Quiet quitting: the new work norm?

The health crisis has profoundly disrupted the labor market.

In a post-pandemic context, the quiet quitting trend has emerged.

What is it about?

This phenomenon has been creating a buzz since mid-July in the USA via the platform TikTok.

And it is more particularly the short video of young Hunter Kaimi, 22 years old and with 800,000 followers, who set the powder alight. The influencer explained in essence that he no longer wants to sacrifice his time and energy to a job with dehumanizing management and a paltry salary.

Today, the hashtag #QuietQuitting would accumulate more than 30 million views on the famous network.

Called quit quitting or "silent resignation", It is not a question here of resigning from one's job but of slowing down. With the primary objective of preserving oneself.

Enough to make the bosses tremble...

His ideology 

• Your worth as a person is not defined by your job
• Do the hours specified in your contract, or the tasks expected on your job description. In short, just what you are paid for.
• Give more importance to the things you do outside of work
• Don't worry about not moving up the ladder (stop going above and beyond what is expected in the hope of a promotion, raise, recognition)
• Close your computer at 5 p.m. (the average end of work time in Quebec, to be adapted according to standard hours wherever you live in the world)
• Refuse to answer your emails after 5 p.m.
• Think about something other than work after 5 p.m.

This trend is a response to the "hustle culture" (culture of agitation) with the main drift being burnout and toxic productivity.

It resonates strongly with Generation Z and millennials, who are fighting to rewrite the rules of the game at work.

No more total dedication to your job, to your boss at the expense of your private life.

This is about giving you the right to disconnect

This is about setting more limits and no longer performing tasks outside of which you are paid.

The Gallup pollster says that 50% of full-time or part-time female employees over the age of 18 in the United States are "silent quitters" (quiet quitters)

Dissatisfaction with his job

A certain weariness may have taken hold of you, and you no longer want to work as much.

Few people, especially employees with office positions, are able to return to a full-time, 5-day-a-week, face-to-face rhythm after these two difficult years.

A finding has emerged between the gap between the perception of the effort made and what you get out of it.

Not to mention the wage inequalities which do not motivate people to excel.

In addition, the turnaround in the reassuring speeches of leaders on the flexibility to be brought to jobs in the post-lockdown period. Today, however, the speech has indeed changed... You can't change your nature. Some companies are opting more for " It's the end of recess, back to the office" but in the meantime, employees remember.

For years we have been told that teleworking is impossible.
And yet many people have continued to work from home throughout the pandemic. And more efficiently than they could even work in person.

In short, employees no longer want to be taken for fools, and rightly so.

A response to successive anxiety crises

For the past 2 ½ years, we have collectively experienced: a pandemic, alarming manifestations of climate change, record rates of mental suffering, war on our doorstep, galloping inflation.

So, everything you have just experienced has led to a reconsideration of your relationship with work.

Well-being is now put forward, your physical and mental health are privileged.

You now want more flexibility, favored hybrid work and thus find a real balance between private and professional life.

This difficult period has made you realize that work is not the most important thing in your life.

Now you want to choose yourself and your projects, yourself and your family life.

In short, you take care of yourself.

Look at the exodus of city dwellers going to live in the countryside to reinvent themselves, or even raise chickens since the first lockdown in France.

Or others favoring 100% telework jobs to be able to travel continuously while continuing to work. Discovering a new field of possibilities as a digital nomad.

So it is not necessarily always a question of looking elsewhere but of reviewing one's way of approaching work.

Work less to live better: this could be the motto of this new standard in the world of work.