literature review on quiet quitting

The Impact of “Quiet Quitting” on Overall Organizational Behavior and Culture

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• First Online: 01 February 2024
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• Ioseb Gabelaia   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6323-6913 12 &
• Ramune Bagociunaite 13  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 913))

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Abandoning the idea of going above and beyond at work is what briefly defines the “quiet quitting” concept, that draws the attention of organizational researchers and practitioners. There are two camps of views on “quiet quitting” - one claiming that it is a trend, the other – that it is a problematic phenomenon for today's business organizations. The goal of a study is to explore and better understand a phenomenon such as “quiet quitting,” as the issue has not been extensively studied before. It aims to gain insights and provide a comprehensive analysis to contribute to refining theoretical and practical contexts that explain “quiet quitting.” With a systematic review, this research aims to explore the “quiet quitting” concept and its impact on organizational behaviour and culture, identifying “quiet quitting” causes and solutions. The authors had an opportunity to interview 27 employees who admit that they have quietly quit their jobs over the past nine years, asking 12 exclusively designed questions to obtain evidence. The results of the research showed that there is a significant relationship between “quiet quitting” and organizational behaviour and culture. The main causes of “quiet quitting” have been identified, i.e., overall burnout, lack of growth opportunities, leadership, and lack of recognition, also solutions, such as transparent communication, professional development, employee feedback (surveys), well-being initiatives (work-life balance), and leadership development.

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Gabelaia, I., Bagociunaite, R. (2024). The Impact of “Quiet Quitting” on Overall Organizational Behavior and Culture. In: Kabashkin, I., Yatskiv, I., Prentkovskis, O. (eds) Reliability and Statistics in Transportation and Communication. RelStat 2023. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 913. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53598-7_33

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Article Contents

What is quiet quitting.

• Is Quiet Quitting Happening in Social Work?
• What Are the Ethical Issues in Quiet Quitting in Social Work?

Quiet Quitting

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Anna Scheyett, Quiet Quitting, Social Work , Volume 68, Issue 1, January 2023, Pages 5–7, https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swac051

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Over the past few months, I have heard more and more in the media about quiet quitting. Headlines in the news include questions such as “What Is ‘Quiet Quitting’? and Why It’s Trending on Social Media” ( Bretous, 2022), “Is Quiet Quitting Real?” ( Harter, 2022), and “What Is ‘Quiet Quitting’ and How It May Be a Misnomer for Setting Boundaries at Work” ( Kilpatrick, 2022).

While definitions vary, they all agree that in quiet quitting , one does not literally quit one’s job, but rather simply does the work that is expected of the position, without going above and beyond what is expected ( Pearce, 2022). This phenomenon, first noted on TikTok, has become widespread. A recent Gallup poll found that quiet quitters made up over one half of U.S. employees in the second quarter of 2022 ( Harter, 2022).

Why Are We Hearing about It Now?

During the pandemic, some employees saw how their work might be reimagined remotely or flexibly, while at the same time experiencing virtual burnout and blurring of work–home boundaries. Other employees, including many social workers, were labeled “essential workers,” and had huge and often dangerous in-person work demands placed on them. Postpandemic demands to return to work, coupled with work culture that provided little reward or opportunity for growth, resulted in disillusionment and disengagement for many workers. This led to the Great Resignation, where many who could afford to leave their jobs did so. For those who could not, or chose not to leave their jobs, quiet quitting was an alternative ( Espada, 2022).

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Quiet quitting among healthcare professionals in hospital environments: a concept analysis and scoping review protocol

Jaejin kang.

1 Department of Health System, College of Nursing, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Hyekyung Kim

2 Department of Nursing, Catholic Kwandong University, Gangneung, Republic of Korea

3 Department of Nursing, Kongju National University, Gongju, Republic of Korea

Associated Data

Introduction.

The post-COVID-19 pandemic era has seen a rise in ‘quiet quitting’, with employees limiting their efforts to fulfil assigned tasks without going beyond their designated responsibilities. The occurrence of quiet quitting in hospitals can have detrimental effects not only on organisational culture but also on patient safety and satisfaction. Therefore, the aim of this study is to define quiet quitting among healthcare professionals in hospitals through concept analysis, identify the associated factors and outcomes of quiet quitting, and conduct a scoping review based on this defined concept.

