Executives worry about stopping quietly.
As news of the trend flooded the internet, hiring companies, consultants, law firms and even artificial intelligence startups jumped in to offer advice on how to prevent and combat it. There is demand in every way: leaders at large and well-known companies in finance, technology and healthcare are very concerned, said Ben Granger, chief psychologist in the workplace at research firm Qualtrics.
“It’s quite rare that many leaders in large organizations would bring this to us in such a short time as what has been talked about in the media,” he said. “I don’t see that much.”
But executives don’t know what to do about it. Human resource professionals say leaders worry about whether they can rely on their employees when there’s a recession — or whether they can afford to fire and replace silent quitters in a tight job market, Granger said. Leaders fear they won’t see it spreading right under their noses.
“Many of the leaders and clients I work with, some for the first time in 30 years, are in a state of fear as an employer.” said Erica Dhawan, workplace consultant and author of a book on remote and hybrid work. “They feel like they have to keep people who aren’t performing.”
Especially frightening for leaders, Granger says, is the “invisible” nature of the trend. In a remote or hybrid environment, the classic signs that an employee has checked out, such as lateness and absenteeism, are harder to spot. While their initial reaction is often blamed on quietly quitting laziness, Granger said many are coming to realize it’s actually a management issue. There’s even an artificial intelligence startup that claims to provide a solution, analyzing emails and Slack messages to detect engagement, burnout, and employee turnover.
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However, according to Caroline Walsh, vice president of human resources practice at consulting firm Gartner, chief human resource officers are less afraid of all the talk about quiet quitting than others in the C-suite. Because they’ve focused on and talked about burnout for years, the phenomenon comes as less of a surprise.
Maybe they underestimate the problem. According to a Society for Human Resource Management poll of more than 1,200 people, more than half of HR professionals across industries surveyed in late August were concerned about the quiet shutdown. Still, only about a third think it’s happening in their own organization, a perception that conflicts with Gallup’s recent estimate that 50% of the U.S. workforce could be considered silent quitters.
While it’s hard to say how much quieter quitting has been since the trend went viral, Granger said the fact that more people are talking about it is significant in itself because it’s more likely to catch on and spread.
“Now you have a big problem,” he said. “If you get into a situation where organizations are starting to see this tip, and now that massive amounts of silent shutdowns are happening, it will almost certainly lead to huge downstream effects on the business.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)