What is quiet quit and quiet firing? How does it affect the labor market?

What is Quiet Quit?

Quiet quitting is inspired by the tang ping, or lying flat, movement that has taken place since April 2021 as both a lifestyle and a social movement. In it, tang ping fights the hustle culture and dedicates itself to work.

Quiet quit temporarily translates as "quietly quit" or "work in moderation" or "take a break in mind". Accordingly, employees do not have the will to work, feel they do not want to contribute too much, only want to contribute at a minimum, disconnect from colleagues, refuse to work outside office hours, have no need to asking for a promotion and especially not taking work home.

What's worse is that these employees have no intention of quitting immediately, but they only limit the volume and responsibility for the job, doing just enough to not be fired. This situation will affect the mental life of the personnel for a long time. They are likely to leave at any time with a bad final impression of the company.

What causes quiet quitting?

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is undeniable when it suddenly "destabilizes" people's lives. Uncertainty because personnel may be reduced in salary, forced to resign reluctantly to reduce costs or because the company goes bankrupt and "impermanence" makes us have a mindset of enjoying more than giving. The vast majority of young people tend to care about their personal lives and want to spend more time for themselves compared to the time before the pandemic broke out. Many people have refused to return to the culture of hustle and bustle. However, this is not the main reason for such a strong global increase in quiet quitting. Perhaps the following 6 reasons are the key issue.

The workload is too much but the salary is not commensurate

Following the streamlining of the operating system during the pandemic, many companies have cut ⅓ even 50% of their workforce. The work that this number of personnel takes on will be divided and assigned to the remaining team. “Being kept” is not necessarily a blessing. Because when they receive more work, they do not get paid more, but have to work harder and be more multi-talented when in charge of jobs that are not in their specialty. Initially, most employees were happy to compromise because of the mentality of sharing the burden with the company and feeling lucky that they did not fall into unemployment. But when they returned to a new normal life, companies still did not intend to adjust their compensation policies, causing the team to lose enthusiasm for dedication.

Pressure is high but happiness index and job satisfaction are low

This statement is found in the report The State of the Global Workplace 2022 by the consulting and analysis company Gallup. Detail:

- Only 21% of the world's human resources are really engaged in work and 33% feel happy with their work, the rest don't find their work meaningful, don't think their life goes on. nice and feel hope in the future.

- The level of work stress among workers worldwide has reached a record high with 44% of employees feeling there is no way out in the pressure of work. In 2014, the figure was 33%.

- Welfare indexes in Europe and South Asia plummeted after the pandemic, with South Asia having the lowest index in the world. Workers feel that their life is worse than before and hope for the future is also reduced.

- After the pandemic, only the labor market in North America recovered. South Asia continues to be the place with the lowest employment opportunities.

Loss of motivation and direction

It is easy to see this in startups when the company's standards and processes are not complete and professional, campaigns are carried out suddenly without a plan, leading to personnel and teams. unable to make detailed short-term and long-term plans. Every day when going to work, I handle work according to inertia, when I have work, I do it, when I do not, I pretend to wait for the time to run out. Gradually create the habit of working mechanically, "afraid" of creativity and disorientation. This situation will be exacerbated if managers do not recognize and intervene early.

“Toxic” working environment

The “toxic” working environment in this case does not refer to facilities and working conditions that affect physical health, but rather an environment where employees are incompatible in terms of personality, lack of cohesion, leadership. poor religion. Professionally weak management often proposes things that do not bring value, has a irritable, unfair and emotional attitude. Gossip, scrutiny, and envy are the most common problems in a toxic workplace.

8 hours a day in such a stuffy atmosphere will make administrative - office staff feel tired, inhibited and gradually quit. Whatever the cause, a toxic work environment can jeopardize your mental health, joy of life, connection, respect for leadership, and your ability to advance in your career.

Share your time and enthusiasm for your own project

Recently, the trend of working remotely and following projects has become popular. Human resources receive more "left hand" jobs in addition to full-time work at the company, one person can receive 4-5 jobs at the same time. This is very useful because it helps workers have an additional source of income during periods of high inflation. It won't be a problem if the personnel seriously can separate working time, balance the mind between public and private work. Many people have to wake up early, stay up late to meet deadlines and come to the company in a state of sleep deprivation and exhausted energy.

With the desire to be financially independent and to control their lives, young people create their own projects. However, they still maintain the old job to ensure the cost of living, accumulate capital, learn from experience and wait for the day when their own brand is ripe enough. This is also the time when employees have the ability to share, even "take up" time, creativity and enthusiasm into the startup. Quiet quit formed from here.

Signs that HR is tending to quietly quit

Attitude towards work

Personnel who keep quiet in meetings, especially those that need input from the team, are not excited to express constructive views but nod their heads instead. In addition, employees who show signs of quiet quitting often turn off all applications or ignore work-related notifications when leaving the office, even urgent work. They will leave on time and refuse to work overtime.

Job performance

Along with the negative attitude is that the work efficiency only remains at an acceptable level or shows signs of going down. Enthusiasm for work no longer makes them stop giving, not self-assess their work productivity and desire to improve this index more.

Attitude towards superiors

When employees begin to have a stressful attitude, often contradict the opinions and refuse to accept more work from their superiors, this is the time to start the trend of quiet quitting.

Attitude to colleagues

Notice the atmosphere in the office. Is the relationship between teammates harmonious or not? Do employees have connections and the need to nurture co-worker relationships? This can be easily answered when observing the results of teamwork, the interaction with each other on social networks or in the company chat group, the fun at birthday parties, parties.

What is quiet firing?

Quiet firing is thought to be a manager's response to an employee's tendency to quiet quit. After assessing the personnel who had fallen into a serious quiet quit situation, instead of directly communicating directly, the boss silently assigned more work outside the original job description, did not discuss salary again and did not have any additional benefits that make employees more pressured, depressed and decide to quit. This is no different from “retaliation” or passive aggression.

What are the signs that an employee is suffering from quiet firing?

- Do not accept comments, orientation, recognition of achievements and commendation of contributions.

- The boss assigns too much or too little work.

- Constantly having to take on "crazy" tasks that have no value.

- Not recommended to participate in new projects, important projects of the company.

- Receive a lower salary than other colleagues, the time for salary review (review for salary increase) is too long, not according to the roadmap in the labor contract.

- Or criticize and criticize you in meetings.

- Isolation, badmouthing you to colleagues.

- Do not have a 1:1 direct exchange with your boss about the reason for cooling down at work.

How does quiet quitting and quiet firing affect the labor market?

Enterprises miss out on talent because of unprofessional behavior when quiet firing

One of the reasons for quiet quitting is due to disproportionate compensation, weak leadership, or a toxic company culture. These are all factors that come from the business side. Therefore, managers need to find out why employees lose enthusiasm and find ways to fix it. You should talk directly to employees and listen to them more. A talented leader will certainly know how to adjust, care about employee spiritual life, balance company interests and employee benefits.

Interaction and communication skills are important in all relationships, including that of employees and employers. Enterprises should have a frank discussion with employees instead of creating pressure and creating a bad impression to force them to leave the company by themselves. Just acting with impatience can lead to losing the good employees you've been hard to hire.

Quiet quitting is not a new trend, but has existed for a long time when employees show signs of dissatisfaction with their work. However, the outbreak of this movement is worrisome. We should not confuse quiet quitting with work-life balance, people with a work-life balance view cherish their personal lives but still work hard. As managers, leaders need to subtly recognize quiet quitting and take steps to improve. It's better not to silently fire.