Methods and analysis

This study will adopt Walker and Avant method for concept analysis and Aromataris and Munn methodological framework as well as the Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewer’s manual for scoping reviews. The concept analysis will follow eight steps: (1) choosing the concept; (2) outlining the objectives of the analysis; (3) recognising the concept’s uses; (4) selecting the concept’s defining attributes; (5) constructing a model case; (6) constructing additional cases; (7) defining the consequences and antecedents of the concept; and (8) determining empirical referents. This study used databases of PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, Scopus, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global for the English language, and NDSL, KCI, RISS, KISS and DBpia for the Korean language. Additionally, grey literature will be searched.

Ethics and dissemination

This concept analysis and scoping review does not require ethical approval. The results of this study will be reported in peer-reviewed publications.

STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY

• We rigorously adhere to Walker and Avant’s method in conducting a concept analysis to precisely define the concept of ‘quiet quitting’.
• Our scoping review is conducted in accordance with the guidelines of the Joanna Briggs Institute and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews, ensuring the provision of trustworthy evidence.
• We conducted a systematic literature search from 2009, when the term ‘quiet quitting’ was first introduced, through 2023, encompassing all electronic databases and grey literature sources, to identify all available evidence.
• This review will include documents written only in English and Korean, leading to the potential omission of relevant materials written in other languages.
• The study focuses on healthcare professionals in the hospital setting, which may limit the generalisability of findings to other healthcare contexts.

Occupational perceptions evolve over time, and are influenced by changing social dynamics. 1 Recently, a phenomenon known as ‘quiet quitting’ has been observed to be on the rise. This behaviour entails employees limiting their dedication solely to assigned tasks, strictly adhering to the job description without engaging in any additional work. 2 It differs from the previously prevalent trend ‘hustle culture’, which emphasises work over personal life. In 2020, over 50% of American workers engaged in quiet quitting, with the trend being more prominent among the Millennial and Generation Z cohorts. This phenomenon indicates a psychological detachment from job-related responsibilities. 3

The concept of ‘quiet quitting was introduced by Mark Boldger in 2009. 4 However, it gained widespread recognition and renewed attention when quiet quitting went viral on social media in summer 2022. 5 The COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant changes in working conditions, particularly with a surge in remote work. 6 Following the pandemic, individuals started reassessing the costs and intensity associated with traditional jobs, leading to a notable increase in voluntary resignations, referred to as the ‘Great Resignation’. 7 Consequently, the remaining employees bear heavier workloads without adequate compensation. Additionally, a low-growth environment, economic recession and inflation have made job transitions more challenging. Hence, quiet quitting has become a method employed by remaining employees to maintain a work–life balance. 8

However, even if it is argued that such choices are made in pursuit of individuals’ work–life balance, the phenomenon of quiet quitting within organisations has been reported to result in compromised work efficiency, diminished organisational commitment and adverse impacts on organisational culture. 9 There is also a perspective that views these occurrences as manifestations of individual deviance and work disengagement. Moreover, deliberately slowing down the completion of tasks that could be expedited, while still adhering to all work-related standards and diminishing one’s effort in their own job, can be likened to the concept of an ‘work to rule’ or ‘Italian strike’. 10 However, the context, intent and characteristics of the phenomenon of quiet quitting differ from those of work to rule or the Italian strike, requiring a multifaceted approach to understand the phenomenon fully.

Moreover, a similar phenomenon is observed in China, referred to as ‘tang-ping.’ Tang-ping, which literally translates to ‘lying flat’, reflects the idea of individuals lying down comfortably. 11 After the COVID-19 pandemic, many young people in China feel that they are not adequately rewarded for their work and experience frustration due to rising costs of living, housing prices and long working hours. As a result, they choose to lower their professional commitment and economic ambitions, simplify their goals, while still being financially productive for their essential needs, and prioritise psychological well-being over materialistic pursuits. 12 Similarly, in other countries, similar phenomena can occur due to societal changes following the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, comparing these phenomena can clarify quiet quitting. 11

The phenomenon of quiet quitting has emerged following the COVID-19 pandemic, and even if COVID-19 is not the direct cause, it has certainly contributed to the emergence of this phenomenon. 13 Professions that has undergone the most significant changes due to COVID-19 is the healthcare professionals in hospitals. 14 They face a more vulnerable working environment, including higher risk of infection, personnel and equipment shortages, increased workload, exclusion from the benefits of remote work and inadequate financial compensation. 9 Therefore, it is worth noting whether the phenomenon of quiet quitting, which has been reported as a social phenomenon following the COVID-19 pandemic, is perceived differently in the context of the hospital, which has experienced the most significant changes due to COVID-19.

