‘Quiet Quitting': Why Employees Are Scaling Back on Taking on Additional Tasks at Work

Employees are stepping back from additional tasks at work amid burnout and want to attain a better work-life balance -- a term known as "quiet quitting"

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What to Know

  • "Quiet quitting" is the newest trend to hit the workforce — but there is no actual quitting involved.
  • Rather, the term refers to employees who are curtailing their work to only what is expected from them in their contracts and nothing more.
  • Seen widely on TikTok with employees across the workplace sharing their own "quiet quitting" stories and opinions, more people have begun stepping back — both literally and physically — from taking on additional projects in their current roles.

"Quiet quitting" is the newest trend to hit the workforce — but there is no actual quitting involved.

Rather, the term refers to employees who are curtailing their work to only what is expected from them in their contracts and nothing more.

Seen widely on TikTok with employees across the workplace sharing their own "quiet quitting" stories and opinions, more people have begun stepping back — both literally and physically — from taking on additional projects in their current roles.

Though this may work for some people within their career as it can create more of a work-life balance and have work become less stressful, it may also carry risks for your position such as if layoffs come around, those with the least amount of output may be the first to go.

Others may argue though that this is how jobs really should be, as only doing what your contract says and no more prevents the employee from working the jobs of more than one person.

TikTok user @selenarezvani believes that quiet quitting is a good thing.

"The youngest generations at work are rejecting the idea of hustle culture, or framing your entire life around some dream job", she says. "They're rejecting putting their mental health below their performance goals. With quiet quitting, you're doing what you're paid for and not more."

Another TikTok user @allifromcorporate0 begs the question: what if doctors, teachers, and nurses adopted this "bare minimum" mindset as well?

A Hospital IQ study found that 90% of nurses were considering leaving the already critically understaffed profession within a year if workplace issues continue, which would be a huge hit for the healthcare world and consequences could be fatal.

News 4 New York talked with Annie Lin, a life coach from the New York Life Coaching Institute about her thoughts when it comes to "quiet quitting" in the workplace.

According to Lin, through her clients, she already saw that many of them face distractions at work.

"From what I could see among my coaching clients, many people were already very distracted at work. They may be sitting in the office for 8 hours, but they’re busy checking emails, social media, playing with phones, instead of doing focused work," Lin said. "They procrastinate on important projects and end up feeling guilty. This makes them unable to fully relax after work. For some, this turns into self-inflicted ‘long-hours’ of work which, in turn, negatively affects their work-life balance."

The idea of being paid by the hour has been carried over from the Industrial Revolution, Lin said.

"These days, people should be clear that they’re paid to generate results," Lin went on to say. "In psychology, it is generally accepted that staying present and fully engaged in life is what makes us feeling fulfilled and happy. Instead of doing the minimum, it would be more beneficial if we learned to remove distractions and to focus better to finish the task within the window allotted to it."

Additionally, Lin said she doesn't believe that one should always either "quiet quit" or go above or beyond, because employees and employers should have an open line of communication where they go over expectations, especially after a big part of the workforce moved to work remotely due to the pandemic.

"It should not be either-or. Just like in any relationship, it requires communication. It is true that some employers have begun to use various monitoring apps, especially in the wake of the COVID pandemic and the “work from home" revolution," Lin said. "But you do have a relationship with your work and with your managers. Therefore, discuss what’s expected of you, how your performance is evaluated, negotiate what may work better for you ,and what boundaries need to be put in place, instead of simply deciding to ‘quietly quit’ unilaterally."

Employees should also be cognizant that if you decide to "quiet quit," interpersonal relationships with fellow colleagues may suffer as well, Lin said.

As a professional, Lin said she finds in clients that "wanting to do the "minimum" never feels fulfilling because, generally, individuals "thrive on learning and growth." Because of this, Lin wouldn't generally recommend to clients for them to "quiet quit."

Lin goes on to say that as a professional, recommending for clients to be more vocal about certain boundaries with their employers would be recommended better approach.

"If you don’t like how certain things are set up or you don’t feel comfortable to be available all the time, then communicate this clearly and see if you can change it," Lin said. "And you don’t like the nature of your work, you’re better off just quitting for real and find or create something that’s meaningful to you. If you are spending your precious energy everyday on something that you want to resist or that you want to disengage from, it’s only going to make you feel lethargic and generally unfulfilled instead of feeling “free."

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