September Blog: Workforce Connector

Quiet Quitting:

Quiet quitting is a problem many businesses are facing with their workforce. This problem occurs when workforce members just meet the bare minimum of what is required or are psychologically disengaged at work. This problem has become a major issue especially for young members of the workforce.

Younger millennials and Gen Z employees have become major members of quiet quitters. When the COVID-19 pandemic become a national threat, younger workers have stated that they felt undervalued, had no opportunities to develop as employees, and lead astray by their managers.

According to the U.S. Employee Engagement Trend, these are the latest statistics from younger employee’s satisfaction survey:

1. The percentage of engaged employees under the age of 35 dropped by six percentage points from 2019 to 2022 and the percentage of actively disengaged employees increased by six points.
2. Younger employees have dropped 10 or more points in agreeing that their leadership team cares about them, encourages development, and presents opportunities to learn and grow.
3. Fully remote and hybrid young workers dropped 12 points in agreeing that their employer encourages development.
4. Less than 4 in 10 young remote and/or hybrid employees understand what is expected of them at work.

The main source of the quiet quitting problem is poor management within the company. A good first step businesses can take in addressing their problem is to figure out their manager engagement. Only one in three managers are engaged at work which can influence problems with the workforce. The senior leadership team needs to make sure they know how to manage the new hybrid and remote workers, so when not in the office they still understand what needs to be done.

Another skill the leadership team can practice is how to have conversations to help employees stay engaged and prevent burnout. Only managers are in a position to know employees on a personal level and have some insight to their life situation, strengths, and goals. These conversations don’t need to be long. They can be only 10 to 15 minutes at most.

Finally, managers need to create accountability for individual performance, team collaboration, and customer value. If employees see how their work contributes to the organization’s success, they will feel more valued by their company. When making schedules on when to work remote or hybrid, the leadership team must make sure the employee has expectations and keeps themselves accountable.   

American educator and author of the book, The 7 habits of highly effective people Stephen Covey wrote,

“Always treat your employees exactly how as you want them to treat your best customers.”