Despite the unique circumstances in the hospital, quiet quitting has also been reported among healthcare professionals. 15 However, the consequences of quiet quitting in hospitals may extend beyond the employees and the workplace. In hospitals, patients rely on healthcare professionals to possess the skills specified in their job descriptions. In addition to technical skills, patients also value emotional care, kindness and a genuine concern for their well-being from healthcare professionals. These aspects contribute to overall patient satisfaction and a positive patient experience. 16 These aspects are not easily quantifiable or explicitly outlined in job descriptions. As a result, the quiet quitting of healthcare professionals can potentially create issues in these qualitative aspects and significantly impact patient satisfaction.

Furthermore, hospitals consist of various professions such as doctors and nurses, who interact, communicate, exchange opinions and collaborate with each other as a multidisciplinary in-hospital team. 17 If quiet quitting occurs within one profession, it may have a cascading negative impact on collaboration among different professions. 15 Teamwork among healthcare professionals, job satisfaction, perception of stress and the working environment are closely linked to the patient safety culture. 18

In the hospital environment, advancements in medical technology continually introduce new tasks, and the job descriptions within the hospital setting tend to be more vague and basic rather than highly detailed. 19 For instance, the characteristics of such a hospital can cause role ambiguity among nurses. 20 Therefore, due to these characteristics of the hospital setting, there is a potential for even more serious consequences when quiet quitting occurs.

Additionally, quiet quitting in the hospital can be considered a violation of work ethic. 21 In hospitals, where the connection to patients' lives is profound, ethics are treated with utmost importance. 22 As a result, quiet quitting among healthcare professionals may occur more discreetly, making it challenging to identify and address the issue effectively. 23 Moreover, due to its distinct characteristics compared with quiet quitting in other professions, it is necessary to thoroughly investigate and define the phenomenon and its outcomes specific to quiet quitting within this unique context of the hospital.

The concept of quiet quitting implies the need for systemic changes in working conditions, rather than individual acts of deviance. 9 Moreover, since quiet quitting is related to healthcare professionals’ work–life balance, comprehending it can potentially provide assistance in addressing psychological problems 24 such as depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, burnout and suicide among healthcare workers, which can ultimately have a profound impact on a hospital’s performance and patient safety. Considering the potential negative impacts of quiet quitting, understanding this phenomenon is essential for identifying the elements necessary to promote a desirable work culture. 25 Quiet quitting serves as an important concept in comprehending the rapidly evolving organisational culture, and developing strategies to address these issues.

In the hospital, there is also an opinion that quiet quitting has existed among healthcare professionals for a long time, and it is merely a new term for a pre-existing concept. 15 If quiet quitting is defined as when workers of an organisation, faced with undesirable working conditions, opt to stay and perform their tasks without enthusiasm rather than seeking new employment opportunities, it can be quite reasonable. Hospitals have chronic understaffing issues and often require tasks like supply management and mandatory training beyond regular working hours, relying on healthcare professionals for extra work. 23 Therefore, it is essential to establish a clear definition of quiet quitting specifically in the context of healthcare professionals. Subsequently, conducting a scoping review to explore existing research and gain insights becomes essential to provide a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon.

If quiet quitting is clearly defined through concept analysis, it is anticipated that we can ascertain how long it has been prevalent and in what forms, what aspects of hospital culture are associated with quiet quitting, and what outcomes result from it. Additionally, by investigating previously used similar concepts, we can compare and gain valuable insights into the issue of quiet quitting in hospitals. Furthermore, understanding this phenomenon can contribute to fostering a more supportive and sustainable work environment.

Therefore, it is crucial to employ a research method called concept analysis, 26 which involves exploring the attributes of a phenomenon represented by a particular term, clarifying the concept, and providing a precise definition. In this study, we aim to define the concept of quiet quitting specifically within the hospital, which has experienced significant changes and challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By conducting a concept analysis will help us examine and clarify any similar existing concepts, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of the essence of quiet quitting within the hospital context. Furthermore, conducting a scoping review, we will examine the existing literature on this topic to gain a comprehensive understanding and propose future research directions. A scoping review is a research method that maps the characteristics and breadth of evidence on a specific topic, guiding the direction of further research. 27

Therefore, the aim of this study is to define the phenomenon of quiet quitting among healthcare professionals in hospitals through a concept analysis. Additionally, through a scoping review of the defined concept, we intend to examine how this phenomenon is described and researched in existing literature. Furthermore, we aim to investigate and summarise the factors associated with quiet quitting, its consequences and research efforts aimed at mitigating and understanding this phenomenon. This examination will contribute to improved clarity and comprehension of this phenomenon, providing a wealth of information for understanding various issues within hospitals.

