The pandemic shook things up. One area, outside of health, that was deeply impacted was our relationships with work. As people returned to what was deemed âthe new normalâ, there was a noticeable shift in the weighting people were willing to allocate to the work domain. Reducing hours worked was not an option for many, but attitudinal shifts were within their control.
1. Quiet Quitting
One such trend, made viral through TikTok, was quiet quitting. Quiet quitting is a form of negative organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) demonstrated by employees who are unwilling to do all the extra work that was being asked of them.
Instead, employees were (quietly) taking a stand against exploitation by doing only the bare minimum required to fulfill their job description; see also Bare Minimum Mondays. No more late-night emails or staying late to complete a task. Employees felt entitled to only work what they were paid to work and refused to give more. While the movement may have begun as a form of empowerment, disgruntled and disengaged employees began to push the limits of what constitutes the bare minimum â giving less and less to their employers. Gallupâs 2022 Employee Engagement Survey reported over 50% of the US workforce was engaging in quiet quitting, with only 32% classified as âengaged workersâ and 18% marked as âactively disengagedâ.
Flexible work demands were high, with more and more employees unwilling to swap their pajamas for suits. To contextualize the demand for flexible work, a 2022 survey conducted by Deloitte and Swinburne University of Technology reported that 44% of flexible location workers and 42% of onsite workers rated flexibility as âmore importantâ than a pay rise. Remote work had become the norm for many. While many employees and managers developed efficient working arrangements and continued to perform well, others embraced the philosophy of quiet quitting.
TikTok user Zaid Khan, attributed with one of the earliest mentions of #quiet quitting, summarized the philosophy: âYouâre not outright quitting your job but youâre quitting the idea of going above and beyondâŠYouâre still performing your duties, but youâre no longer subscribing to the hustle-culture mentality that work has to be your lifeâŠYour worth as a person is not defined by your laborâ.
The viral nature of the quiet quitting hashtag and the ideas contained within it implies that it spoke to many. It may have also signaled that leaders and employees had different expectations, necessitating a closer look at the psychological contract between the two parties. Quiet quitting was likely a reactive behavior as employees felt overworked and exploited by managers following the increased productivity and hectic survival period at the start of the pandemic.
2. Quiet Hiring
In response to quiet quitting, managers found their own way to push back, and another trend emerged: quiet hiring. Here, managers found ways to expand employee work roles by offering them opportunities for ânew and excitingâ tasks and job titles, thus avoiding having to hire new employees to cover the personnel needs of the organization. Companies, like Google, used this strategy to identify their best internal candidates and place them in open positions. In other words, if you want to be considered for a better role, you need to start doing that role to show you are capable. In this round of exploitation, managers rewarded those who opted out of quiet quitting and penalized those who engaged in the trend – making it almost impossible for quiet quitters, who were still performing the tasks specified in their roles, to get promoted.
3. Career Cushioning
How did employees respond? We saw the evolution of quiet quitting to career cushioning . A career cushioner uses work time and resources to build up their skills and strengthen their resume so that they are better placed to find and secure a better job elsewhere. In other words, an employee will push back against insecure and precarious employment conditions by focusing on their own professional development – with the full intention to leave their current employer. Career cushioners may take advantage of a training course offered by their employer, while also applying for other jobs and even starting their own business on the side.
Restoring The Trust
If the three above mentioned trends are symptoms of a disconnect between employees and leaders, something needs to be done to restore trust, commitment from employees, and protection and fulfillment from leaders to employees. Making the psychological contract explicit, making the unspoken agreement about expectations loud and clear, could be a step to right previous wrongs and restore balance between parties.
For instance, if quiet quitting was less about being quiet and less about quitting, could engagement be restored? That is, if employees were willing to discuss their perceived overwork and leaders were willing to listen and try out new ways of flexible working, a new (and explicit) psychological contract could be forged.