HR seems to be taking a non-stop beating nowadays, ever since the lockdown taxed their resources to the max. First, it was figuring out ways to keep employees working remotely. Then came the challenge of keeping them engaged with their team even during remote work. Layoffs and downsizing to cope with the new uncertainty added to the mix. And if this wasn’t enough, now that a semblance of normalcy is back, terms like the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting began taking over.
While one can scarcely blame HR for all that has been happening, some lessons are definitely worth learning from the entire experience. Quiet Quitting is one such phenomenon that needs to be resolved quickly if companies are looking to get back on the growth path.
What is quiet quitting really? It’s a term coined and made popular by Gen Z workers, who decided that they were going to work only to the extent defined in their contract and no more. Now, as any HR professional knows, this is a term that could apply to half the workforce on any given day. Then why is it suddenly getting so much attention?
Well, most employees have been under a lot of strain managing work, home, kids and what not during the lockdown. Remote work meant being available an on call almost any time of day or night, irrespective of whether it was during reasonable office hours or not. The subsequent layoffs and increased stress led many to re-evaluate what their life goals were. Some decided that they would no longer allow their work to define their daily lives and quiet quitting suddenly became a buzzword for work-life balance.
Most companies today survive on the strength of their human capital – the people who go out and do that little bit more, from a sense of pride, achievement, ambition or ownership. However, the last decade saw companies take this little bit extra as their right, sometimes using the threat of layoffs to ensure only those who overdelivered stayed with the company. Recent revelations by employers about how they treat present or prospective employees have not helped the issue.
Earlier, companies used to expend effort to identify and groom those likely to rise within the organization, offering them opportunities to learn and expand beyond their original roles. With ROI and laser focus on profitability came the tendency to hire laterally for the role at hand, ignoring employees who might grow into a role given the right training and opportunity since companies no longer had the leeway to wait. Training budgets dropped as companies made employees reskill themselves with their own time and effort instead of making it a tool for employee retention. This had an impact on employee loyalty and the talented ones found a way out to other opportunities. Those who stayed knew they had little hope of moving upward, and decided either to do the minimum required to stay in the role they had while focusing their spare time and attention to reskilling for their next opportunity, or making time for hobbies, side-projects or family, not necessarily in that order.
The phenomenon of quiet quitting is more pronounced among Gen Z workers, who seem to focus on the here and now of their life, rather than seeing how they affect their growth prospects n the long-term. This does not bode well for companies who rely on these fresh, talented and hardworking minds to deliver solutions for the company in the future.
So how do companies deal with the quiet quitting trend? Engaging employees requires genuine effort, and mere platitudes will not work. Companies need to revisit if they are mapping employee growth plans and if employees are on track for these positions. Some of the ways companies could try to do this include:
- Understanding the motivations of each employee in terms of their career and out-of-office aspirations gives the management an understanding of what would work best for each employee. This should start right from the hiring interview.
- Motivating employees with a larger vision and objective of the company is useful to drive a sense of purpose, and reiterate the company’s short- and long-term goals periodically.
- Periodically engage with employees and their managers to understand if both understand what to expect from the other and how to deliver on it
- Build a plan to reward good work with not only salary but also non-monetary compensation such as opportunities to participate in events, training, industry exposure, etc. While there is a risk an employee will use these to seek better opportunities, a consistent track record will more than ensure employees understand the company’s commitment to their future.
Companies need to realize that the talent pool is no longer infinite, and they need to figure out strategic approaches to employee retention the same way they do for customer retention. Signing non-competes and offering additional money when employees resign is a short-sighted approach to solve the underlying issue, that of employee motivation. Building long-term relationships with employees now needs to be back on top of the priority list for employers and HR teams will have their work cut out figuring out the solutions that work best in their firm to tackle this problem in the long term.
The solution starts with the company, but the end result lies with employees. If companies invest the time and effort to understand employee motivations beyond the paycheck, it can go a long way towards stabilizing employer-employee relationships.