We can change... even if our company won't

Part 1 of the "quiet quitting" conversation

Oct 10, 2022

This October 2022 series is an attempt to capture the conversation that isn’t currently happening about the shift now underway in our relationship to work.

So far our survey has collected 33 responses,* with folks identifying themselves across a number of roles:

*This is not a statistically significant dataset (lol) but 33 is my favorite number, so we’ve got that going for us. Further, the findings here may not necessarily reflect the population at large because these respondents a) are in or related to my network, and b) opted in (self-selected) to respond to the survey. Still, I think we’ve got some interesting data to work with.

One of my first insights from looking at the data is that responses to the current shift are not uniform across workforce stratas. It’s not only team members who are feeling disillusioned—managers and many executives are right there with them.

So, I’ve imperfectly sorted people into two categories—disengaged employees and frustrated employers**—based less on their role than on the tenor of their responses.

Disengaged Employees: “I need more than work and more from work.”

Frustrated Employers: “I need you to work more or care more about work.”

**IMPORTANT: If you know someone who is frustrated/concerned/annoyed with what’s happening on their team, send them this survey… we need their pov. Thanks!

This week we’ll look at the first group: disengaged employees, who as you’ll see are not only team members but also managers and executives. Next week we’ll look at this second group, which I’ll reserve the right to rename as more responses come in.

Take the survey

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If you/your team is “quiet quitting,” what does it look like?

Across roles, people agree that it’s about doing what is required, but no more.

A Team Member: I think it's meeting the minimum standard, but offering nothing new to the work of the team and no clear vision of new projects for yourself.
A Team Member: Putting in just enough effort to coast, but not being inspired anymore to go above and beyond and achieve best potential.
A Team Member: Trying to prioritize myself over a company/management which does not care about me - so shorter work hours; more frequent breaks; not going 'above and beyond'.

Notice the phrase “above and beyond” is mentioned often, for its absence. We also see phrases like “not being inspired” and “does not care about me” from these team members, which may hint at the causes of this deceleration. We’ll dig further into those causes below.

But first, we see similar descriptions of what’s happening from managers and executives:

A Manager: Doing the work but not making the effort to build relationships. Not unlike behaving like a freelancer.
An Executive: I'm not a fan of the phrase; it feels to me like it's natural boundary setting during a time when expectations rose. Unfortunately, because workplaces haven't yet figured out how to solve residual/ongoing burnout, I *think* it feels like quitting because there aren't other choices that feel healthy.
An Executive: People are doing their own versions of it and would never call it quiet quitting. They are just setting boundaries and not going "above and beyond" as much to preserve their mental health.

But it’s not only doing less work to achieve healthier balance. There’s also an element of consciously disengaging from the role and/or employer:

A Manager: Resignation that I cannot change the system. Toeing the line but also biding my time while I plan a move that will bring me more purpose.
An Executive: Trying to be less involved on a personal level in the company. Less emotionally involved. Prioritise more between meetings and tasks.
An Executive: People are fed up with not being heard and there's a process of giving up and then leaving.

This intentional disengagement seems at first to be about self-preservation, but there’s something else here: Disengagement fueled by disillusionment. Does this make it a rejection, a rebellion? And if so, of what?

Why do you think you/they are doing what you describe?

First, we reckon with the very real exhaustion that exists at every level:

A Team Member: I believe a lot of my peers realized they were working beyond the 40 hour work week very regularly. They were exhausted. Some of them laid off or shown they were easily replaceable during the pandemic. They were told no overtime while working from home yet they were working 12 hour days. Quiet quitting is about working the hours you’re actually paid to work. It’s about putting yourself, your mental and your physical health first…. You’re more important than the work you do, than the company you work for.
A Team Member: I think it's a reflection of exhaustion, processing, both bodily and mentally, the grief that built up during the pandemic. Particularly among workers who are strivers!
An Executive: People are tired - worn down/drained - I see them struggle to bounce back and forwards. I don't know if that is quiet quitting (yet) in the world as I see it but it's definitely hard for people and for those in leadership roles.

The connection of this exhaustion to “strivers” is striking to me, and I appreciate the executive’s acknowledgement that “those in leadership roles” are no exception.

But as I combed through the comments, this celebration of younger generations’ boundaries made me pause… and smile.

A Manager: Junior staff have better boundaries than previous generations. Most that I’ve worked with know when to lean in to help and when to draw the boundary. They have a better sense of true crisis vs. manufactured urgency. I admire them, to be honest.

“True crisis vs. manufactured urgency.”

This is where we start to look at the source of this pressure. Where does manufactured urgency come from? Our respondents have some thoughts:

A Team Member: Toxic management, seemingly no way to progress career, futility in going above and beyond, micromanagement
A Manager: Disillusionment with how I have been treated as an LGBTQ+ person of mixed race and feeling hugely unsupported by my boss.
A Team Member: The expectations around these tasks/responsibilities are unclear but they consistently fall to the same people (women, lower-paid team members) who are choosing more and more often to opt out until expectations are made more clear.