Concept analysis and scoping review

This study will combine concept analysis and a scoping review to analyse the concept of quiet quitting in a clear manner. Concept analysis involves investigating the current state of knowledge about a concept and constructing precise meanings that are useful in research applications. 28 A scoping review examines the extent and nature of available evidence for key concepts across various research areas. 29 Quiet quitting has emerged as a concept that reflects the recent social atmosphere. To understand the meaning of this concept in the context of healthcare professionals, it is essential to analyse its definition and characteristics through literature applied in hospitals. Walker and Avant 26 recommend conducting a broad and multidisciplinary literature review to gain a comprehensive understanding of concept. The concept analysis will be conducted in eight steps: (1) choosing the concept; (2) outlining the objectives of the analysis; (3) recognising the concept’s uses; (4) selecting the concept’s defining attributes; (5) constructing a model case; (6) constructing additional cases; (7) defining the consequences and antecedents of the concept; and (8) determining empirical referents.

After defining quiet quitting, we will conduct a scoping review following the methodology outlined by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI), as described by Aromataris and Munn. 30 The protocol process of this study will be reported following the (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. 31 This quiet quitting concept analysis and scoping review has been registered in the Open Science Framework; https://osf.io/kv3p8 .

Step 1: choosing the concept

In the reviewed literature, the concept of quiet quitting has been expressed using different terms. Instead of “quiet,” the term “silent” has been used, and “quitting” has been replaced with “resignation,” among others. Additionally, similar concepts like “tang-ping” have also been used. This phenomenon of using similar words during the translation process might arise independently in different countries, or the concept itself could be similar. In our research, we have chosen to analyse the expression “quiet quitting” coined by Mark Boldger in 2009 as the concept to investigate.

Step 2: outlining the objectives of the analysis

In this study, our primary objectives are to provide a clear definition of quiet quitting within healthcare professions in a hospital setting and to offer guidance for future research on this phenomenon. Quiet quitting is currently used without a clear definition and is often interchangeable with various terms. Some consider it a new label for an existing phenomenon. Therefore, establishing a precise definition will assist research efforts in addressing and resolving this phenomenon and will contribute to shaping the future work environment in hospital healthcare professions.

Step 3: recognising the concept’s uses

The third step involves examining how the concept of quiet quitting has been used in the existing literature within the healthcare field. We will start by introducing the concept as initially proposed by Mark Boldger, acknowledging it as a newly coined concept. Subsequently, we will explore how this phenomenon manifests and how the concept is employed within the healthcare field.

Step 4: selecting the concept’s defining attributes

The fourth step in the concept analysis process involves identifying the characteristics or attributes that are frequently mentioned in relevant literature regarding the concept being analysed. 26 In this study, the attributes are defined to ensure that each attribute independently captures the essential qualities of quiet quitting.

Step 5: constructing a model case

The fifth step, the model case, illustrates the concept clearly through examples to aid in understanding. It also states that all attributes of the previously mentioned concepts are included in the model case.

Step 6: constructing additional cases

The sixth step involves developing additional cases, including borderline, related and contrary cases, to explore concepts closely related to quiet quitting but that may not fully encompass the defining attributes. The borderline case includes most of the attributes of the concept but not all of them, while a contrast case consists of cases that do not possess any of the defined attributes. Additionally, the related case is similar to a model case but lacks some of the important attributes.

Step 7: defining the consequences and antecedents of the concept

In the seventh step, once clarity is achieved regarding the defining attributes, the antecedents and consequences of the concept will be identified. Antecedents are events or circumstances that must occur or be present before the concept of quiet quitting occurs, whereas consequences are events or circumstances that occur as a result of the concept. This step of the analysis helps establish a theoretical understanding of how concepts are interconnected and sheds light on their resolution.

Step 8: determining empirical referents

Step 8 involves identifying empirical referents, which are indicators of everyday life that represent familiarity with a concept. These studies support the development of measurement tools and indicators for attributes.

Scoping review process

Step 1: identify the purpose.

