacancies. According to the McKinsey study mentioned above, the expense of this kind of disengagement would amount to about 4% of the average major corporation’s wage expenditure. The percentage of employees who stay but have psychologically resigned, meaning they have mentally checked out and are no longer fully committed to their work, may rise if labor markets continue to cool and fewer employees quit. More than half of workers at significant organizations were disengaged. Ten percent could be classified as “quitters”—people who have already decided to leave. A further 43% showed low commitment and satisfaction: 32% were “mildly disengaged,” meaning they fulfilled the bare minimum of job requirements, and 11% were “disruptors,” meaning they were actively disengaged and likely to discourage others (The Hidden Costs of Quiet Quitting, Quantified, 2024).
According to the numbers above, a significant proportion of human capital must be fully utilized, thus affecting the overall organization’s performance. One of the problems highlighted in this context is that the organization heads are sometimes not fully aware of what job the employees are precisely doing and do not complete information, which thus leads to insufficient ways to measure their performance, ultimately leading to disengagement of the employee. This issue has become more prevalent in recent remote work implementation, where there is a crucial need to monitor performance and effectively motivate employees through different means. Effective monitoring and motivation are strategies and lifelines that can prevent quiet quitting and ensure a productive workforce. Their importance cannot be overstated.
References:
- Daugherty, G. (2024, October 8). What is quiet quitting and is it a real trend? Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/what-is-quiet-quitting-6743910
- Harter, B. J. (2023, May 17). Is Quiet Quitting real? Gallup.com https://www.gallup.com/workplace/398306/quiet-quitting-real.aspx
- Rosalsky, G. (2022, September 13). The economics behind “quiet quitting” — and what
we should call it instead. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/09/13/1122059402/the-economics-behind-quiet-quitting-and-what-we-should-call-it-instead - The hidden costs of quiet quitting, quantified. (2024, February 28). McKinsey &
Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/uk/our-insights/the-mckinsey-uk-blog/the-hidden-costs-of-quiet-quitting-quantified
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