"Quiet Quitting" and "Quiet Firing". Apparently new business buzzwords.

[Ingomike]

For a good manager/organization, no. For a lot of managers and organizations, they would say yes.

Here's another question in a similar vein, if you do your current job to the best of your ability and do it well, always taking on new challenges when asked and doing very well, always getting the highest rating on your annual review, are you ripe for advancement? When I worked for Anthem, I was told you have to be doing the job of the position you are hoping to be promoted to, in order to be promoted to that position...

You and I have had some fun go arounds on WFH. I can see how experienced employees can WFH easily. To me the big thing that is lost is teaching company culture and new employees the ropes.

 

[wtburnette]

You and I have had some fun go arounds on WFH. I can see how experienced employees can WFH easily. To me the big thing that is lost is teaching company culture and new employees the ropes.

I can absolutely agree with this. In fact, we have one young lady on our team having issues related to this. She was only on the team for a short while when the COVID lockdown hit. Not being very experienced, she's had some struggles. Plus, not every employee is suited to remote work, regardless of their experience. Some just can't handle it and should look for jobs that are office based. For me, WFH is a Godsend and also for my employer in certain cases, but that isn't true for every organization and employee.

 

[Ark]

More artifacts of artificially low unemployment and worker shortage, soon to be remedied by recession. Nobody was "quiet quitting" in 2009.

These people are part of the market fat that recession cycles trim.

 

[rosejm]

Are you a slacker if you show up everyday on time and do exactly the job you were hired to do and then leave on time?

As mentioned earlier: No, that's acceptable performance. Not exceptional, above average or promotable, but you're living up to your end of the agreement. However, performing below those expectations (but not quite badly enough to justify outright firing for cause) is not acceptable.

These "Quiet Quitters" aren't simply doing their job as expected and nothing more. They're doing just enough not to get fired.

 

[wtburnette]

These "Quiet Quitters" aren't simply doing their job as expected and nothing more. They're doing just enough not to get fired.

Yep and at some companies that's not much at all. Thanks to DEI and horrid HR departments it can be hard to get people fired any more.

 

[Ingomike]

As things change it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out…

 

[Route 45]

So they think that because the terms were recently coined that this hasn't been going on since the concept of employment was invented?

I know for a fact that it's been going on since at least 1999.

 

[JettaKnight]

I haven't researched these terms beyond the couple of Foxnews articles I've read in the past couple weeks or so, so please correct me on any inaccuracies.

"Quiet Quitting" I think refers to employees who are slowing their production to the very minimum to avoid being fired without actually quitting. They are doing this because management is reducing staffing while increasing workloads without any additional compensation, benefits, or recognition.

"Quiet Firing" as I understand it is managers deliberately increasing workloads, eliminating benefits or opportunities for advancement in order to drive away specific employees. The impetus for this may be profit or personal reasons.

Do any of you see this happening? Is this really a thing?

How is either of this a new new thing?


Employees only working within work hours? Yeah, that's certainly not a new thing. The expression, "Never sweat on company time, never s**t on your own." is quite old.

And making an employer's life hell to get to quit? certainly not new.

 

[Ingomike]

I know for a fact that it's been going on since at least 1999.

Love that scene…

 

[Ingomike]

“Never sweat on company time, never s**t on your own."

What a quandary if one has a bad s**t that makes one sweat during work hours? LOL

 

[HoughMade]

I know for a fact that it's been going on since at least 1999.

One of my favorite movies!

 

[oze]

One of my favorite movies!

Lived it and loved it! Except for the soundtrack.

 

[thompal]

"Quiet Quitting" I think refers to employees who are slowing their production to the very minimum to avoid being fired without actually quitting.

These are the very same people who complain when they don't get promoted, or when their hours get cut.

