We’ve all heard about the great resignation and the newest buzz term is “quiet quitting,” but what does it actually mean? University of New Orleans business professor Mark Rosa says it’s employees that are purposely shirking their job duties and being less productive.
“They’re not doing all the work that they could. They’re not doing perhaps all the work that was asked of them. They’re less likely to volunteer for extra work or chip into other projects,” said Rosa.
As for the cause of “quiet quitting” Rosa says the pandemic is certainly a contributing factor when many people were laid off or changed jobs thus forcing remaining employees to pick up the slack and it’s responsible for burnout.
“And it’s exhausting. It’s not morale building, it is morale destroying and it’s very difficult for the ones that remain,” said Rosa.
Rosa says remote work is also a cause of “quiet quitting” because some employees working from home are less supervised and aren’t interacting with coworkers as much.
As for how employers should address quiet quitting, Rosa says some are changing pay structure in an effort to increase productivity. For example, instead of paying someone an hourly wage, they have a base wage, and it can increase based on output, similar to commission.
“That if you want to shirk and if you want to have low productivity, you’re just going to be a little hungrier than somebody else because you’re not going to get paid as much,” said Rosa.
But Rosa says many employers are hesitant to make drastic changes to pay structure fearing it could cause some workers to resign.
Comments