We should talk about "Quiet Quitting": Part 2 of 3 - How did we get here?

Welcome back for part 2 of 3 on "quiet quitting". If you're just tuning in now, go back and check out part 1 where we dug into the actual meaning of "quiet quitting" (QQ) and determined that QQ is actually a buzzword for passively engaged and burnt out employees, which describes employees "only doing what is required of (them) at work without going above and beyond."

"The writing was on the walls for years, so terms to scandalize or scapegoat ownership of employee disengagement and burnout does not fly with me."        

I will avoid using the term QQ as much as possible and opt for using the accurate definitions and terms; it's important that was call things what they are, as terms like "Quiet Quitting" put the onus and responsibility for this "phenomena" on employees when in reality, workplaces have pushed our people to this state. It makes it appear as if QQ is this unspoken, suddenly exposed secret that our employees have been collectively conspiring and colluding against us to achieve. The writing was on the walls for years, so terms to scandalize or scapegoat ownership of employee disengagement and burnout does not fly with me.

Today in part 2, we'll discover more about the pressures that caused our employees to be so passive and burnt out in the first place.

This is fine, everything is fine.

Image courtesy of artist KC Green.

It is, indeed, not all fine. If there is anything we've learned to date, it's that our employees are not okay. While there are many reasons the workplace is experiencing increased passive, disengaged, burnt out employees, a few key things I believe led us here include:

1. Over worked people and inflated expectations
2. Pressures and collective trauma caused by the pandemic
3. Collective dissatisfaction with career progression and recognition
4. A lack of listening to our employees (or a acting on what they tell us)
5. Broken psychological contracts with the workplace

Let's dig deeper into each of these.

When did we expect so much from our people?!

I remember post grad, all my friends would brag about how much we were working in our first real post-university jobs. "I worked 60 hours this week!" "Yeah, well I worked 72 hours! I am so tired." "I have so much on the go I can't even go grocery shopping or see my family." These statements were badges of honor, which in retrospect, was really quite toxic. When did we expect so much from our people? Burnout Culture isn't new. This BBC Worklife article explores Burnout Culture, with traces back to Japan in the 1950s post World War 2, and even further back to 16th century Europe. Heck, two day weekends didn't actually exist until 1908, with adoption by Ford in 1926, and further American implementation of the 2 day weekend taking off in the 1930s. Somewhere along the way, doing your job within the scope of the role was no longer enough, but looking back over history was it ever enough?

There should be nothing wrong with our people performing well within the scope of the job description that they were originally hired into. Underperforming? That's different. But performing at level and within scope should not be a sign of being a low performer. Additionally, taking on more, stretching your abilities, and going far beyond scope (without pay increases or title changes) shouldn't be the signs of a top performer. Overtime, we set unachievable standards with lack of budget, headcount, or balance to sustain this volume long term, leading to increased burnout. Burnout (as we learned in Part 1 of this series) according to the World Health Organization is "a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed," mainly characterized by "feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and reduced professional efficacy."

"I literally cried on my first day back because I was so overwhelmed. I was the frog in the slowly boiling water that didn't realize I was being boiled alive until it was too late, and when I returned as a fresh "frog" after my time off, I was thrown into the pot and I immediately burnt".        

We expect a lot from top performers, but you may not even realize that they have had no relief and are struggling. They set a high standard, working at huge capacities for extended periods of time, maybe doing the work of 2-4 people, and then when they do burnout and start performing in line with their peers or slightly below, we wonder what has happened rather than thanking them for that period of extra work, and hiring the headcount we actually need to maintain the levels or work we are expecting that one person to carry on their backs. I remember I was once operating at over 400% capacity for a couple months in peak season. I took three weeks off for a surgery, and when I returned, I was expected to jump right in where I left everything after those three weeks off. I literally cried on my first day back because I was so overwhelmed. I was the frog in the slowly boiling water that didn't realize I was being boiled alive until it was too late, and when I returned as a fresh "frog" after my time off, I was thrown into the pot and I immediately burnt.

According to a 2021 American Psychological Association survey , 79% of employees experienced work-related stress within the past month. Our employees have worked so hard for so long that they can't anymore. This. Is. Not. Sustainable. Sometimes it's easier to just quit a job that's expecting too much from you instead of trying to reset those expectations (because you can't after they have been set). Add in our next cause, the Pandemic, and we're now seeing the impacts of burnout on our people and their engagement in the workplace at levels never seen before. Burnout is the main driver behind "The Great Resignation" and QQ.

