Quiet quitting” is a rising trend in today’s workforce. A Gallup survey from 2022 estimates that at least half of US workers may qualify as quiet quitters, and likely higher for workers under 35. Quiet quitting is not just a buzzword. It’s real and affecting the productivity and company culture of millions of businesses, not just in the US but worldwide.

In this article, we’ll explain what quiet quitting is, along with five strategies you can implement to reduce the rate.

What is Quiet Quitting?

Quiet quitting is a term used when an individual puts the bare minimum into their job in terms of effort, engagement, and participation.

The worker, in this case, does not actually quit. They keep showing up to work and generally do just enough to maintain their position. But it often means the employee’s values have shifted. That is to say, they are not interested in doing anything outside of what’s asked of them during the work hours.

Though the term is somewhat new, the phenomenon is not. According to the business website Quartz, overall employee engagement was lower between 2000 and 2014 than it is now, showing that the rate of quiet quitting may have been higher at this time.

Statistics aside, the fact that some employees are simply “doing time” when they show up to work is nothing new.

Why Are Employees Quiet Quitting?

It can also happen due to frustration that grows over time and reaches a breaking point where the employee decides they won’t care anymore. This can be frustration over not being listened to, not being valued, communication issues or feeling stuck in a dead-end job.

It’s less often due to inadequate benefits (such as wages and paid time off). Though this can be a cause for quiet quitting, it’s more likely that the employee will respond by actually quitting and taking a better position elsewhere.

Whatever the reason for quiet quitting, it’s important to identify it, address it, and, even better, prevent it. Left unchecked, it’s a drain on productivity, makes project management more difficult, and creates a negative culture that spreads throughout the organization.

Five Ways To Prevent Quiet Quitting

Bringing someone back after they’ve fallen into the category of quiet quitting is hard. Often this person has lost all motivation and can’t be encouraged to become re-engaged with their job.

The best course of action is to see what causes quiet quitting and do what you can to prevent it. Here are five things you can do to stop this from happening in your team:

Treat Employees as Assets

One of the first things you can do is to realize that employees are one of the most critical assets for a business, and to treat them as such.

We all want to feel valued. We want to feel that we matter. But too often, a business treats its employees like just another replaceable cog in the machine.

This is also an essential thing to do when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. When people feel valued by their company, they’re more likely to stay in the job or take a job offer. They’re also more likely to put in more effort and go above and beyond.

Performance is a two-way street. Show employees you trust, respect and value them, and they’ll give more in return.

Value Your Employees’ Time

Another positive step is to make time a priority. This goes hand in hand with the previous point. A powerful way to show you value an employee is to value their time and show you understand that they have a life to live outside of work.

Try to reduce and manage overtime for your employees. Excessive overtime quickly leads to burnout and can easily trigger an employee to switch off and refuse to do any work outside their contracted hours.

Overtime can come about due to an unrealistic workload. Yet it can also be due to poor time management during regular working hours. Excessive, unproductive meetings are one example that can rapidly reduce employee engagement and productivity. Poor project management and project tracking are other ways that many organizations waste their employees’ time, and the response from the employee is often to switch off and stop caring about their work.

Encourage Employees to Take Time Off When Needed

You can help prevent burnout (one of the major causes of quiet quitting) by encouraging team members to take time off from work.

Far too many companies treat paid time off as an unwanted expense. They’ll allow paid time off, but quietly discourage employees from taking it, and see it as a positive whenever someone works for a long time without taking any days off.

The problem is that this leads to overworked employees. In time, their performance drops, and their engagement decreases if they see that their hard work is only rewarded with more work. This is actually the cause of another newly coined phrase called “presenteeism”. Presenteeism is the opposite of absenteeism, and refers to when an employee is present at work too often, neglecting their vacation days or sick leave.

As a result, they become less productive, and often unwell, in which case they can even spread illness throughout the rest of the team. It’s very closely related to quiet quitting, and is extremely costly. Data estimates that presenteeism costs US businesses $150 billion per year. The solution to this is to make paid time off (vacation days, sick days, and other leave types) available, and to actually encourage employees to take a day off when they need to. This will help keep your team members fresh, healthy, and engaged and prevent them from burning out.

Invest in Learning and Development

You can solve many engagement issues and, at the same time, build and grow more skilled employees by investing in learning and development.

Lack of engagement often comes from feeling stuck in a dead-end job and not progressing. While we want material rewards from a job, such as higher pay and more attractive benefits, we also want the internal satisfaction of growing and developing your skills.

This provides more intrinsic motivation for employees, and also leads to the opportunity to earn more material benefits.

Investing in training or professional development initiatives is a win-win. It makes the employee more excited about their job, reduces the chance that they burn out and stop caring, and builds more productive and skilled assets for the business.

Seek Employees’ Input

One last tip is to make your employees feel heard.

It’s very similar to the first point. We want to feel valued, and we want to feel like our opinion and our voice matters. So bringing employees into more discussions, and increasing communication and transparency in your business, can have a big impact.

It’s not enough just to listen to employees when they speak, though. This is fine for more extroverted employees, but those who don’t naturally speak up may feel like their opinion is not welcomed unless you actually ask for it.

That’s why it’s important to actively seek out and encourage employees to share their thoughts, feedback, and opinions and participate in key conversations. This is an excellent way to build a more positive and productive working environment where low engagement and quiet quitting are not the norm.

Pro tip: If you are a manager and you want a more efficient project tracking and engaged team members to avoid quiet quitting, you can rely on TrackingTime features such as our project management time tracker. This way, you’ll be able to manage team work smoothly. Keep everyone on the same page to promote transparency and, more importantly, build a work culture around trust. We are trusted by companies of all shapes and sizes.  Steven S., a Project Director on Hybrid Marketing says: “Amazing to keep track of my billable hours for clients! I love the simplicity of the platform. I have it organized with the main client and then each project that I complete for them is calculated separately”. 

Quiet quitting is preventable

Each of these five tips will help any manager build a team of more motivated, driven individuals who are happier and more fulfilled in their jobs.

It’s worth mentioning again that proactive measures are best, rather than trying to fix employee engagement issues after the fact. When you invest in your employees and show that you respect and value them, you’ll create a culture where people are motivated to step up and go the extra mile.

Treat your employees the right way, and ensure your company is set up to be productive and conducive to engaged employees.


About the Author:

Andrew Buck is the head of content at Flamingo, a Slack app that helps teams manage paid time off. He has over 10 years’ experience managing teams, both remote and in-person, and is committed to the idea that empowering employees is the best way to build a productive business today.

Five Ways to Prevent Quiet Quitting

  1. Treat Employees as Assets

    When people feel valued by their company, they’re more likely to stay in the job or take a job offer. They’re also more likely to put in more effort and go above and beyond.

  2. Value Your Employees’ Time

    A powerful way to show you value an employee is to value their time and show you understand that they have a life to live outside of work. Try to reduce and manage overtime for your employees.

  3. Encourage Employees to Take Time Off When Needed

    Far too many companies treat paid time off as an unwanted expense. They’ll allow paid time off, but quietly discourage employees from taking it, and see it as a positive whenever someone works for a long time without taking any days off. The problem is that this leads to overworked employees.

  4. Invest in Learning and Development

    Investing in training or professional development initiatives is a win-win. It makes the employee more excited about their job, reduces the chance that they burn out and stop caring, and builds more productive and skilled assets for the business.

  5. Seek Employees’ Input

    It’s important to actively seek out and encourage employees to share their thoughts, feedback, and opinions and participate in key conversations. This is an excellent way to build a more positive and productive working environment where low engagement and quiet quitting are not the norm.