The research question guides the review, and the review must be broad and comprehensive. 30 In the scoping review protocol, we defined the following research question, adapting the population, concept and context framework: How is the phenomenon of quiet quitting manifesting among healthcare professionals in the hospitals? What are some strategies to reduce quiet quitting?

This study will consider studies involving all types of healthcare professionals engaged in a hospital. The healthcare professionals include not only nurses and doctors, but also physicians, surgeons, medicine, pharmacists and practitioners.

This study will review research on quiet quitting among healthcare professionals. The term “quiet quitting” as used here is based on the definition established in the previously conducted concept analysis.

We will exclusively focus on healthcare settings within hospitals. Healthcare environments can vary widely, ranging from hospitals to local communities, but due to their distinct characteristics, we have chosen to narrow down the scope of this concept analysis to hospitals in order to provide a clearer definition of the concept’s applicability.

Step 2: search strategy

The search strategy is based on published data and includes qualitative research, quantitative research, mixed methods and a literature review. For this review, eight databases will be searched for relevant literature, including PubMed, Google Scholar, Excerpta Medica database (EMBASE), EBSCOhost Research Platform (selecting CINAHL Complete and Medline Complete databases), Scopus, Research Information Sharing Service, DataBase Periodical Information Academic and Korean studies Information Service System. Grey literature will also be included because of its status as a relatively new concept. Grey literature can provide valuable insights into topics currently under review. Both published and unpublished grey literature sources, including major reports, such as white papers, frameworks and dissertations, will be considered for inclusion in this scoping review. Grey literature will be searched using the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) and Google databases. To include grey literature, we will also manually search the reference lists of the selected articles. The literature includes both English and Korean texts.

The search terms should strike a balance between specificity and breadth to capture the relevant literature for a thorough understanding while managing the volume of literature for the review. 30 The search parameters will include the term “quiet quitting” in the abstract or title and restrict the results to publications from 1 January 2009, onwards, as the concept only emerged after 2009. Since the review will commence in July 2023, it is possible that new literature will be published, and any relevant publications will be included in the scoping review. Once the protocol has been published, formal data collection for the scoping review will begin and will encompass more recent publications ( table 1 ).

Scoping review search strategy

Databases filter

When running the search terms in the selected databases, the asterisk symbol will be used as an indicator for truncating the ends of word roots. The relevant literature identified will be imported into the Covidence software program to ensure the removal of duplicate records.

Step 3: selection process

The literature screening will involve two distinct reviews. The scoping review will be managed using the Covidence software, and each citation will be independently assessed for eligibility by two members of the research team. The eligibility process will consist of two stages: an initial screening of eligible titles and abstracts, followed by a thorough review of the full-text articles for eligible citations. Given the anticipated extensive body of literature, the eligibility criteria will be refined during the screening of titles and abstracts. In addition, to identify further relevant literature, the reference lists of the identified articles will be examined. This screening process aligns with the strategy proposed by Aromataris and Munn. 30 The research team will hold regular meetings, typically every 1–2 weeks, to discuss the project, refine the eligibility criteria, and address any conflicts that arise regarding the eligibility of the articles. Disagreements will be resolved during these team meetings, with majority consensus determining eligibility. The project leader will make the final decision if a consensus cannot be reached.

Title and abstract screening

Before commencing the literature screening process, the project leader will provide education to the research team members to ensure consistency in evaluating the literature. During the initial team meeting, each member will receive detailed instructions on how to effectively use Covidence software. Furthermore, there will be a thorough discussion of the inclusion and exclusion criteria to address any questions that may arise. The team members will then conduct a preliminary review of the literature based on the established criteria, followed by an assessment of the inter-rater reliability (IRR) between each pair of team members. The target IRR achievement between each pair is set at >0.75, following the guidelines of Aromataris and Munn. 30

Full-text screening for eligibility

Before initiating the full-text screening, the research team will upload the full-text articles into the Covidence software and hold a meeting to discuss the screening process. Once preparation is completed, each team member will independently review the articles and an IRR calculation will be conducted. The target IRR achievement for each pair of team members is set at>0.75. If the expected IRR is not met, the research team will convene for additional instructions and discussions to address any discrepancies. During the full-text screening, the team will also conduct a reference list scan. Team members will share relevant citations with project leaders. After completing the full-text screening, the project leader will present the articles identified from the reference lists to the research team for consideration. The final decision regarding eligibility will be made through a majority agreement. The project leader will intervene to resolve any unresolved disagreements. The process of selecting and managing literature for the scoping review will be presented in a PRISMA flow diagram.