The Pressure Cooker Pandemic

I remember on March 10th, 2020 taking all my things home from the office, nervously joking that I'd see everyone in a few weeks once everything is back to normal, not realizing that I would never see most of my colleagues in person ever again. The "New Way of Working" was among us, with non-stop chatter regarding the revolution of truly remote and eventually hybrid working environments, forcing leaders to look remote working in the eye and embrace it, or become irrelevant. A few things happened over Covid-19 that has forever shifted how we worked, but first, can we all just acknowledge the collective trauma we all went through over the pandemic? Death of friends and family. Sickness. Isolation. Loss of connection. Fear of unemployment. Layoffs. Stock Market fears (hello, current recession and inflation of 2022-2023). I could keep going, but the point is that we as a collective have gone through a trauma that we are still healing from.

"We were all in this together, dammit! Remember all the TV commercials telling us so?"        

Regarding employee engagement, over the pandemic we actually saw initial increases in engagement globally. Our leaders were asking us how we were doing and caring about our wellbeing. We were collectively coming together to make it through. Our senior leaders were taking pay cuts, we were all gathering our vacation together to prevent layoffs, we were offering whatever we could up to save our coworkers from being terminated, and corporate strategies to prevent loss were activated. To some extent, many of us who were not laid off or impacted directly were just thankful to have a job (if we were lucky), and experiencing "leftover's guilt" over NOT being laid off while we watched our colleagues losing their jobs left and right. I know I did. I was happy to take on more work because I was one of the lucky few to not be terminated. We were all in this together, dammit! Remember all the TV commercials telling us so? Kincentric, has reported this trend in their Global Engagement Trends report. We saw an increase in employee engagement in Q2 2020, possibly driven by our leaders being high touch, being enabled to do what we needed to to survive (efficiency over bureaucracy), and we cared about each other and how we were all doing. It was us all being a unified team to overcome what was out of our control. But what about post pandemic?

We've seen continuous declines in engagement quarter over quarter, with some suggesting engagement, like much loss and trauma, is following the Kubler Ross Change Curve... For context, in case this isn't obvious, we are in the depression phase... Yeah, it's pretty shitty. Below I have the Kubler Ross Change Curve and Kincentric's Global Engagement Trends graph from their Global Trends in Employee Engagement 2022 Report for comparison.

Source: Kincentric, a Spencer Stuart Company. (2022). Global Trends in Employee Engagement 2022.

If you have an upcoming Employee Engagement survey at your company, good luck finding out how much further into the valley of despair we are than in Q1 2022! Have fun! Jokes aside, all this collective trauma, remorse and leftover's guilt, burnout, etcetera, is wreaking havoc on our employee engagement. Many people had epiphanies regarding their careers, and are done dealing with the bullshit that our burnout culture has bestowed upon us. We put a societal value on wellness that doesn't align with our work grind culture anymore. According to Mercer's 2022 Global Talent Trends Report , "thriving employees are 7 (times) more likely to work for a company that prioritizes employee well-being" and "43% of employees want their employers to foster a more "pro-health" environment." How are you measuring up post pandemic? Because employees are expecting you to maintain your tone from the pandemic.

"We're in a pressure cooker situation fueled by the last three years of a dumpster fire called Covid-19 that we have all just collectively experienced."        

Also, senior leaders, if you're not already, please - PLEASE - start worry about your middle managers. Like, a lot. They had to be the face of the business to their teams throughout the pandemic, making the hard choices, sharing the hard messages, and having to appease both their teams and their leaders simultaneously; they are managing a lot and feeling the pressures, operating on lean teams, tight budgets, increased expectations from their employees and leaders, and fears of their own. Your middle managers cannot do it all to both meet the demands of the company while also keeping up with all the changing demands of our employees! This group specifically at most companies is seeing a large drop in engagement, creating a domino effect down to individual contributors. Additionally, Qualtrics and many other engagement experts have warned about an "exodus of leaders," and unfortunately, it's mostly women and women of color leaving the workforce (ask yourself "who were people expecting to complete the "emotional labor" for their workforces over the pandemic?" and you have one of your many "whys"). If your people leaders are burned out and disengaged, you best believe this is effecting their direct reports.

Lastly, the "new normal" is now just normal, okay? Things will never go back to how they were, and we're collectively still processing this trauma. Add in Zoom fatigue, disconnection, lack of alignment with company culture and goals, but also for some reason expecting your employees to return to the office fully after proving for years they can function from home (?!), and we're in a pressure cooker situation fueled by the last three years of a dumpster fire called Covid-19 that we have all just collectively experienced. No wonder employees are disengaging and burning out! The norms have been reset, and employee expectations have been reset. Companies can adapt to it or die.

I was supposed to be somewhere else by now!

"It's like we just went on a bad date where our date only talked about themselves for the whole night. What about me?"         