 

[wtburnette]

A lot of companies bring this behavior on themselves. It's well known that if you're not leaving organizations for new opportunities every couple of years, you're leaving money on the table salary wise. If a company doesn't have a good upgrade path for their employees, if they're not transparent in what's needed to advance, if they don't give decent salary increases when moving to a new position or for a promotion, they could get a lot of resentment built up and this kind of thing occurring. You have to be very careful that your corporate culture doesn't turn toxic.

 

[Shadow01]

My former employer had daily performance quotas. If you met those marks you were outside the PIP target range. PIP= performance improvement program. If I only made the required performance each day and no more is that quite quitting? Remember there was no incentives to be just above the mark or way out in front of the mark other than the culture of the impressive must be screwing the company and the lazy are screwing the company. Our motto was that we strive to be mediocre.

 

[wtburnette]

My former employer had daily performance quotas. If you met those marks you were outside the PIP target range. PIP= performance improvement program. If I only made the required performance each day and no more is that quite quitting? Remember there was no incentives to be just above the mark or way out in front of the mark other than the culture of the impressive must be screwing the company and the lazy are screwing the company. Our motto was that we strive to be mediocre.

A perfect example of a company doing this to themselves. If there is no incentive to do more or better work, why would anyone strive to do so? Yes, you'll always get those who do it for personal satisfaction, but even that rings hollow after a while. If you want employees to work harder/longer/better, give them a reason to do so.

 

[Shadow01]

A perfect example of a company doing this to themselves. If there is no incentive to do more or better work, why would anyone strive to do so? Yes, you'll always get those who do it for personal satisfaction, but even that rings hollow after a while. If you want employees to work harder/longer/better, give them a reason to do so.

I believe the entire process was created as a way for the company to trim payroll without union interference. Later in the game they implemented a bottom 20% policy. Even if you met the quotas and fell in the bottom 20% for 3 months you were gifted a PIP. Less than 1% survived the PIP. I was one of the lucky 1%. I Found creative above board time coding options and reduced my daily output by nearly 30% and at the end of my 6 month PIP I was ranked 2 out of 120 employees on performance. Never would I have believed that working less was the way to go if I hadn’t seen the numbers myself. At some point the job became more about finding a solution to the numbers game more than working the actual job. Many in management felt that meeting the numbers equalled task completion and customer satisfaction all inclusively. The PIP taught me that the numbers could be effectively met with little to no connection to actual job completion and customer satisfaction.

 

[wtburnette]

I believe the entire process was created as a way for the company to trim payroll without union interference. Later in the game they implemented a bottom 20% policy. Even if you met the quotas and fell in the bottom 20% for 3 months you were gifted a PIP. Less than 1% survived the PIP. I was one of the lucky 1%. I Found creative above board time coding options and reduced my daily output by nearly 30% and at the end of my 6 month PIP I was ranked 2 out of 120 employees on performance. Never would I have believed that working less was the way to go if I hadn’t seen the numbers myself. At some point the job became more about finding a solution to the numbers game more than working the actual job. Many in management felt that meeting the numbers equalled task completion and customer satisfaction all inclusively. The PIP taught me that the numbers could be effectively met with little to no connection to actual job completion and customer satisfaction.

Wow. Of course, the exacerbating factor you mention there is union.

 

[russc2542]

I've heard the terms recently as well and they were explained slightly differently: Quiet quitters are those that do the job to the written expectation IE get the job done and work 40 hours when contracted to work a 40hr/wk job. The connotation is by not working 50, 60+ hours on a 40hr salary job and going out of their way to work themselves to exhaustion for the company, they're bad people. IMO it's a corporate term to degrade folks that only work to the job descriptions. I've no problem with doing 40hrs work for 40hrs pay but if someone does more than that, they ought to be compensated accordingly. I've seen how salaried folk age where I work, I'll stay hourly there.

Quiet firing I think is the same as your explanation: company basically doing everything they can to induce the person to quit; cutting pay and increasing workload in worsening conditions.

 

[JettaKnight]

One of my favorite movies!

In my industry (software engineering) this is a training film that is required annually.