“Quiet quitting” is a recent term that has flooded the workplace representing the effort of employees doing only the bare minimum requirements to maintain their job without further progression for substantial outcome. During the Covid-19 pandemic, confusion and stress that accompanies change was highly prevalent when witnessing the shift towards the increase in contactless and from-home workstyles. Many employees began to reconsider their work-life balance – coming to the conclusion that a substantial amount was dissatisfied with their positions being lacking in compensation of time-off and money, underappreciated in their current career, and overworked past their immediate job requirements.

For many businesses, no major changes for employee’s work lives were enacted, therefore causing confusion as to the purpose of the sudden “quiet quitting” movement within their companies. The situation of change, health crises, and lack of employee-manager relations were the sole cause of most of these claims regardless of if the business was encouraging any negative change. As a result, many companies have suffered from “quiet quitting”, leaving only the employees to blame.

For employees, many have used “quiet quitting” as a coping mechanism to stress. Stress in and out of the workplace may cause employees to feel overworked, underappreciated, overlooked, and undercompensated regardless of if they are or not. This movement has encouraged many to use this expression to move to better positions, look for better jobs, and even start a new company. A massive increase in entrepreneurial activity surged around the time that this term was being conceived. The majority, however, has devolved towards unbalanced risk-reward ideals that promote more pay for their efforts or position while maintaining a bare-minimum mentality. These are those that, in a usual circumstance, get fired for their unsatisfactory achievements.

“Quiet quitting” can be seen as both a good and a bad thing. Good in the sense that it can promote a “higher-achieving” mentality in the workplace while granting an avenue for temporary destressing. Bad in the sense that it can be abused to demand more than what’s provided while further disassociating employees with their corresponding management teams. Staying connected and frequently updated on goals, shortcomings, concerns, and more can effectively deescalate the increase of “quiet quitters” to help both employees and companies get what they need in the healthiest way possible.