How did your career progress over the past few years? Did the pandemic set you on a different course than you anticipated? Are you in a completely different field now? Or maybe you completely left the workforce? Are you exactly where you thought you would be? If you are exactly where you expected to be right now with your career growth, I hate you and I am jealous (but also, congrats!). That pressure cooker pandemic blew everyone off course regarding their career growth. It's almost like we collectively took a pause in developing our people. Our people were happy to just be employed over the pandemic and investments in essentials like learning, development, training, conferences, education, and the likes was one of the first things many companies cut as they went into crisis mode. It's taking longer than anticipated to resume these people developing activities for many companies, with many feeling like they took a pause on their development and growth. Why did I put all this work in if I wouldn't receive anything back in return? It's like we just went on a bad date where our date only talked about themselves for the whole night. What about me? We also saw many promotions and career changes diverted to a later time when fears of global collapse were not so imminent. According to the Pew Research Centre , 63% of workers left their job in 2021 due to "no opportunities for advancement".

We've also seen a lack of pay increases with this lack of career growth. US Inflation hit a 40 year high in June 2022 at 9.1%, but salaries have not been able to keep up with inflation, leaving many wondering if they can cover all their increased expenses. People are feeling undervalued, underpaid, over worked, and hopeless. Those minor yearly salary adjustments, frozen bonuses, and recognition tools have not returned to pre-pandemic levels yet, but many companies are seeing post pandemic level recoveries in their profits, leaving many employees asking "where's my cut? I helped keep you afloat over the pandemic, now I am ready for my recognition!" Salaries are not increasing, but expectations are, and those burnt out employees we chatted about in point one are not putting in extra effort without comparable reward. Why would they? It's a one sided relationship right now.

We're seeing people jumping ship from their current employers to new ones, solely to come in at a higher salary - for many, the only way to fix being underpaid or seeing no increase year over year is to find another job and come in at a higher base salary, which, if you're an internal employee seeing external hires come in at higher amounts with sign on bonuses and the full red carpet treatment, wouldn't you want that too? According to Kincentric , only "52% of employees globally feel fairly paid" and only "59% of employees globally feel appropriately recognized". Recognition isn't all about pay, but maybe it's a time we all take a closer look at our recognition and rewards programs to ensure they are meeting the current needs of our people. Feeling good and valued goes a long way to support employee engagement and desire to go above and beyond.

I can't hear you!!!

Employee experience over the course of the past few years was a lower focus for many companies. Almost all my peers in the engagement space who I have chatted with mention their companies scaling back on employee engagement surveys over the pandemic to save costs, or to some extent, out of fear of what the results in the middle of a pandemic would tell them. As I like to say, surveys are not the only way to gauge employee experience, and should only be one element of your overall employee listening strategy. Yet, to many, surveys are the extent of their employee listening functions. There are other feedback channels available, like focus groups, ongoing conversations and listening, 360-degree feedback tools, employee forums and channels, Ask Me Anything sessions with senior leaders, stay interviews, pulse surveys (mini engagement surveys), ongoing feedback forms and recommendations, etc. Saying your company cut employee engagement surveys for funding purposes does not mitigate responsibility to hear from your employees.

"When considering how often to survey our people, the answer is actually solely based on how fast you can implement action and change."        

What's worse is our lack of action from findings in our listening channels. Let's be real, I go to the grocery store, I am asked to take a survey. I purchase something from the mall, and I am asked to take a survey. I use a website chat feature, and I am asked to rank my experience. We are collectively used to being asked to take surveys; that's been adopted by our feedback culture for some time now. However, the biggest mistake most companies make is the lack of action on results from surveys. When considering how often to survey our people, the answer is actually solely based on how fast you can implement action and change. Many people feel as though they have very clearly provided their thoughts about what's not working in their workplace, but they feel like their leadership and company have their heads in the sand. We went back to business like nothing happened, and our people are feeling silenced and undervalued. It's not survey fatigue, it's a "lack of action" fatigue. People are feeling disconnected from company culture, employee value propositions, and feeling like they are not being heard because their continuous feedback is not being addressed or actioned. I've shared like 5 different links to different global trend reports within this article alone. It's not that we don't know what our employees want, it's that we are not listening or actioning it. Why would they be engaged (meaning psychological investment in the organization to do their best work) if the organization isn't engaged with them?

Broken psychological contracts

It's not the "Great Resignation", it's a "Talent Uprising " holding us accountable post-pandemic. As we've chatted about so far, there is SO MUCH going on in the workplace impacting engagement and causing burnout (the formula for QQ), but the thing that pushes our people over the edge - that full disengagement we discussed in Part 1 - is often caused by broken psychological contracts with the workplace. We already have this perfect formula for disengagement - an overworked, burnt out employee population, collectively working through pandemic trauma, feeling undervalued and stuck in their careers, with no one listening to them or actioning what they are telling us they need to be engaged. Now, let's say that all of a sudden something happens in the workplace.

