During the last couple of months or so a new trend has emerged from social media, especially Tik Tok,concerning only doing one’s job as required without going out of one’s remit or beyond office hours. It is called quiet-quitting.
In some European countries there is a similar concept, which is the out of office concept or the right to disconnect. The latest gathered momentum after the French government introduced legislation to regularise such practice, for companies with 50 or more employees. Some French companies have in place rules that restrict their employees from using their work devices and their work email servers after working hours.
With quiet-quitting on the hand we have a situation in which after a two year span of the global pandemic, some overworked and burnt-out workers are refusing certain job proposals and work conditions that are demanding or may spill out of the normal working hours. Therefore such workers only do the job that are paid for, obviously still in their full capacity and in a professional manner.
There is a contradiction though with quiet-quitting as it may imply that for workers to perform extra tasks (sometimes out of their job description) is normality. Forcing workers to do extra tasks out of their working hours is wrong, especially if it remains unpaid. Workers shouldn’t be doing more work than they have to.
Tools in motivating employees out of the quiet-quitting trends may include salary increase, an increased sense of belonging, more appreciation, strenghtened communication and improvement of the working environment. Bringing forward such discussions about trust, quality of management and understanding will eventually be a value-added to any business or workplace.
