Quiet Quitting. Really? A Leader’s Thoughts
What in the world? Do we really have a term like this or, moreover, people engaging in this activity? It seems so. According to Wikipedia (yes, Wikipedia actually includes quiet quitting in its archives) quiet quitting emerged in mid 2022 as a term and trend meaning, not quitting one’s job but rather, doing only what is required and nothing more. The concept is centered around loyalty to self - avoiding work burnout and achieving a better work/life balance. When I first heard it, I confess, I was angered. I’m 55 and I’ve been employed since the age of 15. I was taught by my parents to be an exceptional employee – to work hard. While I may not have always been the best employee, I’ve almost always gone the extra mile for my co-workers and my company. I excelled under this philosophy, and I enjoy the fruits of that hard work today. Add to this my twenty seven years in a military uniform and three combat tours – quitting is not in my vocabulary. I detest people who chose to quit and sleep like a baby a night.
My anger, initially focused on the quiet quitter, quickly subsided, and turned toward the leader. “Of course!”, I thought. This has been going on for years. It’s called employee disengagement. When doing research for my first book on leadership in 2017, I discovered the “Worlds Broken Workplace,” written by Jim Clifton, the former CEO, now Chairman of Gallup. Among other things, Gallup tracks employee disengagement which has hovered between 65 and 70 percent each year. Disengagement means the employee is emotionally detached from work. He or she does not share the boss’s passion to take the organization to new heights. He or she simply draws a paycheck and does only what is required to avoid being fired. In other words, quiet quitting. Disengagement is caused by variety of voids in the workplace such as lack of purpose, worth, praise and recognition, career progression and effective leadership. The list goes on.
People do not leave their jobs; they leave their bosses. I’ve had the good fortune in my leadership practice to see under the hood of several businesses. The workplace is still broken. Gallup claims over 51% of employees are actively looking for another job out of dissatisfaction with their current one and, of course, we all have heard of and even experienced the Great Resignation and Work From Home (WFH) born of the pandemic. However, while the playing field has changed, the constant is, people still seek good leadership. Unfortunately, in too many companies, they are not finding it.
Bad leaders may be chosen simply through their seniority in the company or when the boss spots a top performer and believes the person’s intelligence, work ethic, and acumen must mean they can lead. Sarah, an MBA graduate is crushing it, so she is appointed as leader. While intelligent and talented, Sarah is an untrained and uneducated leader. She is a product of an American education system void of leadership training and education, and so she fails. The result of her failure, or more importantly the failure of the person who made her a leader, is poor company performance, costly employee turnover or - quiet quitting.
Indeed, there are some bad apples - employees who have been coddled to much in their upbringing, who don’t know hard work or the how and why of sacrifice for the greater team and mission. Some were taught that they are entitled to more than they should be and some, to the detriment of their organization operate under the “it’s all about me” philosophy. They don’t understand or embrace selflessness or see themselves as a member of the greater team. All this said, it is bad practice as a leader to assume this as their start point – to label generations and believe that everyone is like what is described above.
The Millennial and the Z generations are demanding more from the workplace, and they will leave or ‘quiet quit’ if their demands are not met. I’ve often said, “my dad had a job, my sons have a lifestyle.” My dad sold commercial insurance for 40 years – same office, same secretary, same hours. That was his Baby Boomer generation’s life, and to some extent my X generation’s. My sons and their Millennial and Z generations will job hop. Along with pay and benefits, they will look for DEI in action, social and environmental impact, WFH options, flexible hours, and good leadership. None of this means they won’t work hard. Under the right leadership and a healthy work environment, Millennials and Z’s can be engaged, hard-working, and selfless employees. I have 6 of them.
Next to my leadership business I run a small business selling and installing window fashions. My teammates genuinely care about the company. When we perform poorly, they take it personally. They will (and have) put in the work to ensure we succeed. They will come to the aid of their teammates. They are fully engaged. I ask myself and them often, why this is the case. Why are they not quiet quitters? The answer is good leadership. I’m not one to brag. I believe my Millennial and Z employees came from good stock - that I was lucky to find them. But I could easily envision a scenario where they would be quiet quitters. Here is what I have done to prevent that.
We established a shared company vision, “Serving our people, our customers, and our community.” We subscribe to a set of values, Humility, Selflessness, Teamwork, and Innovation. I talk about these values and champion them every single day. I measure my people against these values, and I recognize them when they espouse them. When I check on my people, I do so not to catch them ‘quitting’ but to see if they have what they need – to learn from them and thank them. I ask about their weekends, their kids, their hobbies, and their lives. Of course, I inspect and check on their performance, but they understand I do this only to foster learning and growth and to make us the very best in the business.
