Shhh ... I'm Quiet Quitting

"Shhh ...I'm Quiet Quitting"

My Job Here is Done™ Transcript (for general use only, machine-generated, which may not be accurate). 

[00:00:01.210] - Kelli: What do you think about doing a podcast on quiet quitting?

[00:00:05.390] - Dave: Well, I've got enough to do, so maybe not

[00:00:09.830] - Kelli: (laughing) seriously?

[00:00:11.690] – INTRO - Hi, I'm Dave, and I've been starting and running businesses all all my life. And I'm Kelli, working for the man like a dog for decades. And you, are YOU the driven career professional clawing your way up the ladder of success, maybe running your own business! The next 20 minutes or so is just for you. Welcome to...

[00:00:32.070] - Chuck Fresh - My job here is done.

[00:00:36.110] - Kelli: Welcome and thanks a lot for taking a break to give us about 20 minutes of your time. I'm Kelli, and I'm all for doing a podcast on quiet quitting!

[00:00:45.390] - Dave: And I'm Dave... (uncomfortable pause)

[00:00:47.990] - Kelli: Okay... Are you going to finish the intro?

[00:00:50.550] - Dave: Is it necessary? I mean, like, we've done this dozens and dozens and dozens of times. I think everyone knows what we talk about here.

[00:00:57.630] - Kelli: What's wrong with you? We go away for a few weeks and take a little summer break from the podcast, and now we're back, and you're like a wet blanket.

[00:01:06.290] - Dave: What do you mean?

[00:01:07.570] - Kelli: I mean, you don't seem enthused or even interested.

[00:01:10.670] - Dave: That's not true. I'm here, right? Was I late to the recording session? Am I not doing my job? Am I not cohosting?

[00:01:18.780] - Kelli: Well, no, but you're certainly not going out of your way, and I think you're doing this on purpose.

[00:01:24.600] - Dave: Okay. All right, no problem.

[00:01:26.870] - Dave: I'm Dave, and we talk about career success and entrepreneurial business growth on this podcast. Please subscribe or follow on your favorite app because SHE doesn't want you to miss any new episodes.

[00:01:38.230] - Kelli: SHE really? Okay, I'll play along.

[00:01:41.890] - Kelli: You can also interact with Dave and me personally. Actually, you can interact with ME personally at our website, MyJobHereIsDone.com and on social media at MyJobPodcast.

[00:01:54.650] - Dave: Did I do something wrong?

[00:01:56.410] - Kelli: This is the one about quiet quitting. You likely have heard or read about that term recently. It has employees and employers all torqued up, but it's nothing new. In fact, some would argue that quiet quitting is nothing more than an employee coming to work on time, doing what they were hired to do, and leaving on time.

[00:02:16.160] - Dave: But if that's true, why is this even being talked about? Why did the hashtag quiet quitting go viral ever since a lonely TikTok video mentioned it and mentioned the term in July of 2022?

[00:02:29.940] - Dave: And why are managers, leadership and business owners quietly freaking out over quiet quitting?

[00:02:37.390] - Kelli: First, we need to understand that nothing - absolutely nothing - has changed in terms of people needing to work for a living, right? Every capable adult human being who seeks to live life in some sort of comfort and security and to enjoy societal life needs to work to earn money to provide for themselves and their family.

[00:02:57.580] - Dave: Yeah, I don't think that's disputed by anyone. In fact, history shows us that the cultures of the work environments have changed dramatically over time. Those cultures and rules of work have ebbed and flowed, and everyone, employees and employers alike, have adapted and thrived.

[00:03:14.570] - Kelli: Dave and I believe that quiet quitting is just another natural change in the workplace, and it should be a sign and signal to leadership that it is time to pivot for the better.

[00:03:25.510] - Dave: So what exactly is quiet quitting?

[00:03:27.690] - Kelli: We Googled and found lots of definitions, but we like is what our friends at TechTarget wrote.

[00:03:33.290] - Kelli: The entire article is in the show notes. Amanda Hetler wrote:  "Quiet quitting doesn't mean an employee has left their job, but rather has limited their tasks to those strictly within their job description. To avoid working longer hours, they want to do the bare minimum to get the job done and set clear boundaries to improve work-life balance. These employees are still fulfilling their job duties, but not subscribing to "work is life" culture to guide their career and stand out to their superiors. They stick to what is in their job description, and when they go home, they leave work behind them and focus on nonwork duties and activities.