Maybe your favorite leader is terminated, or someone micromanages you on a project you owned or took credit for your work, maybe you were overlooked for a promotion that you really wanted and think you deserved, perhaps you learned that there will be no change in your salary for the 2nd year straight after continuous strong performance due to budget constraints, or maybe someone said something to make you feel like you do not matter... And suddenly, in that moment when you're already overwhelmed as it is, you are pushed from being an engaged employee into a passive employee, or worse, the actively disengaged category. Suddenly, you just wish you'd get fired so that you could at least take the severance package. You become toxic and nothing makes you want to do anything above and beyond for your employer. I am thinking back to year one psychology and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Follow me on this...

We have our basic needs on the bottom level; the job, a salary, the basics you need to survive. Continuing on we have the safety needs, such as job security, stability in the workplace, a work environment that is supportive of your performance (maybe it's working at home, in the office, whatever that looks like to you). After that we have the love and belonging; feeling connected to a team and your workplace culture, having a good manager and colleagues, and feeling supported. Following that, we have esteem. This is recognition for your awesome work, having autonomy, feeling accomplished in your work, and feeling that you are needed. Lastly, at the top, we see self-actualization, or that drive to go above and beyond and be the best version of you that you can be. Maybe it's a drive to become an expert in your field, or something that creates desire to motivate and lead others.

"Our broken psychological contracts with our workplaces are the nails in the coffin of employee engagement; many feel as though there is no sign or hope of changes, so the only choice is to disengage.,. or Quietly Quit as the cool kids are calling it."         

What we're seeing now is a crumbling of each layer of this hierarchy of needs in the context of the workplace. We're feeling overworked, traumatized, and that drive we had has diminished - the loss of self-actualization. Next, we're feeling underrecognized, underpaid, maybe you haven't received any recognition in over a year because you're fully remote and your boss has forgotten that you're there, or maybe your communication with your leadership has crumbled and you feel out of control on the work that you are leading. You're not feeling that sense of belonging. You don't feel connected to your team, your manager is burnt out and disengaged themselves, which has left you feeling unsupported, and everyone on your team is on edge just to keep up with the work demands and lower budget. Next, you're not feeling safe. You keep hearing about a recession and see lay offs happening in your field, and to top it off, after over 2 years working from home and finding a routine that works for you, your company just sent an email calling everyone back to the office 100% of the time, starting next Monday, in turn compromising the workspace that has enhanced your performance the past two years and provided you with work-life balance. Lastly, your basic needs are not being met. You're being swallowed by expenses because that 9.1% increase in your expenses from inflation is making your salary no longer cover your basic needs, and you haven't seen any salary change in two years. Our broken psychological contracts with our workplaces are the nails in the coffin of employee engagement; many feel as though there is no sign or hope of changes, so the only choice is to disengage.,. or Quietly Quit as the cool kids are calling it.

In Summary: Well, that was depressing...

The thing about engagement and going above and beyond at work is that it has to be a mutually beneficial agreement. You do your best work, have a desire to go above and beyond, and help drive profits through your work when you're engaged, but the workplace also needs to support you and your employee experience. When we have a breakdown in that relationship, it's like that toxic date who drinks too much at a concert, makes fun of other concert guests and starts fights, pukes on your shoes, and passes out, leaving you to find your way own home after the ordeal is all done with (not that this is an actual date of mine I once went on, or anything ??). Regardless, it turns from that once happy story of feeling respected and supported into that bad date you tell everyone about at every opportunity because it's almost too outlandish to be real. "Your company did what to you to make you feel that shitty?!" It used to be the one off tales of outlandish corporate behavior, but now almost every employee has their own tale of when they no longer wanted to put any effort in at work due to burnout and disengagement... And this is how viral trends like QQ start, because we suddenly have an epidemic of bad work stories making us all feel like "what is even the point of putting effort in if I am just going to get burnt, like that frog in the water, time and time again?"

As an engagement expert, "Quiet Quitting" makes me sad, because at some point our most engaged, high performing employees chose to check out, and while the pressures of what we've collectively gone through could not have been prevented (stupid pandemic ruining everything), there are things within our control that could have stopped us and our workplaces from collectively getting here. Now, I know this article may have just made you feel further depressed, but I promise you in Part 3, we'll go over how to address some of the things I've mentioned here to put a stop to QQ - there is hope and a way forward. In the meantime, I highly recommend you read the global trend reports I shared throughout this article from experts in the employee engagement space to try and do your part to understand what your employees want, and when you're at it, tell your best AND satisfactory employees how amazing they are, let them log off a bit early tomorrow, and I will see you next week for Part 3.

Until Next Time,

LG