The term ‘quiet quitting’ – doing the bare minimum at work – was coined during the pandemic as more employees felt they were being asked to do more without getting more compensation.GETTY IMAGES
Quiet quitting may have faded from headlines since it became common parlance in 2022, but the labour market conditions that gave rise to the trend persist. This intentional avoidance of going above and beyond at work, according to Gallup, is a symptom of disengaged employees, and nearly two-thirds of North American workers say they do not feel engaged at work.
“Quiet quitting is when somebody is not taking on more work than what they were hired for,” says Brian Creely, a career coach fabled as the first person to use the term quiet quitting.
“They’re not taking on more responsibility than the job posting. It’s kind of a pushback. Since 2023, there’s been multiple rounds of layoffs in the tech space and it’s spilling over into other industries. As a result, the work doesn’t necessarily go away, but the head count does, so inevitably, people get work piled on top of them that they didn’t sign up for.”
Nearly one third of Canadians admit to feeling tired and overworked, and 68 per cent of Canadians say work-life balance is among their top three priorities.
“It doesn’t mean ‘don’t do work,’ it means do your job and do it well, but don’t do more without being compensated for that,” says Carrie Bulger, a professor at Quinnipiac University, in Hamden, Conn., who specializes in industrial organizational psychology. She points out that quiet quitting has a strong resemblance to work-to-rule, a style of protest long practiced by union members.
“My colleagues and I spent a lot of time thinking about whether quiet quitting was new, or if it’s something we’ve dealt with forever, and I think the answer is both,” she says.
The new element is the mindset shift that came on post-pandemic, Ms. Bulger says, as people began to reimagine what a healthy and satisfying work life could look like.
“I think the fact that knowledge workers and people who have desk jobs were able to work from home during the pandemic opened up a lot of eyes to [the fact that] the tradition of spending eight hours per day, five days per week in the office was just that – a tradition, and not a necessity.”
Sarah McVanel, a career coach and adult educator with expertise in the role of recognition as a tool for improving workplace dynamics, says a generational difference in attitudes toward work is something managers should consider when assessing employee behaviour for signs of quiet quitting.
According to an Indeed report on Canadian workplaces, 47 per cent of Gen Z workers felt undervalued or unheard in the workplace. Studies show they’re also most likely to quiet quit, along with Millennials.
“Lots of people criticize Millennials and Gen Zs for being intentional with their approach to work. That is, perhaps not taking extra shifts, or deciding against having multiple jobs – especially when it’s never been more expensive to buy a house,” says Ms. McVanel. “These [cohorts] see physical, mental, and spiritual health as most important. They say, ‘why am I sacrificing my friend groups or not taking a trip when I don’t know if I am going to be able to retire?’ "
Not everyone who lacks workplace ambition is quiet quitting, however. There are distinctions between those who simply aren’t career-oriented and those who are actively disengaging with their workplace culture and colleagues, Ms. Bulger explains.
“Obvious signs [of quiet quitting] would be complaining, whether that’s vocally or in e-mails or Slack chats. It could also be that body language is different: heavy sighs and rolling eyes.”
Both Ms. Bulger and Mr. Creely suggest managers assess their own practices before calling in an employee to critique their conduct at work.
“I think one place to start for managers, especially with somebody who’s visibly disgruntled, is to simply ask what’s going on. There could be a thousand reasons why someone is feeling that way. [For managers] the courageous part is to be ready to hear a staff member say they don’t like what you’re doing,” says Ms. Bulger.
“If I’m a manager and I’m noticing it, I’m making sure that the workload that I’m giving the employees is within the bounds of what they hired for. The manager has to be realistic about that,” Mr. Creely says.
“Broadly speaking, some managers are very hands off. They hand over the work, they don’t ever have check-ins, and they don’t ever ask the employee about what truly motivates them. Most of the people I talk to in my career coaching don’t have a regular one-on-one meeting with their boss, let alone talks about career aspirations. You need that connection to be able to feel validated, and feel like you’re working towards something bigger, especially if you are career motivated.”
Ms. Bulger agrees. “It’s really important for a manager who wants to figure this out to create a place of safety, and that’s sometimes a buzzword these days, but it really has deep meaning in industrial organizational psychology. You want to be able to own the problems at work as well as celebrate the wins.”