Quiet Quitting: A Self-fulfilling Prophecy

If you’re like most companies, you might still be under the impression that your employees show up for the paycheck.

No matter how many surveys and studies remind you that it’s how you appreciate employees, how purposeful you make their job, and the importance you place on work-life balance that keeps them engaged, productive, and loyal, it’s tough to break the mindset that it’s primarily money-driven.

Of course pay/compensation is important. But it’s not the differentiator you think it is. And it may not stop someone from quitting, especially quietly.

So what exactly is “quiet quitting”?

It’s what happens when your company doesn’t deliver the experience your employees really need/want and, instead of being engaged and excited about their work, they simply just show up for the money.

In other words, your employees are happy to prove you right!

• You assumed that money was mainly why they showed up every day.
• You forgot or haven’t considered offering what truly matters to them.
• They actively disengage (quietly quit), and collect a paycheck at your expense.

Being right in business often has its rewards, but this time, being right has never been so devastating, especially to your bottom line. Since money is the bare minimum requirement to show up, you get the bare minimum requirement in their output.

Gallup’s recent State of the Global Workplace report for 2022, they found that only 21% of employees are engaged at work. Not good.

So what can you do?  

1. Let them know you appreciate them as a person, not just as a position.  They want to know they are valued as much as their productivity.
2. Listen and learn from them. They will tell you what makes them happy and gets them excited, if you ask. They’re not shy. They just don’t think you care.
3. Be thoughtful and empathetic. When they least expect it, find small ways to remind them that you’re happy and grateful that they are sharing this journey with you.

A survey by tech company Businessolver showed that 60% of workers would be willing to take a pay reduction to work for an empathetic company. An empathy index published in the Harvard Business Review found that the 10 most empathetic companies increased in value more than twice as much as those at the bottom of the index, and they generated 50% more earnings defined by market capitalization, from one year to the next.

Quiet Quitting Comes From Quiet Appreciation.
When you don’t tell them out loud how much you care, they won’t tell you out loud how much they don’t. 

Google searches for “how to quit a job” are higher than ever.

Quiet quitting is nothing new. Employees have been resigning themselves to a bare-minimum standard for decades when their employers couldn’t paycheck a path to their heart.

What IS new is that companies (especially large enterprises), no longer have an excuse for not being thoughtful, purposeful, and engaging with each individual employee. We have the technology to make it happen and the intelligence to make it the right business decision.

So let’s continue to prophesize. This time, though, let’s see that when we give a damn first, we get a loyal and engaged workforce in return.