Quiet quitting: what TikTok teaches us about "silent resigners"
After the "big quit," or mass resignation, quiet quitting or silent resignation appeared in July 2022. The Gallup polling institute uses this term to describe people who "do not go above and beyond at work and are content to simply fulfill their job description." Does quiet quitting reflect a gradual disengagement of the individual from their professional duties? Could it be a precursor to a career change?
Sylvie Rascol-Boutard, University of Montpellier and Aurélia El Yacoubi, University of Montpellier
In an attempt to understand this supposedly silent phenomenon, we went to investigate a rather noisy place: TikTok. We analyzed all videos posted between July and December 2022, as well as their comments, which appeared when entering the keywords "quiet quitting" or "silent resignation."
The videos present a wide variety of profiles from around the world.The manual and then automated textualanalysis we conducted, which was presented at the 2023 conference of the Association francophone de gestion des ressources humaines (AGRH), highlighted some of the major features of this phenomenon.
Reasonable or lazy?
"No longer investing oneself," "no involvement, " "disconnecting from company values,""defining oneself in ways other than through work. " Those who engage in quiet quitting primarily report a loss of meaning and discomfort at work. The obvious signs of this quiet resignation are disengagement, demotivation, and detachment from work. Among their wishes are the search for a work-life balance and greater respect for their private lives. Quiet quitting can even be presented as self-evident: it is simply a matter of "doing one's job normally" and "working in a reasonable manner"; it is even sometimes claimed with vehemence.
Some continue to work normally but without exceeding certain limits they set for themselves: "no overtime,""no additional tasks. " They say they "do the bare minimum"; they may also deliberately "submit work late" or even claim "non-compliance with schedules."
Many people play with the limits of what is possible to do (or not do). "Taking breaks" is allowed, but taking too many is unprofessional, even prohibited. The issue is the blurred line between what the employee establishes and what is acceptable to the employer. Often, the silent resigning employee is described as such because the line, if crossed, is difficult to perceive or not particularly reprehensible. We are talking here about "withdrawal" behavior.
More critical approaches to silent resignations come from people who present themselves as being in management positions. For them, silent resigners are lazy, "slackers." They lack ambition and are "deceiving their employer." Their behavior is counterproductive and a waste of the company's time: after all, they "have no desire to grow."
Take a back seat
Several reasons are put forward to explain silent resignation. The first relates to remuneration that is below the level expected given the work performed: the desire is to "work at a level commensurate with [one's] salary." This would remedy a perceived injustice .
Another set of reasons relates to perceived work overload. The silent quitter has "no time, no vacation"; they suffer from "overwork." They may also feel that they receive "no recognition from [their] employer for [their] work." Some of the reasons given also relate to societal issues to which they are reacting: a "deep malaise [inherent in] the world of work" as a whole; "post-COVID reflection and questioning"; or even "the aftermath of the great resignation."
When this takes the form of withdrawal behavior, is it a precursor to a career change? These silent resigners may be gradually disengaging from the organization. Withdrawal behavior could be a protective mechanism used by the individual, a strategy of psychological disengagement to, for example, protect themselves from potential burnout.
While waiting for a change, our TikTokers would maintain a minimal level of activity. They might also calculate their involvement at work in order to engage more in their private lives, referring to this attitude with a buzzword. Finally, because they would be on their way out, at the end of their contract for example, they would naturally disengage from the organization and their work. We therefore have several hypotheses here regarding the next steps in their careers, which could be explored in more depth through further longitudinal research.
For HR, identifying weak signals
Nevertheless, this research opens up new possibilities for human resource managers to detect career transitions before they actually occur.
Before a career change, there are usually some subtle signs. Quiet quitting could be one of them. By spotting even the slightest signs of disengagement, like refusing to take on responsibilities or work overtime, HR managers can identify people who need to be re-engaged in the team. They can also help them with their career transition, whether it's within the organization or outside it.
Our research does not allow us to draw definitive conclusions about the long term: silent resigners may decide to leave or not, to continue behaving in this way or not. And the social network studied is not without its limitations and biases. However, the richness of the verbatim data, the diversity of the respondents, and the consistency of the data and its analysis with the literature on career change make it a fascinating resource, particularly for understanding a phenomenon that claims to be silent.
Sylvie Rascol-Boutard, Senior Lecturer in Management Sciences, University of Montpellier and Aurélia El Yacoubi, PhD student in Management Sciences, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.