[00:04:13.980] - Dave: And what's just as interesting is that people are also quitting their work friends, because work friends usually associate with work, and work is what some people want to absolutely forget about as the clock strikes five.

[00:04:30.360] - Dave: Do you know what precipitated this seemingly random and almost viral aspect of quiet quitting?

[00:04:37.630] - Kelli: Hey, if you said COVID, you'd be right.

[00:04:39.940] - Dave: Yes, COVID-19 has been responsible for many bad and horrible things since March of 2020, and it still continues strong. But covid 19 also contributed to a few good things that will last much longer and affect us for decades to come.

[00:04:56.420] - Kelli: Life has slowed down quite a bit. We've all been forced to make personal changes in the way we interact, the speed at which we make decisions, and the alternatives we choose for entertainment and pleasure.

[00:05:08.320] - Dave: You know what another positive of COVID was? That leadership learned how to trust employees in new ways.

[00:05:13.980] - Kelli: Right.

[00:05:14.350] - Dave: We worked autonomously as employees, often on our own schedules, and we got our work done, and the bosses saw that and were shocked. For the most part, remote employees, largely unsupervised and not watched like a hawk at their cubicles, did better work. Much better work in many cases.

[00:05:35.110] - Kelli: We all learned who and what matters the most to us. I should say we learned to appreciate much more who and what matters the most to us, and that is the core of why our employees are backing down and working to just acceptable minimums.

[00:05:49.580] - Dave: We're calling this quiet quitting, but no one is really quitting.

[00:05:53.900] - Dave: And as leaders, we have always said the following: "if only everyone would just do their jobs in the first place, things would be so much better."

[00:06:02.900] - Kelli: All right, well, your wish is their command. You're getting just what you wanted!

[00:06:07.540] - Dave: Yeah. Is this is a big deal for employers ... Is it? No, I don't think so.

[00:06:13.150] - Dave: Think about it. When you are interviewing people for the last position you posted, you told them exactly what the requirements were both in the job description and in person during the interview, you outlined their job function. You told them that this is a great place to work. You assured them that you are not a hard-ass and that they'd love to work for you.

[00:06:32.800] - Kelli: But you couldn't possibly put everything you expected from that employee on the already too long list of job requirements in the posting. So what did you do to compensate for the lack of full disclosure?

[00:06:44.170] - Dave: I know what you did. You added - "and other duties as assigned."

[00:06:50.870] - Kelli: That old gag.

[00:06:52.450] - Dave: And most leadership used that clause to pile on extra work and functions to an employee's job description that were never discussed in the interview.

[00:07:00.590] - Dave: Had they been discussed in the interview, you might not have hired that person because they didn't have the skills for "other duties as assigned," or the employee may not have taken the job because they didn't think they'd be good at "other duties as assigned."

[00:07:15.830] - Kelli: But now that they're hired, we overused that clause and put our workforce into situations where oftentimes they had little training to perform those duties, didn't like those duties, or those duties affected their ability to do what you wanted them to do well in the first place.

[00:07:32.220] - Dave: Yeah. So what's happening? It's simple.

[00:07:34.840] - Dave: The stress of the pandemic caused people to reevaluate their priorities in life, and as a result, we're seeing changes in employee behavior.

[00:07:44.410] - Dave: Your teams gave 200% during the pandemic. I know of no one who didn't work their asses off to get through this once in a lifetime - hopefully - crisis.

[00:07:56.390] - Dave: But when you stretch to 200% for such a long period of time, you eventually burn out and recoil. You need to counteract that stress. And if leadership didn't find a way to make up for it, and we largely have not, our employees will make up for it themselves. And now you have quiet quitting

[00:08:18.170] - Kelli: For leadership, there's an answer to this and things you can do right now to mitigate the effects of quiet quitting. But before we go any further, to, quote unquote, fixed employees, let's talk about the other side of the coin, the side that has no viral TikTok video, the side that has no trending hashtags.

[00:08:36.730] - Kelli: Let's talk about hashtag #missingmanager.

[00:08:40.730] - Dave: So if quiet quitting is the employee just doing the bare minimum, sticking exactly to the description to just stay employed, making no effort to go out of their way to overachieve, then hashtag missing manager is the other side of the coin.

