Managing Quiet Quitting Among Employees

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Managing Quiet Quitting Among Employees

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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:

• A lack of employee retention and attrition strategies,
• A lack of recognition of employees,
• A lack of work-life balance, and
• A lack of employee self-efficacy to perform other duties.

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".

		Comments by date▼ Comments by rating Rating
		4 Norman Dragt Netherlands
	QQ is a Red Flag for an Employer First I do not agree that the productivity of a team is necessarily equal to the least productive member. If that were true, most teams would disintegrate almost immediately at the first signs of prod...

		2 Hans Joergen Pedersen Analyst, Denmark
	QQ is Doing Less than Paid For Just for starters, the definition is off. Not slightly off. Entirely off. The 'scholars' version is close, but still off, because it believes that quiet quitting is a matter of stop working MORE than ...

		2 Michael Nwosu Entrepreneur, United Kingdom
	Manage Quiet Quitters by Addressing the Causes I suggest to manage people showing signs of QQ by appreciating their positive contributions and by offering genuine attention and support to encourage better performance and productivity. In my exper...

		2 Monica F.Gil Analyst, Spain
	Force versus Motivation Skills I find this topic interesting, because there are many companies that suffer from these kind of matters. Even today in many companies, despite the reinforcements that evolve in the management of human...

		3 S Chihos Consultant, United States
	QQ is not About Laziness, But About Poor Management Your definition seems quite far off from the reality I've seen. In fact, QQ is closer to what those in the comments have shared - especially in regard to its causes and remedies. You seem to attribute...

		2 Paramathmuni srinivas Kumar India
	What to do in Order to Avoid QQ QQ is the result of poor progress of the employee, I suppose. What is progress in a true sense that motivates people to get engaged in work? We can have a look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs where sel...

		2 Meuthia Endrojono-Ellis Entrepreneur, United Kingdom
	Why is it the Employee, Why is not Leadership? Not sure I can agree with the thesis on this. The result of QQ will originate from the culture and leadership that has been set within the organisation and the value the employer/ leader places for th...

		2 Frederic A Parker Consultant, United States
	Quiet Quitting is Poor Supervision This is not a new problem. I recall a Harvard Business School report sometimes in the 1980s that concluded that any business that could get an average of 4 productive hours per day from an employee wa...

		1 Jaap de Jonge Editor, Netherlands
	Quiet Quitting is a Distracting Term @Frederic A Parker: Your practical, "feet on the ground" perspective demonstrates your deep understanding of this issue. I think we might conclude that "quiet quitting" is a term that describes a comm...

		1 Frederic A Parker Consultant, United States
	Well Stated @Jaap de Jonge: I agree. The age-old problem remains regardless of what you call it....

		1 Hans Joergen Pedersen Analyst, Denmark
	The Origin of the Performance Reviews? @Frederic A Parker: And thank you for shedding light on the possible origin of the poisonous malpractice of performance reviewing on a 1-5 scale with normal distribution which has haunted the world fo...

		2 Frederic A Parker Consultant, United States
	Is All that Hard Work Really Necessary? @Hans Joergen Pedersen: Interesting comment, well said. What I have seen happen in several cases is what is called "rating creep" where, gradually, any rating below "excellent," in your example a 4, ...

		3 Corent McDonald Management Consultant, Jamaica
	Consider QQ as a Psychological Response to Perceived Leadership Neglect @Norman Dragt: QQ is essentially a psychological matter. Whilst I do not entirely disagree with your definitions, I would like to add that QQ is indeed, 'doing just enough to get by'. This has been id...

		2 Werner Du Plessis Manager, South Africa
	Managing 'Quiet Quitting' Among Employees During or After a Company Acquisition Managing "Quiet Quitting" among Employees during or after a company acquisition. Managing quiet quitting, where employees leave without announcing their departure, can be challenging, especially af...

		1 Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	QQ is Performing at the Level you Feel you are Valued At @Hans Joergen Pedersen: Not sure that I agree. Consider the numbers of people who are "complaining" that actual salary increases, where they have occurred, are less than the increase of inflation; co...

		1 Werner Du Plessis Manager, South Africa
	Quite Quitting and the Repercussion..... @Maurice Hogarth: Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the issue of QQ and its impact on productivity and motivation in the workplace. I find your comment very insightful. It's unfortunate that man...

		2 Frederic A Parker Consultant, United States
	Quiet Quitting is Basic Human Nature on Display All this focus on the poor employee and their feelings completely misses the point. Left alone people will generally do just enough to get by, and employers will pay just enough to keep the mediocrit...

		1 Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	The Reasonableness of the QQ @Frederic A Parker: Understood and agreed. My personal experience aligns with yours and the situations that you describe. Picking up on your "get by" point: someone (GK Chesterton?) said words to th...