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Leadership
Think Your People Are “Quiet Quitting?" Think Again.
Burned-out and demotivated employees are a sign of poor management.
Posted October 5, 2022 Reviewed by Davia Sills
Key points
- Organizational labels are masking real problems with work.
- People don’t just need a paycheck; they want meaning and purpose.
- Clear goals and expectations set people up for success.
- The work of management ultimately is the work of human connection.
If there is one thing that I dislike about this current moment in our work lives, it’s the need to put cute labels on people’s experiences to feel better about ourselves. “The Great Resignation,” while alluding to “The Great Recession” of 2008 and “The Great Depression” before it, masked devastating structural inequalities that forced millions out of work. Anyone who lost their home in 2008 or stood on breadlines in the 1930s probably would tell you there wasn’t anything “great” about it. Similarly, while “The Great Resignation” makes it sound like a moment of employee empowerment—and for some, perhaps it has been—the truth is that people rarely quit jobs because they’re happy or fulfilled by them. And as we now know, thousands of women were forced to quit their jobs during COVID in order to take care of children (and others), and many have struggled to return. Nothing great about that.
Similarly, we now have “Quiet Quitting,” which, it must be noted, gained traction due to TikTok. Within moments, it seemed, articles were everywhere discussing the phenomenon, what it means, and its impacts. If you’re unfamiliar, the term refers to people who aren’t so much quitting their jobs as refusing to do anything more than what they’re paid for. It’s most certainly a result of chronic burnout and the pervasive hustle culture that has epitomized work in this country for years. And in some ways, it’s a positive result of post-pandemic life: Many have discovered that work has held an outsized place in their lives and are making productive changes to right that balance.
But the term once again masks the real problem, making it seem like the issue is with the employee who is doing the “quiet quitting” and not the organization and the manager who have created the situation that led to it. If you are a manager who is worried that your people are “quiet quitting,” you should know that it’s only a matter of time before they are “quitting-quitting” for real. And it’s your job—not theirs—to fix it.
Make Work Mean Something.
One of the reasons people are leaving their jobs at the moment, beyond financial rewards or increased caretaking responsibilities, is a lack of meaning and purpose. Of course, work is about getting a paycheck, which allows people to pay for things. But once you’ve achieved that, a paycheck alone is a shallow motivator for engaged work. No one is going to go above and beyond when being adequate nets the same amount of money. If your people are only working for the money, then all it will take for them to leave for something else is another job that pays more.
Yes, you need to pay people what they are worth. That is a baseline expectation and where you should start. But once you have ensured that your salaries are competitive and fair, then it’s time to look at meaning and purpose. And that means looking at your employees’ meaning and purpose, not your own. It means having regular, individual conversations about what motivates them to work and why they show up every day. When possible, align their tasks and goals with their strengths and interests. Someone who finds motivation in creative problem-solving with a team should not be relegated to filling out spreadsheets in solitude for eight hours a day.
No matter how much money they’re making, if they can’t connect the work to where they find purpose, eventually, they’re going to check out completely. And if it’s simply impossible to connect the work or the role to where they derive meaning, then it’s time for a conversation about how to help them find a role that better aligns with who they are.
Success Shouldn’t Be a Mystery.
Frequently, people make management much harder than it needs to be. What your people need are clear goals and expectations for success. The happy hours and team-building exercises and personality assessments are nice, but people come to work to work. They don’t want to spend time trying to interpret your statements for direction. They don’t want constantly changing goalposts or success measures. They want to be able to see progressive growth over time and how this role and the work that they are doing fits into a larger mission and vision and into their own career plan. And they want regular, constructive feedback that is tied into those things. Do that work, and you will be doing the work of management well, creating engaged employees, and achieving your own goals and objectives.
What are your expectations for work, for communication, for collegiality? What are your expectations for in-person versus remote work, and why? What does success look like in quantifiable outcomes? How does the role of each individual on your team connect to the organizational mission and vision? What does each individual on your team want for their career, and how does this role fit with that vision and plan? What are each individual’s annual goals, and how often will you review them together? How does their achievement of those goals connect to their annual review and raise or bonus structure?
You should be able to answer these questions. More importantly, the people who work for you should be able to answer these questions. Work doesn’t need to be shrouded in mystery. Give people what they need to be successful, then get out of the way and let them do that work.
Above All, Be Human.
Lastly, remember that neither you nor the people who work for you are robots. We all have heard the saying, “People don’t leave bad jobs; they leave bad managers.” And while I do believe people leave bad jobs and hope that they would, ultimately, it’s a bad manager that creates the conditions for bad jobs. If you’re worried that your people are “quiet quitting,” then it’s time to have a conversation with them about what’s causing their feelings of disconnection. Your goal is not to work people to burnout. If people are setting clear boundaries around their time and investment in work while still meeting your clearly-communicated expectations for success, they should be celebrated and upheld as role models for others. But if your sense is that they are checked out, sleepwalking through their days, or lack focus or enthusiasm, then that warrants a discussion.
We all bring lots of stuff to work every day: concerns about our families, concerns about ourselves, concerns about the state of the world, and more. Everyone, yourself included, is a human being at work and outside of it. And humans are messy, emotional, and complicated. So, before you go to a place of, “Why won’t this person work harder or do more?” start from a place of, “What does this person need from me to be successful and whole?” Start from a place of individual human connection and compassion. It is truly the most important work you can do.