[00:08:58.500] - Kelli: I was talking to a good friend recently, and I was telling her about this podcast, and she blurted out these words to me that stopped me in my tracks.

[00:09:06.550] - Kelli: She said, "Why do I want to go out of my way when my manager is hiding in the corner?"

[00:09:12.520] - Dave: Rut Ro Rorge!

[00:09:13.550] - Kelli: Yeah. Hashtag missing manager. We talked about how she worked for a new manager for the last ten years who literally just does the bare minimum to stay employed, just like the quiet quitting movement is starting to do.

[00:09:27.150] - Dave: Kelli is right. Hashtag missing manager has been going on for decades, and leadership really didn't have their eye on this ball. We didn't write articles on it because it was like telling on ourselves.

[00:09:40.430] - Dave: When we say hashtag missing manager, we are defining this as a person who gets promoted into a job as a manager, leading a group of people who, once in that job, fails to lead effectively.

[00:09:54.080] - Kelli: The hashtag missing manager either does not seek to learn the needed leadership skills, they're not provided the training to learn those skills, or they're just wrong for the job in the first place.

[00:10:05.040] - Dave: And the fastest way to promote hashtag quiet quitting is to work for a hashtag missing manager!

[00:10:10.950] - Kelli: So after my conversation with my friend about her missing manager's ineffective leadership, where the manager just literally hid from offering any leadership and guidance, I called more people and asked around about this and guess what's happening? More than I thought for a very long time.

[00:10:26.640] - Dave: Yeah, well, I think it's this.

[00:10:28.280] - Dave: The old saying is so true. "People don't usually quit their jobs. They quit their manager." And working for a missing manager exacerbates both quiet quitting and the flip side -  quiet firing.

[00:10:46.650] - Kelli: Rot row. Roger. (messing up the slogan Rut Ro Rorge)

[00:10:48.270] - Dave: That's my line. I say Rut Ro Rorge.

[00:10:50.510] - Kelli: I say that too (laughing)

[00:10:51.230] - Dave: You don't really say it well ...

[00:10:53.850] - Kelli: I stammered over it. (laughing)

[00:10:55.190] - Dave: Yeah, that's okay. Back to Amanda Hetler's article on TechTarget.

[00:11:00.660] - Dave: Quote ... "Just like quiet quitting, quiet firing is something that has been going on for years and addresses the other side of the employer-employee relationship. Quiet firing refers to the managers making a job miserable or treating an employee badly. That way the person quits instead of being fired."

[00:11:20.370] - Kelli: Do you see a pattern here? Cause I see two.

[00:11:22.560] - Dave: Yeah. Wow.

[00:11:23.290] - Kelli: The first is that our employee's priorities have changed, and because of COVID, it simply looks sudden. In reality, it's been happening for a while. And the second is hashtag missing manager.

[00:11:35.150] - Dave: Employees today, as Amanda states in her article, are rebelling against the "hustle culture" of going above and beyond what a job requires. And part of the reason for this is COVID burnout.

[00:11:47.490] - Dave: And also, as we said earlier, the improper use of "other duties as assigned" ... They're also not being paid to go above and beyond.

[00:11:55.430] - Kelli: Right. How bad is this? Well, it might not seem as bad as the hashtags make it sound.

[00:12:01.600] - Kelli: In our opinion, it's certainly correctable by leadership simply recognizing a few facts and acting on them.

[00:12:08.450] - Kelli: One is to recognize that our employees are tired, stressed, and burned out. We can't suggest any single fix as each business is different, but you can begin with making sure leadership at all levels are engaged, aware of the problem, and that they have realistic expectations of what each employee was hired to do.

[00:12:28.210] - Dave: Hey, I watched us as leaders pile stuff on people. Regardless of the employee's qualifications. It's not fair to anyone. Search for hashtag missing managers in your organization and re-train, empower, or exit those managers as a missing manager will promote quiet quitting.

[00:12:47.820] - Kelli: Here's a fun fact ready?

[00:12:49.610] - Kelli: If you are happy to hire someone to do a job, and that's all you expected at the time, if they are in fact doing their job, but just their job, be happy about it!

