If you’ve read any news articles online, or picked up a newspaper in recent weeks, chances are you’ve heard about quiet quitting – the work-place phenomenon that has recently taken over TikTok.
To some, quiet quitting means refusing to go above and beyond at work. It is a rejection of the hustle culture. To others, it means setting boundaries to improve their work-life balance.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shifted people’s priorities and made many of us re-evaluate what we want from our lives, and from our work.
Quiet quitting and productivity
We all want our workforces to feel connected to the work they’re doing, all the time. The global economic situation is such that we need engaged and motivated workforces more than ever. That does not mean we should be expecting our employees to be overworked and risk burnout.
How to identify quiet quitting
In a recent article from forbes highlighted six possible indicators.
- Disengagement on a chronic basis.
- Performance only to the minimum set of performance standards
- Isolation from other members of the team
- Withdrawal from any non-necessary conversations, activities or tasks
- Attendance at meetings but not speaking up or taking action
- Teammates report a sudden increase in their workload in having to pick up the slack
What can be done to address quiet quitting
It is important for everyone involved to have an engaged workforce. You cannot expect to motivate your entire workforce with a one size fits all approach. Not all of your people will have taken to quiet quitting, and those that do will not have the same reasons. Due to all the changes in the world, people are evolving, and so must workplaces.
You cannot expect to retain all of your workforce forever. All of us have sought new challenges at various points in our careers. While it’s important to meet your employees’ needs, we shouldn’t beat ourselves up if we can’t drive all of them to be motivated 100 per cent of the time.
Instead, we should consider what we can do to keep them happy, while accepting the inevitability that some will move to pastures new. Remember, you’ll always need to bring in new talent and when you do, it’s important to welcome them into an inspiring working culture; one that compliments and nurtures their lives outside of work.