Step 4: charting the data

The research team has developed a draft charting table for data extraction ( table 2 ). Selected articles will be subjected to independent data extraction by two researchers. Any disagreements regarding the extracted data will be discussed during a full team meeting. If a consensus cannot be reached, the project leader will carefully consider all opinions and make the final decision.

Article information

Step 5: data analysis

The analysis of the collected data using the data extraction framework will showcase how quiet quitting manifests and provide insights into research findings regarding potential solutions. For instance, we will categorise the phenomenon of quiet quitting by different professions to demonstrate how it manifests in similar patterns and to explore which solutions may be more effective or worth implementing. The results will be presented in an appropriate format, such as tables and charts, to aggregate and visually represent the information ( table 3 ).

Quiet quitting manifests by professions and potential solution

Patient and public involvement

This scoping review does not require ethical approval. The results of this scoping review will be reported in peer-reviewed publications. The process of selecting and managing literature for the scoping review will be presented as a flow chart. The findings of this study will be disseminated through conference presentations and submissions to peer-reviewed scholarly journals.

Our concept analysis and scoping review exhibit several significant strengths. First, we will systematically search multiple databases to comprehensively identify relevant studies related to quiet quitting within the hospital context. Second, our review will encompass the entire spectrum of available literature, beginning with the concept’s inception in 2009 and extending up to the present year, 2023. Third, our search strategy will include both electronic databases and grey literature sources to ensure inclusivity. Lastly, our concept analysis will rigorously adhere to Walker and Avant’s method, while our scoping review will strictly follow the guidelines outlined by the JBI and the PRISMA-ScR. Consequently, the findings of this study are poised to provide a robust foundation for scholarly discourse.

We anticipate several limitations in our study. First, our inclusion criteria are limited to English and Korean literature, potentially excluding documents published in other languages. Additionally, we will not conduct quality assessments or assess the risk of bias for the selected literature, as these aspects are typically not applied in scoping reviews. Finally, our study is limited by its focus on healthcare professionals within the hospital setting, which does not encompass the entirety of the healthcare environment. We recognise this limitation and suggest that future research should consider a broader scope to include various healthcare contexts.

Supplementary Material

Contributors: JK: conceptualisation, methodology, investigation, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing, supervision, project administration. HK: conceptualisation, methodology, data collection, writing – original draft. O-HC: conceptualisation, methodology, data analysis, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing.

Funding: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests: None declared.

Patient and public involvement: Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.

Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Ethics statements

Patient consent for publication.

Not applicable.

To read this content please select one of the options below:

Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, the human capital management perspective on quiet quitting: recommendations for employees, managers, and national policymakers.

Journal of Knowledge Management

ISSN : 1367-3270

Article publication date: 7 April 2023

Issue publication date: 5 January 2024

The purpose of this Real Impact Viewpoint Article is to analyze the quiet quitting phenomenon from the human capital management perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

The methods comprise the analysis of 672 TikTok comments, the use of secondary data and literature review.

Quiet quitting is a mindset in which employees deliberately limit work activities to their job description, meet yet not exceed the preestablished expectations, never volunteer for additional tasks and do all this to merely maintain their current employment status while prioritizing their well-being over organizational goals. Employees quiet quit due to poor extrinsic motivation, burnout and grudges against their managers or organizations. Quiet quitting is a double-edged sword: while it helps workers avoid burnout, engaging in this behavior may jeopardize their professional careers. Though the term is new, the ideas behind quiet quitting are not and go back decades.

Practical implications

Employees engaged in quiet quitting should become more efficient, avoid burnout, prepare for termination or resignation and manage future career difficulties. In response to quiet quitting, human capital managers should invest in knowledge sharing, capture the knowledge of potential quiet quitters, think twice before terminating them, conduct a knowledge audit, focus on high performers, introduce burnout management programs, promote interactional justice between managers and subordinates and fairly compensate for “going above and beyond.” Policymakers should prevent national human capital depletion, promote work-life balance as a national core value, fund employee mental health support and invest in employee efficiency innovation.

Originality/value

This Real Impact Viewpoint Article analyzes quiet quitting from the human capital management perspective.

• Human capital
• Social exchange theory
• Knowledge loss
• Quiet quitting
• The Great Renegotiation
• The Great Resignation

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to two anonymous JKM reviewers and the Associate Editor for their developmental feedback on the previous version of this Real Impact Viewpoint Article.

