In recent years, extensive business research and reports, on both economic and workplace trends, have begun to analyze and factualize the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on the ongoing labor crisis and the Great Resignation Era.
Researchers and academics have gone about analyzing these issues depending on what their overall objectives are for their study or report.
Dr. Jim Harter, Ph.D., Chief Scientist for Gallup’s workplace management practice, recently published a statistical review on the relevance of quiet-quitting, questioning whether or not it was a real phenomenon in the business world. His findings are based on a random sample by Gallup of 15,091 full-and-part-time U.S. employees aged 18 and over, surveyed in June of 2022.
Likewise ResumeBuilder, a career-counseling company that specializes in resume writing and relevant business skills, published a quantitative survey that showed how over 1,000 managers viewed quiet-quitting, with at least one direct report in September.
Dr. Harter’s analysis
Dr. Harter starts off by stating how Gallup found that “quiet-quitters” make up at least 50% of the U.S. workforce today – and probably more.
He then addresses employee engagement within the U.S., which “took another step backward during the second quarter of 2022, with the proportion of engaged workers remaining at 32% but the proportion of actively disengaged increasing to 18%. The ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is now 1.8 to 1, the lowest in almost a decade” (Harter 2022).
Image ‘Current Perspectives on Sitting: Developing a Culture of Movement in the Workplace’ by Taomeister CC BY-SA 2.0 Flickr.
Interestingly, Dr. Harter also found the steepest decline in engagement and employer satisfaction was among remote Gen Z and younger millennials, or those below age 35.
“This is a significant change from pre-pandemic years. Since the pandemic, younger workers have declined significantly in feeling cared about and having opportunities to develop – primarily from their manager,” he stated, “Disturbingly, less than four in 10 young remote or hybrid employees clearly know what is expected of them at work” (Harter 2022).
He therefore asserts the clear connection that quiet-quitting has to poor management, and provides suggestions and advice to employer readers:
- First, address manager engagement.
- Only one in three managers are engaged at work. Senior leadership needs to reskill managers to win in the new hybrid environment.
- Managers must learn how to have conversations to help employees reduce disengagement and burnout.
- Only managers are in a position to know employees as individuals – their life situation, strengths and goals.
- Gallup finds the best requirement and habit to develop for successful managers is having one meaningful conversation per week with each team member — 15-30 minutes.
- Managers need to create accountability for individual performance, team collaboration and customer value — and employees must see how their work contributes to the organization’s larger purpose.
- Decisions about where people work – on-site, remote or a hybrid schedule – should keep these factors in mind. Importantly, every organization needs a culture in which people are engaged and feel they belong (Harter 2022).
ResumeBuilder’s analysis
The staff over at ResumeBuilder found that more than half of managers (58%) said they have at least one direct report (i.e. employee) who currently only does the bare minimum.
“Our survey defined doing the bare minimum as putting in the least amount of effort to just meet expectations. Additionally, 58% of managers have noticed the amount of effort being put in today is noticeably less, and more than half say reports never go above and beyond (58%) or take initiative (54%)” (ResumeBuilder 2022).
They additionally found that four in 10 respondents had fired burnt-out employees that they expected to go above and beyond, addressing how most managers still have high expectations despite the pandemic and hybrid work environment; “63% [of respondents] saying employees should work hard enough to exceed expectations. Just 35% are ok with employees only doing enough to meet expectations.”
Image by Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0.
It is important to note how this isn’t surprising to researchers, given how many people in positions of leadership perceive not going above and beyond for the company.
Millionaire TV personality and businessman Kevin O’Leary, they mention, recently made headlines for commenting on quiet-quitting, saying that it is “a really bad idea.” He also noted, “People that go beyond to try to solve problems for the organization, their teams, their managers, their bosses, those are the ones that succeed in life” (ResumeBuilder 2022).
CNBC’s lead work reporter Gili Malinsky covered this further, stating how Mr. O’Leary personally said he looks to hire people who are willing to put in “‘25 hours a day, eight days a week.’ If you’re shutting off your laptop at 5 p.m. and going home, ‘you’re not working for me,’ he says” (Malinsky 2022).
ResumeBuilder’s survey found that a vast number of managers generally tend to agree with this attitude.
“37% of managers say you probably can’t be successful only doing the bare minimum, while another 27% say you definitely can’t” (ResumeBuilder 2022).
The remaining key findings of their survey include:
- 98% of managers of ‘quiet quitters’ say it’s important their reports do more than the bare minimum; they disapprove of their reports quiet-quitting
- 91% of managers have taken some action against ‘quiet quitters,’ including taking steps to terminate them and denying promotions/raises
- One in three managers admit to ‘quiet-firing’ reports
- 64% of managers say ‘quiet quitters’ are unlikely to have a successful career
- 75% of managers say it’s justifiable to fire someone only doing the bare minimum
What it means for readers
Dr. Harter’s Gallup analysis, as well as ResumeBuilder’s, shows that large proportions of employers are distasteful towards quiet-quitters and still expect workers to devote all their being to their work or the company. However, as I have covered in the last several consecutive blogs here, employers have certainly suffered as a result of this one-sided approach to business. Countless research and quantitative survey reports have concluded quiet-quitting to be a real business phenomena and an issue that correlates directly with poor or abusive management. For positive retention and attraction strategies, employers and business owners need to understand the importance of their employees and mental well-being just as much as the company making profit.
Image ‘Searching for new ideas’ by FREE-VECTORS.NET CC BY 4.0.
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