It is a new term for a mindset that has recently come up in social media.
Despite the misleading name, quiet quitting apparently has nothing to do with quitting your job.
Instead, it means doing only what your job demands and nothing more. It is quitting going above and beyond the call of duty. The quiet quitters still show up for work and deliver the goods, but they now have the discipline and determination to stay strictly within the boundaries of the job requirements. No more tripping over themselves to perform additional tasks or check emails beyond the prescribed work hours. Bosses will definitely be less impressed by this new movement.
The workplace has definitely seen a drastic change because of the pandemic. Work from home has been both a blessing and a curse, allowing employees to avoid the inefficient commute, spend more time with family and loved ones, and still be mostly productive. However, at the same time, it has also erased boundaries between work and home life, especially when employers and employees don’t know how to “switch off.”
The pandemic has seen an increasing number of young workers growing tired of not getting the recognition and compensation for putting in extra hours. We have seen the “Great Resignation” as people are saying no to burnout and seeking work-life balance. The quiet quitting is apparently centered around self-preservation and “acting your wage.”
Surprisingly, the movement’s origins could possibly be traced back to China, where the now censored hashtag #tangping, meaning “lie flat”, was used in protest against the long hours culture.
While it is the employees are currently subscribing or at least thinking about quiet the viral movement, there is of course a reaction from the other side, especially from those who have benefitted greatly from workers that regularly go above and beyond for them. In workplace cultures that expect workers to give more than what is asked as a prerequisite for career advancement, this quiet quitting baloney could be a form of blasphemy.
If you come to think of it, there has long been a fine line between quiet quitting and slacking off, just as there is that same line between going above and beyond and being exploited. If there are lazy employees, there are also abusive bosses. Finding the right balance is the key and is a tale as old as time in the workplace. It’s just that the pandemic has made a lot of people reassess their priorities and a big chunk who didn’t join the great resignation have decided that working on work-life balance is important.
In an ideal world, there should be no need to do any quiet quitting because both parties would be respectful of each other’s time. If everyone agrees from the start when work hours start and end, then nobody would feel exploited and underpaid and the people who don’t do enough productive work during those hours would be the problem of HR. No employee should have to manage work issues once the workday is done. But, because of exploitative managers and a plethora of willing victims, going above and beyond has become the norm and quiet quitting had to become a thing.
My only problem with quiet quitting is the choice of words used to describe it. The word “quitting” immediately makes it feel like a slacking off protest when it is simply putting in the quality work required, no more no less, refusing to accept extra work because when the sun rises again tomorrow, those issues will be addressed. There is actually no quitting involved. Did they just name it so because they liked the “Q”s?
The quiet quitting movement is a wakeup call for both employees and employers. The workplace needs respect the time of the worker just as the latter needs to be as productive and efficient as possible every time they switch on or go on duty. The goal of fairness, should be easy to achieve if everyone knew what the covenant entails and what its ridiculously simple limitations are. The problem is that both sides have been too busy exploiting each other so much that those lines have been blurred beyond recognition and a war is brewing between employees and employers who are supposed to have a common goal.
Quiet quitting shouldn’t be a protest movement. It should be a roadmap for the way forward, one where both the employee and employer are happy with each other. The only way this can be achieved is if both sides talk. That is where being quiet can be counterproductive.*
