Here are some top highlights-
Pandemic and the great resignation
The pandemic and the great resignation have led progressive employers to extend flexibility to employees. With flexibility was an essential part of wellbeing, due to the pandemic. But, when virtual working got started, high productivity was observed amongst employees. But that tipped off the balance between work and life, consequently. High productivity was a result of long hours of work, burnout and no-breaks.
This led to the galvanized need for improved wellbeing. Employees had to slow down. Yet, employees continued to feel a disconnect with employers or their immediate leads because of the double-edged sword of productivity and burnout. There were imbalances in the way of work was assessed and it was not clear. This could be when quiet quitting was seeded. Employees sooner started resigning and led to the great resignation experiencing the mounting inconsistencies in management, leadership and sense of work.
Diluted wellbeing
Though companies started to focus on employees’ well-being, the sharp curve of change added more stress to employees. The orientation for virtual work was not entirely fulfilled, which led to haphazard working styles and management decisions.
- Missing in-person teamwork,
- Working in silos,
- Inconsistencies in managerial direction,
- Burnout and continuous adjustment,
- Being part of the unknown, due to the pandemic, and at work
- Witnessing layoffs
- Personal losses on the family and friends’ front
All of this escalated the dilution of personal well-being. Through this journey, if one thing had become clearer to employees, it was to make boundaries higher and more distinct between work and life. The need to avoid burnout not only continued to persist but peaked. After witnessing much, employees may have zeroed in on doing the minimal and taking a step back to re-assess the situation. And leading to side-lining of work priorities and a deeper realization of personal priorities.
Weak or biased managers
If well-being priorities peaked on one side, the other side was dealing with leadership ineffectiveness.
With remote or hybrid working, it is the managers who are expected to anchor, regulate work and manage virtual teaming. And most importantly, they must keep the teams connected and focus on each employee’s engagement levels. But that was the missing link amidst change.
According to Harvard research, 360-degree leadership assessment data showed some interesting insights. It was found that missing intrinsic motivation was not the reason why employees were not doing more than what is required. Instead, data showed that it was because of managers’ inability to build meaningful relationships with employees that led them to be disconnected from their work.
Employees missed having meaningful relationships with their managers. They felt under-valued.
If managers are biased or inconsistent in leadership, tensions among team members are inevitable. Leading to other issues of toxic work culture, resentful employees, lack of rapport and eventually quiet quitting.
Lack of recognition
When employees are underappreciated and not valued, quiet quitting can be seen as the logical backstep; which is why we see top performers who once were rockstars, lose that spark and fade into the background when not recognized or appreciated.
Missing a promotion after a year long’s hard work and performance could demotivate a top-performing employee. Not being recognized after the successful completion of a difficult project, is attrition waiting to happen, and quiet quitting is almost like a prologue.
Not being compensated with a deserving bonus or a salary hike, could eventually lead to quiet quitting. With expectations not met, employees are prone to tone down their work contributions
Lack of trust in performance metrics and recent layoffs
When there is confusion or lack of clarity, it causes mistrust and transparency issues at work. After the virtual workplace commenced, employers struggled in ironing out the policies and processes. It was more a situation of ‘refine on the go’. And thus, sprouting scenarios of ambiguity and lack of direction.
This point as we are aware is a crucial aspect of adapting to the virtual workplace.
Questions like-
- How is the evaluation of an employee done in remote working?
- What metrics will be measured?
- How will behavioral aspects be captured in remote working?
- What frameworks can hold the appraisal process together to bring consistency and uniformity to the performance philosophy?
Several questions such as these are still unanswered at workplaces. This could be an underlying reason to escalate issues for employees to quiet quit. What worked before may not work anymore, hence just stick to what is being told.
Now that the pandemic is a few years old, employees have witnessed changes. Ranging from a few performance evaluation cycles to recent layoffs where even the steady or top performers were not spared from headcount corrections. During such practices, any prevalent inconsistencies would have bubbled up to the surface often leading to disgruntled employees who perhaps were already plagued with low morale.
Employees would have tempered their work down, after seeing the discredit given to other employees. And further amplifying unpredictability and losing a sense of purpose at work.