Serenko, A. (2024), "The human capital management perspective on quiet quitting: recommendations for employees, managers, and national policymakers", Journal of Knowledge Management , Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 27-43. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-10-2022-0792

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The economics behind 'quiet quitting' — and what we should call it instead

Greg Rosalsky

Alina Selyukh

Over the last several weeks, the concept of " quiet quitting " has exploded like a supernova across the media universe.

The big bang began on TikTok, with a video uploaded by a 20-something engineer named Zaid Khan. With the sound of a piano playing a ragtime-style tune and summertime shots of New York City flashing across the screen, Khan narrates a 17-second video that has introduced millions of people to the idea.

"I recently learned about this term called quiet quitting, where you're not outright quitting your job, but you're quitting the idea of going above and beyond," Khan says. "You're still performing your duties, but you're no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life. The reality is it's not — and your worth as a person is not defined by your labor."

Quiet quitting, in other words, is not really about quitting. It's more like a philosophy for doing the bare minimum at your job.

In Japan, there's a concept called shokunin , which refers to an artisan who is deeply dedicated to their craft, always striving for perfection in what they make. Quiet quitting is like the opposite of that. It's about divorcing your ego from what you do for a living and not striving for perfection. Setting boundaries and simply completing the tasks you're supposed to complete within the time that you're paid to do them — with no extra frills. No more kowtowing to your boss or customers. No more working nights and weekends, incessantly checking your email.

Workaholism is out. Coasting is in. Call it the work-life balance manifesto.

Tapping Into The Post-Pandemic Zeitgeist

Most observers seem to agree that the recent enthusiasm for quiet quitting says something about our post-pandemic zeitgeist. With a super-tight labor market giving workers multiple job options, and an ongoing battle being fought over the preservation and expansion of remote work, many workers seem to be reevaluating where and how they do their jobs.

Maybe quiet quitting is just an extension of "The Great Resignation" (or, as we rebranded it, " The Great Renegotiation "). Maybe a large chunk of our labor force was always phoning it in, but now they have a loud social-media presence and better branding. Maybe it's people feeling like suckers for going the extra mile pre-pandemic just to get laid off en masse . Or maybe quiet quitting is a BS pseudo-trend. To be honest, we don't know. But there is at least some data to suggest there's something real going in the psyche of the workforce.

"With layoffs and firings at a record low... people have unprecedented job security," says Julia Pollak, chief economist at the job-search website ZipRecruiter. "And so the risk of termination is lower. And that's also why the incentive to work harder is reduced. The consequences of being found to shirk have become much smaller. One, because companies can't afford to fire people. And two, because there are so many alternatives out there if you do lose your job."

Meanwhile, government data shows an historic drop in productivity over the last two quarters. There could be many reasons for this: the supply chain fiasco, a record rate of job switching, business hiring decisions during a weird time for the economy, scars from the pandemic, growing pains from the mass adoption of remote work, you name it. But some argue that something like quiet quitting might have something to do with it. It would certainly play into a sentiment expressed by some of America's biggest corporations : their employees just aren't being productive enough.

[Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money 's newsletter. You can sign up here .]

Gallup recently did a survey about quiet quitting, counting workers who report being neither engaged nor "actively disengaged" at work. They found that these quiet quitters make up at least half of the U.S. workforce. Overall, Gallup's data doesn't really show a sizable shift in how workers feel about their jobs over the last few years, suggesting that quiet quitting could be a normal feature of the American workplace. One area where the data did show a somewhat significant change, however, was among younger workers. "The percentage of engaged employees under the age of 35 dropped by six percentage points from 2019 to 2022," Gallup finds, suggesting that while feeling meh about work may be par for the course for a lot of Americans, it may be gathering momentum among Gen Zers and millennials.

"It's clear that quiet quitting is a symptom of poor management," Gallup writes. The organization recommends that company managers do a better job communicating with their underlings. "Gallup finds the best requirement and habit to develop for successful managers is having one meaningful conversation per week with each team member — 15-30 minutes."

The Loud Reaction To Quiet Quitting

Since the concept of quiet quitting began ricocheting around the internet, there have been countless takes on it. Supporters argue that quiet quitting is a way to safeguard your mental health, prioritize your family, friends and passions, and avoid burnout. But many movers and shakers are against it.

"Quiet quitting isn't just about quitting on a job, it's a step toward quitting on life," complains Arianna Huffington , arguing quiet quitters would be better served finding jobs they are passionate about.

