What Can Employers Do To Prevent ‘Quiet Quitting’?

The Covid-19 pandemic and the various lockdowns have been a trigger for the ‘Great Resignation’, whereby employees have voluntarily resigned from their jobs en masse in search of new employment for a number of reasons.

Employers have been trying to consider ways in order to prevent staff from leaving employment. However, without realising it, many employers are overlooking an equally important current issue of ‘quietly quitting’ employees.

What does the term quietly quitting mean?

In a nutshell, quiet quitting is when an employee chooses to stay in their job but is only doing the absolute minimum or what is only specifically required of them at work and nothing additional. For instance, they may work only their contracted hours and reject helping with any additional workload or tasks without remuneration.

Statistics show that some organisations are suffering a financial loss of 20% in yearly income as a result of quietly quitting employees.

Why has this happened?

Since the pandemic, there has been a power shift with employees typically holding all the cards. This is because Covid-19 enabled many workers to work remotely and flexibly, thereby allowing them to regulate their own time and output without their employers watching over them or checking how many hours they were working. Consequently, employees have chosen to prioritise better work-life balance.

Due to the pandemic, many people were left feeling stressed, experiencing burnout, and suffering from poor mental health and sought to work for organisations that implemented flexible and hybrid working policies. Research has shown that:

However, many employers have commented that flexible and hybrid working practices have also contributed to the employees quietly quitting. This view is supported by research which has shown that 60% of employees feel disengaged from their workplace, with the top reasons being, the lack of office presence and social events.

Despite this view, the CEO of a British recruitment company, Robert Walker, recently commented:

What should I be doing as an employer?

There are certain actions employers could introduce to avoid employees quietly quitting, such as making an increased effort to be more attentive to employees’ health and well-being will boost morale and show you care for your employees. You can do this by rolling out family leave entitlements, and menopausal and fertility concerns policies. You could host financial well-being workshops and encourage social interaction.

Ensuring employees feel valued is also essential in retaining happy staff. The Harvard Business Review recently stated that ‘quiet quitters’ engage in this type of behaviour if they are feeling undervalued and unappreciated at work.

It is also advised that managers and senior members of staff set a positive example by demonstrating their own professional boundaries and encouraging other employees to do similar. Social events or team-building activities can be good to build a team together but it’s important to be mindful of the effect of forcing mandatory attendance in jobs where an employee could do that from home as that cannot only encourage quiet quitting but actual quitting. Flexibility is now key in a workplace to retain staff.

If you feel some of your staff are quiet quitters it would be wise to invite them to openly discuss any issues or any factors that are contributing to their disinterest or underperformance. There might be genuine reasons for this and could be something you and your employee could work together to rectify or offer enhanced support.

However, where performance does not improve without good reason then disciplinary or formal warnings may be appropriate.

Comment

It is advisable to ensure you have a positive and professional relationship with your employees and to encourage them to be vocal if something is bothering them. It is likely that they will appreciate this approach much more than just not saying anything. Employees who are engaged and productive are much less likely to quietly quit.