Ah yes, the familiar theme of “people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers,” which I do generally find to be the case. Still, let’s remember that managers themselves are struggling with their own exhaustion and pressure that comes from their bosses too.

Which leads us all the way up to executive leadership***, those responsible for setting a vision for the organization and setting the conditions in which that vision can be achieved:

A Team Member: I've seen it be a criticism of the lack of vision from leadership as the pandemic phased down. Where there has been a lack of clear objectives and vision from leaders + work time flexibilities established during the pandemic, I've witnessed a lot of QQ-ing.
A Manager: They don’t see their current workplace as somewhere that has a future for them nor do they feel that the company / leadership has their back, so why go beyond just competent delivery?
A Manager: I am over the corporate rat race and executives not paying attention.
An Executive: Too many priorities, no clear sense of direction from senior leadership.

***Incidentally, it’s executive leaders who most often tell me “people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers.” Do they think that lets them off the hook, I wonder?

This feels important: A major contributing factor to leadership’s #1 problem is… leadership itself. If your own relationship to work mirrors the perspectives shared here, this may seem obvious… but if not, it may sting. You may be inclined to dismiss it. Any one-sided narrative allows its protagonist to avoid their own responsibility, and it so happens one-sided narratives are our specialty.

Next week we’ll look at the situation from the perspective of the frustrated employer/colleague (“I need you to work/care more”), which is also imho a valid perspective, if incomplete. But first, we have one more element of the why to look at from the disengaged employee perspective, and this one is nobody’s fault.

Any one-sided narrative allows its protagonist to avoid their own responsibility, and one-sided narratives are our specialty.

Things have changed. (Admittedly, I cringe as I type these words, as if you don’t know this deeply in your bones. And yet, we can’t not talk about it.) More specifically, things we took for granted as “just the way things are” have changed. Never would we have imagined that remote work could be an option, much less a default. The four-day workweek used to seem delusional.

And now that people have seen that change is possible, they want more of it. They are insisting on it.

Self-Employed: There seems to be a collective awakening that past ways of working, chasing success etc. are not actually contributing to happiness, fulfilment and meaning in life - many of us are asking the deep questions. I think its a perfect storm of the pandemic, rising unhappiness etc.
A Manager: COVID has given employees more power now and so these dynamics seem more pronounced than before.
An Executive: I think the scales have fallen away - lots of the constructs we had and how we derived our sense of value "I showed up and did lots of things" aren't there - but also these were artificial constructs for leaders to "watch" what people were doing - it wasn't needed but now people need to lead differently and that is infinitely harder - you have to be more intentional and communicate more and differently.

Last week I led a workshop on change with 50 Chief People Officers, and at one point this topic came up. When I referred to the notion that we could “go back” to how things were in 2019, the room erupted in laughter. I took that as a very good sign.

Let’s wrap up with a few final words offered by our disengaged employees.

What do you wish people understood about “quiet quitting”?

First, a resounding chorus of team members reminding us that this is not new, it’s just been rebranded:

A Team Member: It’s literally just doing your job. It should be the standard.
A Team Member: It is doing the job you are being compensated for formerly known as coasting.
A Team Member: It’s nothing new, people used to call it “checking out”. Seems to me like a great post-COVID boogeyman to justify bringing people back into an office space.

Then, a rejection of the accusation of laziness:

A Team Member: That it happens for a reason, and is not the result of 'laziness' - everyone wants to be engaged and work hard to achieve goals. But the financial stress on organizations at a business level is too often turned into personal stress on an execution level by over-promises by the sales team, a lack of training/clarity over roles, expectations to overwork, and - maybe above all - a lack of care and attention. Loyalty is a two-way street.
A Team Member: It’s a mental/emotional thing rather than the overall idea of not wanting to work.
A Manager: It doesn’t have to be this way. Employees need to have flexibility and autonomy.

And finally, a call for leaders to take it seriously… and to take responsibility:

A Team Member: It should reflect to upper management that the people they have in leadership roles are not the right ones to lead/manage/inspire.
An Executive: It's an outcome of bad change management.
An Executive: That it is a real issue that leadership needs to address.
An Executive: It’s normal disengagement not a unique thing … It’s a symptom of culture problems.
An Executive: It's a flag that companies should be paying attention to. Turnover is already high but I'm curious to hear what data there is to support the phrase and what companies are doing about it.

And that’s exactly where we’re headed:

Next week we’ll hear from the folks feeling frustrated by this phenomenon
After that, we’ll look at what companies are doing about it, much of which I’m sorry to say is only adding fuel to the fire
Finally, we’ll explore what we can do together… if we can step out of the blame game, get clear about our needs and get creative about how to better meet them

I’d love to know what’s resonating with you here. What are you seeing more clearly? What insights are emerging for you? Let me know in the comments.

We Can Change

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