[00:12:59.310] - Dave: If you want somebody to do more than their job, expect to negotiate with them.

[00:13:05.610] - SOUNDCLIP

I'm going to need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow. Soooo if you could be here around nine, that would be great. Okay?

[00:13:16.960] - Dave: This may mean they say no to new opportunities. So be it. If you force them, you won't get the results you want anyway, and the old job they were doing will suffer as well.

[00:13:27.320] - Kelli: But this doesn't mean that an ineffective or lazy employee should get a pass. That's not quiet quitting.

[00:13:33.000] - Dave: That's not what we're talking about.

[00:13:34.020] - Kelli: No, that's failure to perform. And it's a reason to help them find another job, right?

[00:13:38.640] - Dave: Is the effect of the Great Resignation contributing to this problem?

[00:13:43.360] - Dave: Well, a recent article in Harvard Business Review casts an interesting light on this. It's all linked in the show notes. The article starts off with this: "in 2021, according to the US. Bureau of Labor Statistics" (and this is just the United States this has been happening all over the world. But the statistics are here for the US.)

[00:14:02.330] - Dave: "Over 47 million Americans voluntarily quit their jobs, an unprecedented mass exodus from the workforce. Spurred by COVID that is now widely called the Great Resignation. Worker shortages are apparently everywhere. Gas stations and dentists office alike, they've all reduced their hours of operation because they can't find new employees to replace those who have quit."

[00:14:27.960] - Dave: I mean, we see it all the time in restaurants and grocery stores and supermarkets, everywhere. It's everywhere.

[00:14:33.940] - Dave: "The Great Resignation, we're told, has upended the relationship between workers and the labor market. But such talk is overblown." As the article writes, "a number of workers did quit their jobs in 2021. In fact, a record number of workers did. That's true. However, if you consider that number in the context of total employment during the past dozen years, you can see what we were living through is not just short term turbulence provoked by the pandemic, but rather the continuation of a long term trend."

[00:15:09.590] - Kelli: The article has some very interesting points about why the workplace is changing, including a description of the five Rs: retirement, relocation, reconsideration, reshuffling, and reluctance.

[00:15:23.730] - Kelli: In summary, the article says "workers are retiring in greater numbers, but aren't relocating in large numbers. They're reconsidering their work-life balance and care roles. They're making localized switches among industries or reshuffling rather than exiting the labor market entirely. And because of pandemic-related fears. They're demonstrating a reluctance to return to in-person jobs.

[00:15:50.150] - Dave: Hey, folks, we face more than just quiet quitting as challenges. There's a whole spectrum of employment changes we must deal with as leaders and as employees. And they all center around one thing: effective and empathetic leadership.

[00:16:05.850] - Dave: Kelli and I both believe that the future winners will be those businesses that practice and make visible, things like fairness and equity for employees that respect employees hired role and function. And don't expect more than what you expected from the employee in the first place.

[00:16:24.790] - Kelli: Winning businesses will recognize remote work is here to stay and embrace it for all of the right reasons. And they'll provide wellness as a benefit to help drive employee engagement.

[00:16:36.250] - Dave: And finally, let's make sure we lead effectively. Invest in manager training and oversight. It's more critical to career success today than it's ever been in the past.

[00:16:47.100] - Kelli: We did a recent episode on using empathy as a management skill. Why not give that podcast a listen next? Just search for Motivating with Empathy.

[00:16:55.560] - Dave: Hey, thanks very much for listening today. We hope you enjoyed the episode on Quiet quitting.

[00:17:03.210] - Kelli: More and more people listen each week just because of you spreading the word about our My Job Here Is Done podcast. Dave and I thank you very much for telling a friend about us.

[00:17:12.540] - Dave: And please tell your friend they can follow us anywhere and everywhere. Podcasts are available using their favorite app like Samsung Free or Apple Podcasts or Google or any of them, and at our website. My job here is done DOT com

[00:17:50.710] - Chuck Fresh I'm the announcer guy, and I sound as good as the story you just listened to. My job here is done as a podcast production of 2PointOh LLC. Thank you and your awesome ears for listening. Want to get involved? Have your own special story to share? Tell us all about it, and you might get some airtime just like me. Browse over to myjobhereisdone.com yeah, squish that all together into one word and look for the My Story link. Until next time …My job Here Is Done.