Invisible Goodbyes: The Rise of Quiet Quitting in the Modern Workplace
Quiet Quitting is all the rage nowadays. Gen-Z helped the term go viral. But what does it really mean? What exactly is making people all over the world embrace this culture, for all we know we have been working hard and overworking for decades now.
The term is trending on TikTok. The Quiet Quitting phenomenon is a lot popular with Gen-Z, evident from the user distribution of TikTok. With Gen-Z users making up the bulk of the user base, the term is quite popular with them. But it’s not just the Gen-Z which is reeling under the work pressure and the constant availability at work.
But the million-dollar question is, what is Quiet Quitting? Quiet Quitting does not mean that you quit your job but the contrary. You continue your job but instead of going above and beyond and doing everything under the sun you only do what is required and get on with your life. The concentration is more on work-life balance and not just work and later balance.
With the improvements in internet infrastructure and high speeds, the workforce is going global now. Now a business does not have to rely on local talent for its needs. They can go global and bring new perspectives and horizons to your business. This ease in finding talent finding of talent has many far-reaching consequences. The difference in time zone means the window when the global talent can interact and collaborate together is very small. And this small window often does not respect when the workspace ends their working hour for the day. The never-ending zoom calls, scrum calls, or just any other call means you are stuck to the screen for a longer than anticipated time leading to an untimely burnout.
When you read this doesn’t seem like anything new. But throw in the Covid-19 lockdown and the isolation and being stuck in a small room, our limited time in life & people realized what truly matters. There’s more to life than just being stuck to the screen all the time. Life is precarious and surrounded by mortality and Covid just showed us that.
Remote work has shown us that there are many different ways of getting your work done and work need not be your life. Be it being in a different country and soaking in their culture while still working or spending quality time on your hobby or other interests instead of that time being wasted in commute.
Life does not revolve around the work that we do and the commute to the said workplace. There are more things in life than that. Work hours are typically 9-10 hours for any individual and add in the commute time to and fro office, 12 hours or half a day are gone already. If working from home and completing work hours in 10 hours that still leaves 14 hours in a day with energy intact to indulge in healthy habits.
As an employer, a lot of emphasis can be placed on the well-being of an employee. Limit the number of calls in a day. One day of the week, Friday can be designated as a no-call day.
Limit interactions over chats and resort to calls when absolutely important.
As an employee, be upfront about your expectations and your mental and physical health.
This can be one of many ways to handle quiet quitting. What are your thoughts on this?
-Apurba Kumar and Rijul Arora
