In September 2009, the term quiet quitting was initially coined during a symposium at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University. It quickly became a trend at that time. Now, a few decades later, it has turned into something that all employers fear.
Due to the COVID19 pandemic, many companies all over the world are forced to use a fully remote or hybrid model. At first, it was a way to avoid crowded gatherings. However, the workforce adapted to this style of work rather quickly and it became difficult to ask employees to work in the office again. Check out these 5 gifts that can help make asking employees to come back to work in the office easier.
In this article, you will learn what exactly is quiet quitting, why it is trending, how it is going to affect a business, and most importantly – how you can prevent your employees from thinking about quiet quitting!
What is Quiet Quitting?
Quiet quitting is very different from quitting.
In fact, it is the opposite of quitting. It is actually doing the job right but only covering the scope of one’s own job descriptions.
In a nutshell, "quiet quitting" is about rejecting the idea to let work consume one's life and that employees should exceed their job descriptions. Meaning not going above and beyond to assist in anything unrelated to their job scope.
It can take many forms, including declining projects based on interest, declining work messages outside of working hours, or simply feeling less invested in the job, according to Business Insider.
Facts About Quiet Quitting?
According to Gallup, employee engagement in the U.S. dropped drastically in the second quarter of 2022. Only 32% of the workers surveyed said that they are actively engaged with work and their colleagues. On the other hand, about 18% of the people are disengaged at work. Such ratio of actively engaged to actively disengaged employees is now 1.8 to 1, that means in every 10 people, you will find at least 5 people who are disengaged at work – definitely the lowest in the past decades.
The quiet quitting spread virally. First, on social media with a few KOLs. Then memes and videos about it. In the end, everyone is talking about it, even encouraging people who hate their jobs to do it.
Until now, more and more employers are realizing this problem or at least a potential problem that they will have to face sometime in the future. Millions of people are thinking that going above and beyond at work is not to be considered.
This is a problem for many employers because most jobs today require some level of extra effort to collaborate with coworkers and meet customer needs. It is even a bigger problem for startups since the organization is not fully developed and it often requires employees to do something that is completely out of their job scope.
This trend toward quiet quitting really began in the second half of 2021, when COVID19 was the most severe. 70% of SMBs stated that they believe quiet quitting has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic started.
But 50% of the same group of SMBs also believe that hybrid and in-person employees are equally likely to quiet quit as fully-remote employees. This means that most employers think that employee engagement is not the most unsolvable issue.
But it definitely is one of the factors for the rise in job resignations.
Signs of Employees Quiet Quitting
When you see this signs on your employees, you should pay more attention to them and try to understand where they are coming from:
- They start to increase absences from work
- They start to turn in incomplete or rushed work
- They start to expressed unhappiness with their workload and/or compensation
- They start to miss deadlines
- They start to take relatively much longer to come back to work from their lunch breaks
- They stop to contribute ideas and give feedback
- They stop to communicate with the team
- They stop to participate in company events
- They stop to attend meetings more regularly for any reasons
- They stop to ask for help or advice from managers
How Can You Prevent or Stop Employee Quiet Quitting?
The answer is by increasing employee engagement and employee satisfaction.
There are a lot of articles out there about how you can improve your company’s employee engagement and satisfaction. To sum up, there are 2 things you must do:
- You need to give a reason for your employees to come to work everyday.
- You need to recognize their contributions.
Let’s talk about giving your employees the reason to come to work. Everyone has different career plans, they all want different things. You need to understand why your employees are working for you, why, and what they expect from you. It could be the product, the interesting work, the company culture, or the high salary. Find what they believe and make the belief real for them.
On the other hand, recognizing and appreciating hard work is also important to helping you stop quiet quitting. When people are appreciated, they feel a deep sense of connection with you and they will feel that they are important to the company. In addition, if you give the recognition, they will feel a sense of accomplishment.
If you can provide these 2 things to your employees, you will give them a purpose. Then you will be able to increase employee engagement and satisfaction, while avoiding them to quiet quit on you.
Why Should Employers Try to Prevent Quiet Quitting?
Although quiet quitting is really just setting the boundaries and readjusting work-life balance in the hopes to avoid burnouts at work, it still brings a long term negative effect on the employees. And this is especially true for startup companies that are in the stage of hypergrowth.
Some employers might think that as long as my employees are doing what they are supposed to do, it is totally fine.
However, in the long term, it will affect a number of things:
- Employee Engagement
- Productivity
- Company Culture
- Resources
Let’s put it into perspective for different scenarios.
Imagine a company with 50 employees and 50% of them are quiet quitting. What does this mean for the company? It means 25 people are doing their job just to meet their job description. These employees will not only turn down any work that is unrelated to their responsibilities, but also disengage with the other employees or the company.
In the long-run, their productivity will lower because in their subconsciousness, they are already prepared to leave the job. Moreover, this attitude towards work will quickly spread and multiply throughout the company like a virus, affecting the company culture.
Last but not least, these employees who are quiet quitting will eventually quit, either by themselves or get laid off depending on the employers. So, in the end, employers will have to hire more people to cover their jobs. And these new hires will need to be trained. Everything is time and resources here.
Send Gifts to Stop Quiet Quitting
Corporate Gifting is one of the best ways to show your employees that you care about them and that you appreciate them. When your employees receive a well thought out gift, they can feel your effort and understand the message you are trying to send.
Here are a few articles that we put together for your reference on what gifts to buy for your employees:
- 【Looking for Employee Appreciation Gifts? A Better Solution Than a List of Ideas】
- 【10 Gifts Under 50 USD to Make Your Employees Feel Appreciated】
- 【6 Smart Gifts for Coworkers to Create an Efficient Workplace at Home】
- 【Success-guaranteed Corporate Gift Ideas Recommended by AI】
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