What is quiet quitting?
Should companies in Denmark be worried?
Quiet quitting refers to performing the minimal requirements of one's job and not investing more time, effort or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary. As such, it's a misleading term as the employee doesn't actually leave their position, continuing to receive a salary regardless.
In the early 2020s, and driven largely by social media, quiet quitting emerged as a much talked about trend in the US. However, questions have been raised about how common it actually is - and whether it's even a new phenomenon.
How does quiet quitting work?
Quiet quitters continue to fulfill their primary responsibilities, but they are less willing to participate in activities: no staying late, showing up earlier or attending non-mandatory meetings. They're mentally distanced from their work and only perform their core tasks.
Managers' reaction to the phenomenon has been mixed. Some have been tolerant, partly because the tight labor market in recent years makes it difficult to replace these employees.
Others have responded to quiet quitting by either quietly or loudly firing employees. In fact, "quiet quitting" has become a buzzword in its own right, generally defined as making a job so unsatisfying that the employee will feel compelled to quit.
Who invented the phenomenon?
The first known use of "quiet quitting" was by Bryan Creely, a Nashville-based recruiter who mentioned it in a video posted on TikTok and YouTube on March 4, 2022.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, claims it originated many years earlier, from comments in 2009 by a man referred to as "economist Mark Boldger" - an attribution that seems to have spread to numerous other websites.
Others trace the concept to China, where a similar phenomenon called "lying flat" seems to have emerged about a year earlier.
The bottom line
Quiet quitting may be a new phenomenon that you should consider. And it has drawn attention to what seems to be a fairly widespread phenomenon - employee dissatisfaction that employers may need to address.
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