Blogs and Articles from Third Way Forum Membrs
Sep 29, 2022
Discussion#4 The issue of disengagement: How to deal with the 'Quiet Quitting' phenomenon.
Blogs from The Third Way Working Group
- What is the right measurement to see the status of Quiet Quitting? How can we track the improvement of the situation? Retention rate? Engagement score? The degree of autonomy? Career paths movement forward? Recognition awards? Safe and sound work environment? While all these things are very important and improving or worsening the status of Quiet Quitting, we believe that really effective solutions can not be arranged collectively or one-sidedly by the company. The solutions must be individually tailored and arranged only through continuous conversations between the company and each individual employee.
- The original TikTok video that suddenly made “Quiet Quitting” a trendy workstyle in July 2022 states “Work is not your life. Your worth is not defined by your productive output.” As Quiet Quitters are turned off from their work and focusing on their personal life, we need to address their personal life to deal with Quiet Quitters.
- Therefore, we need to talk about “individuals” rather than “employees”. Even if someone is disengaged as an employee, he must still have desire to improve her own life. At this moment, he thinks his work does not improve his life situation and rather damages it so he is Quiet Quitting. But what if the work does improve his life situation better?
- We propose that business leaders should ask every single individual emplyee the following questions:
・ How happy are you about your life in general?
・ How happy are you with your work/team/company?
・ What do you think the company can do to increase the degree of your happiness?
・ What do you think you can do to increase the degree of your own happiness as well as the happiness of people around you?
- Considering and answering these questions clearly is the task of each individual. And listening to them and acknowledging their thoughts is the task of the company leaders. Articulation of one’s own needs by individuals and acknowledgment by company leaders are the two most important requirements to solve Quiet Quitting.
- Once each individual articulates how she can be happier, the company leader has to see if there is anything the company can do for her. Even if the salary increase and instant promotion can not be granted easily, there must be a lot of others things the company leader can do once her individual needs and wishes are clarified. Such as helping her go home earlier or working more days from home or taking vacations etc without feeling guilty, changing the scope of her current role based on her strength, and introducing some company resources (persons, tools, info etc) to support her further skill development etc could be arranged if these things are on her wish list.
- As G.I. Joe says “Knowing is half the battle.”, we think we can say “Knowing what’s important for the person is half the battle of solving Quiet Quitting.”
- By having continuous dialogue on the above four questions, each individual and the company leader can work together to help the person strengthen his identity, purpose and sense of belonging at work. Then gradually, the person will be out of Quiet Quitting because now his own life is getting better by working in the company.
- But the company leader herself needs to do the same process with her own manager and be already out of the Quiet Quitting mode. If the company leader is a Quiet Quitter, this solution does not work. If company leaders are Quiet Quitters and many employees don’t feel comfortable to talk to their managers about their personal matters, then the outside third-party consultant should be engaged. However, it is much more ideal if managers and individual employees can develop proper authentic relationship to discuss the above four questions.
- The original TikTok video that suddenly made “Quiet Quitting” a trendy workstyle in July 2022 states “Work is not your life. Your worth is not defined by your productive output.” As Quiet Quitters are turned off from their work and focusing on their personal life, we need to address their personal life to deal with Quiet Quitters.
- Therefore, we need to talk about “individuals” rather than “employees”. Even if someone is disengaged as an employee, he must still have desire to improve her own life. At this moment, he thinks his work does not improve his life situation and rather damages it so he is Quiet Quitting. But what if the work does improve his life situation better?
- We propose that business leaders should ask every single individual emplyee the following questions:
・ How happy are you about your life in general?
・ How happy are you with your work/team/company?
・ What do you think the company can do to increase the degree of your happiness?
・ What do you think you can do to increase the degree of your own happiness as well as the happiness of people around you?
- Considering and answering these questions clearly is the task of each individual. And listening to them and acknowledging their thoughts is the task of the company leaders. Articulation of one’s own needs by individuals and acknowledgment by company leaders are the two most important requirements to solve Quiet Quitting.
- Once each individual articulates how she can be happier, the company leader has to see if there is anything the company can do for her. Even if the salary increase and instant promotion can not be granted easily, there must be a lot of others things the company leader can do once her individual needs and wishes are clarified. Such as helping her go home earlier or working more days from home or taking vacations etc without feeling guilty, changing the scope of her current role based on her strength, and introducing some company resources (persons, tools, info etc) to support her further skill development etc could be arranged if these things are on her wish list.
- As G.I. Joe says “Knowing is half the battle.”, we think we can say “Knowing what’s important for the person is half the battle of solving Quiet Quitting.”
- By having continuous dialogue on the above four questions, each individual and the company leader can work together to help the person strengthen his identity, purpose and sense of belonging at work. Then gradually, the person will be out of Quiet Quitting because now his own life is getting better by working in the company.
- But the company leader herself needs to do the same process with her own manager and be already out of the Quiet Quitting mode. If the company leader is a Quiet Quitter, this solution does not work. If company leaders are Quiet Quitters and many employees don’t feel comfortable to talk to their managers about their personal matters, then the outside third-party consultant should be engaged. However, it is much more ideal if managers and individual employees can develop proper authentic relationship to discuss the above four questions.
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