In my July column, I wrote about the huge gap between employers and employees when it comes to employee experience and job expectations. Little did I expect such a great example of this would become viral just days later; the conversation about ‘Quiet Quitting’ is this gap personified to an amusingly hyperbolic degree. 

The conversation began with a viral TikTok video, which you can watch below. The video is simple: we watch clips of a day walking around the city while the user defines quiet quitting, which they recently heard about, backed by a pleasant piano.

“I recently learned about this term called quiet quitting, where you’re not outright quitting your job, but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond,” says user @zkchillin (now @zaidleppelin). “You’re still performing your duties, but you’re no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life — the reality is, it’s not, and your worth as a person is not defined by your labor.”

@zaidleppelin On quiet quitting #workreform ♬ original sound - ruby

Videos with #QuietQuitting have now been viewed more than 96M times on TikTok and the conversation has spilled over into Twitter, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, the Opinion sections of regional newspapers, and local morning news. One side of the conversation argues that ‘Quiet Quitting’ is really a misnomer for work-life balance and creating boundaries. The other side argues that not going above and beyond can harm your career and the workplace. There is perhaps no one so vociferously against the idea than Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, who has gone as far as to say it is “worse than COVID.”

But regardless of your opinion on the framing, it does seem to be a quantifiable phenomenon. Gallup says that at least half of the U.S. workforce is quiet quitting and 18% of workers are actively disengaged, which Gallup labels as ‘loud quitting.’ 

What Workers Want is Changing 

The expectations gap is huge when it comes to the goals of workers.

Organizations usually define success based on metrics and how well they align to the business goals set by leadership. People, however, feel successful when they have some combination of happiness, fulfillment, personal growth, social impact, and purpose. And not everyone wants to be a superstar. Some people aren’t looking to move onward and upward but they will reliably do their job and do it well. All companies need that.

Leaders need to understand that this is a two-way relationship and actively work to create alignment between organizational goals and their employees’ goals. Expecting someone to work outside of their job description and outside of the hours they are compensated for to contribute to your goals and your bottom line when you aren’t going to deliver significant support to them financially or emotionally doesn’t reflect a mutual value exchange. You can call that quiet quitting. I call it a huge misalignment in expectations. 

Quiet Firing Begets Quiet Quitting 

My issue with a lot of the conversation around this topic is that it ignores the Why behind the phenomenon, while simultaneously putting blame on the workers, as if this behavior is just endemic to Millennials and Gen-Z. There are some Gen-Xers that were drawn to Kevin Smith and “Office Space” who want to remind you that they were being called slackers before Gen-Z was even born.

The simple truth is that people don’t engage or disengage without a reason. And that’s always been true.

Let’s look a little deeper at that Gallup report. It’s true that young workers are even less engaged than the average — but they’re more than happy to tell you why if you ask. Actually, you don’t even have to ask. Just go read the Twitter replies and quote tweets for any article about quiet quitting.

“This is a significant change from pre-pandemic years,” Gallup says. “Since the pandemic, younger workers have declined significantly in feeling cared about and having opportunities to develop -- primarily from their manager.”

And I think that’s really the heart of the issue — quiet firing begets quiet quitting.

Users on Twitter and Reddit describe quiet firing as when an employer does the bare minimum for their employees: stagnating wages, unpaid overtime, assignments outside of their job description, minimal sick leave or vacation days, and lack of respect. Our data about workplace characteristics from What Workers Want: The State of Work and Career Success 2022 also shows that organizations are woefully unequipped across the board, but especially in the areas that make the biggest difference to employee experience and career satisfaction.

Conversely, when you have employees who feel they are contributing and having a positive impact, they feel successful and want to contribute more. It's necessary for leaders to find the right approach for their employees, which means getting to know the wants, needs, and goals of each individual.

A poor workman blames their tools; a poor manager thinks their people are tools. Remember that we’re talking about people here, not bodies, and ask yourself: how do you, as a leader, work towards securing that level of investment with your employees?

Figure out how someone likes to work, figure out the kind of work that makes them feel fulfilled, then figure out how that can contribute to the organization’s goals. That alignment will create so much momentum within your organization, but it will also require fundamentally changing the way management works.

Like I said before — people don’t engage or disengage without a reason. So if you want your workers to engage more fully, you have to give them a reason.