I include their families in company events and welcome them to our office anytime. I counsel or appraise my teammates every 60 days. We sit one on one and talk about their struggles, how to overcome their obstacles, better themselves, and live our values. I sketch a career timeline for them and offer my support to help them achieve milestones, even if it means they will eventually leave me for some other opportunity. I have one teammate who is attending college part time. I’ve adjusted his hours to accommodate his schedule. He knows that his education, while not exactly related to what he does in the company is very important to me and has my full support. I poke fun at them and let them poke fun back at me. The environment is healthy and welcoming. Our customers even take notice.
We are not perfect. My leadership is not always on the mark. I may miss a cue, get impatient, or even a bit emotional. My teammates and I make mistakes and get complacent. We are human after all. When we do face adversity, we address it head on. We communicate and solve problems together. One of my teammates was late to work. I asked if he was ok instead of berating him. We did talk about the importance of punctuality, and I asked for his help to improve his tardiness. I am loyal to their time off. Weekend and evening texts or emails are the exception, not the norm. We do our best with work/life balance. There really is no such thing but we keep our eyes on it anyway and do our best to preserve personal time, family time, and even quality breaks at work. I pay them overtime if they bust 40 hours in a week.
What can you do?
Step one is to form a strong relationship built on trust and mutual respect. You do this mostly through social settings where work is not the topic or even the location. It is the informal ways we interact which build trust. Know yourself deeply and know your people and develop a leadership approach I call ‘leading beyond the workplace’. This is not to say pry into the personal lives of your people – I don’t do that. It means knowing and showing genuine interest and curiosity about how they live and fill buckets of fulfillment outside of work. You can even afford them time off for such events or, at a minimum, ask about them. Practice some or all of what I describe above to achieve a healthy work environment. This includes an inspiring vision, organizational values, and an infectiously positive and inclusive culture. Once you have made this investment you can have the ‘quiet quitter’ conversation.
For this conversation, start with curiosity. Why would someone choose to quiet quit? Look in the mirror first. Ask of yourself and of them what are you doing or not doing which may cause this. Is your leadership ineffective? They may respond with, “it is only to establish some work/life balance and avoid work burnout.” Indeed, we all want that, and we ought to strive to achieve it, but not at the cost of others and of the health of the business. You as a leader can work with them to achieve better work/life balance or develop lifestyle strategies but stress that when one takes a quiet quitting approach, the business – their very livelihood (and that of others) is at risk. Work/life balance will suffer if the business suffers. Others will be forced to pick up the slack and work harder to cover for the quiet quitter’s lack of performance and that is not fair.
Next, what is the quiet quitter striving for? Do they want raises, advancement, and growth? What is it they would like to achieve in life? What are their long-term goals? If the answer is anything greater than where they are today, quiet quitting will serve as a roadblock, not a springboard to achieve this growth. The reality of life is no person ever excelled in work, life, love, and play inside an 8-hour workday and a 40-hour work week.
Work is not the devil. It would be helpful if work fulfilled a core purpose and passion of an individual. If there is a mismatch here, for example if a finance person is more passionate about sales this could be a root cause to their displeasure fueling their quiet quitting approach. If this mismatch is discovered, take the conversation in that direction. If not, help the quiet quitter see that work is a means to an end. My goals in life have been to travel, raise a family, save for retirement, and be there financially for those who depended on me. Work – even the worst jobs that I had (and there were plenty) was my means to that end. None of it would have been possible had I taken a quiet quitter approach. I didn’t get to where I am by residing in a comfy 8-hour day, 40-hour week. And wouldn’t a quiet quitting approach create a slippery slope? Quit on work and your co-workers then who is next? Relationships take work. Saving for a new car or a vacation takes work. Raising a family takes work. Anything worth doing or having requires work and if one surrenders to the quiet quitting approach in one aspect of their lives, there is risk that it touches all aspects. That is dangerous.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports there are over 164 million people in the workforce as of July 2022. I am an optimist and I believe that while many are disengaged to various degrees, a vast majority of them are not actually quiet quitting. Perhaps I am naïve, but I refuse to believe that there are no other people like the ones I have on my team, and that quiet quitting is too sensitive a topic to address. Quiet quitting should sound alarm bells for leaders, and they must do whatever it takes to uncover this trend in their organization and eradicate it. Let’s lead better and put in the work to remove quiet quitting from Wikipedia and give it the burial it deserves. Our people, our businesses and our nation deserve this.
Make it Personal!
Rob
Rob Campbell