Is Employee Training the Solution to Quiet Quitting?

Story highlights:

• A Gallup Poll Survey shows only 35% of employees are engaged in the workforce, indicating that 65% of employees aren’t
• Managers need to be trained to monitor employee workflow
• Employees need an environment where communication is seen as an opportunity to process-improvement

The new buzz in the corporate world is “quiet quitting,” defined as employees who have disengaged with the hustle culture and are focused on the roles and responsibilities hired to perform.

A Gallup Poll Survey shows only 35% of employees are engaged in the workforce, indicating that 65% of employees aren’t. It could mean employees are quiet-quitting; they have stopped pushing themselves to the brink of exhaustion, overperforming in tasks with the reward being more work, and have ended their 24/7 accessibility. But it could also mean they have stopped communicating around the table, aren’t participating in team events, and seem disconnected from the rest of the group.

Currently, there are generations who are sleep-deprived, depressed, stressed, and riddled with anxiety, because they are trying to be the best and survive in the hustle culture; it has damn near killed them.

The organization owns every thought and every aspect of their lives: It has crept into their homes after hours; it’s with them in bed, on vacations, at family dinners and events: the break between professional and personal life no longer exists.

Quiet quitting is the employee resetting the expectations established to the time they agreed to the position.

When accepting a position, the tasks, and the time it will take to complete them, are packaged in the job description; thus, any assigned tasks outside of the position are “scope creep,” or as others call it, “all other duties as assigned.”

Who is monitoring scope creep, and who is confirming the employee is performing within the agreed-upon contract?

Managers are in the position to “manage” workflow; however, if they have always been individual contributors and transitioned into a management position, they need to learn how to monitor workflow.

Managers account for every hour the employee is putting towards the organization. However, managers who consistently say “yes” to every project, idea, or thought from the C-Suit, with zero pushback, are more than likely burning out their team.

In addition, managers who aren’t “managing” employees’ time and workload are not being managers; they are still individual contributors who sometimes tell employees what to do.

The solution is training managers on how to monitor workload, cognitive and physical, which will help deter employee burnout.

Conversely, employees need to do the right thing, “put in” the effort to get the job done in the time agreed upon; and have the courage to speak up when overtime is needed.

However, society has conditioned employees to believe that standing up for themselves means they are being difficult and would impact the way they are treated or considered for future positions.

Employers need to establish an environment where communication is used to process-improve creating a synergy between the worker and employer. However, employees have been conditioned to believe communicating any sign of objection is bad, so training employees how to communicate within the channels of the organization is much needed.

Stopping workers from quiet-quitting requires the organization to change its values, beliefs, and customs–the culture. Changing a culture takes time, rethinking, and training, but it is not impossible to do: it will take the whole team to make it happen, from the C-Suite to the entry-level workers.

#quietquitting #hustleculture #expectationmanagement #employeetraining