Hugh: Here’s What the “Quiet Quitting” Trend is All About

Recently, you may have seen the term “quiet quitting” online, but if you’re like a lot of people, you may not know what it means. No, it’s not another wave of people quitting their jobs in search of something more desirable, and it doesn’t necessarily involve people leaving their current jobs at all. Instead, it’s knowing the boundaries of your employment and staying within them. The “quiet quitting” trend has shown that many people feel like they’re regularly going above and beyond what they were hired to do without getting compensated for it. The result is increased worker burnout. With several industries reporting staff shortages, it’s certainly believable that many employees have been asked to help out with additional tasks. Another cause of burnout is longer hours, something spurred on by the transition for many to working from home. With the lines between work-life and home-life blurred, many find themselves responding to work-related calls, texts, and emails in their own time.

The term itself is getting a ton of criticism, with some saying “quitting” implies that employees are in the wrong for doing exactly what they were hired to do, instead of more without compensation. Meanwhile, others say that a discussion with your employer about expectations is more appropriate than doing less than you have been doing. Either way, I think it’s reasonable to say that employees deserve to be paid fairly for the work they end up doing.