"People who shut down their laptop at 5... they don't work for me," says business thinkfluencer Kevin O'Leary in a CNBC video . "I hope they work for my competitors."

Others worry that quiet quitting is too passive aggressive, can't accomplish what workers really want, and puts an extra burden on coworkers. Kami Rieck, writing in The Washington Post , suggests "the people who tend to experience the highest levels of burnout — women and people of color — probably can't afford to 'quiet quit.'" Instead of silently refusing to put in extra effort, Rieck writes, "it would probably be more helpful to raise these concerns with your boss and brainstorm other solutions."

Hamilton Nolan, writing in The Guardian , stresses that workers in generations past also felt a "collective sense of malaise," but they channeled their frustrations into something more productive than coasting at their jobs: creating unions. "All of these working people did not quit. Nor were they quiet. They knew what was wrong, and they fixed it. Loudly."

Even U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh recently chimed in on quiet quitting: "If you are an employer, you should catch on early enough that your employees aren't satisfied, aren't happy, and then there needs to be a dialogue, a conversation."

The Economics Of Quiet Quitting

One of the more simple models in neoclassical economics says that, in a competitive market, workers are paid their "marginal product." That means the more productive they are — the more extra widgets they make per hour — the more they get paid. In this cartoon world, there would be strong incentives against quiet quitting. You work harder, you get paid more: You coast, and you get paid less. And, we should say, for some workplaces, that may actually be a good approximation of how the world works. You're more likely to get raises and promotions when your boss believes you're working hard.

But, of course, the world is much more messy than workers simply getting paid for how efficiently they work. A more sophisticated cartoon of the workplace is known as "the principal-agent model." In this model, the principal (the boss) enlists an agent (the worker) to do a specific job for them. The problem: the principal doesn't have complete information on exactly what their agent is doing. Is their agent being productive on the job? Or are they slacking? In order to make sure the agent is doing their bidding, the principal must figure out ways to incentivize and monitor them. The model has implications for the dramatic changes in office life — or lack-of-office life — we've seen in recent years. With the mass adoption of remote work, many managers seem to be struggling with how to effectively monitor and motivate their employees.

But companies are trying. A recent investigation by the New York Times finds "eight of the 10 largest private U.S. employers track the productivity metrics of individual workers, many in real time." And they document a surge in companies investing in "digital productivity monitoring" to oversee their white-collar employees. "Many employees, whether working remotely or in person, are subject to trackers, scores, 'idle' buttons, or just quiet, constantly accumulating records. Pauses can lead to penalties, from lost pay to lost jobs." It's all a bit icky.

Workers Tell NPR What They Think

Of course, the mantra of quiet quitting, at least according to TikTok, is not really about failing to do your job. It's about "quitting the idea of going above and beyond." But the concept has drawn much criticism — for being a misnomer, for example. Or for overshadowing the " quiet firing " trend, where companies passively aggressively make their employees' work lives unhappy, and " quiet fleecing ," which refers to workers' pay lagging behind their increased productivity for decades.

NPR reached out to listeners and readers to get their perspective on quiet quitting. Some dislike the name. It's pretty confusing. So they offered some rebranding alternatives:

Reverse hustle

Work-life integration

Acting your wage

Workforce disassociation

Corporate coasting

Working at work

DYJ: Doing Your Job

Working to rule

Working to thrive

Morale-adjusted productivity

Our audience members also shared their real-life experiences with setting boundaries at work. Below are some of their comments (with two people asking to shorten their last names for fear of repercussions at work).

Sara M., department manager : "Since COVID, I feel like my priorities, values, who and what are important to me have shifted drastically. I now leave my office at the end of the day not thinking about what I need to work on when I go home at night. I set boundaries for checking my emails and reaching out to co-workers during non-office hours. Most importantly, I do not feel any bit of anxiety when it comes to requesting time off, taking personal days or especially taking sick time. Before it was something I would agonize over. Now it's something I can do without hesitation or worry."

Lane Sheldon, attorney : "Many of my friends work in Big Law and while they're paid very well, the expectations placed on Associates are extremely demanding and often unfair/emotionally abusive. They can't or won't draw similar boundaries, often for fear of retaliation, but they all recognize the toll it takes on their mental AND physical health. Many have left their positions as a result."

Christy G., administrative assistant : "I do not interact with anything from work before 7:00 or after 4:30, which is the time my office is open. I work in a corporate setting so my tasks are not life or death. If someone asks for something, like maybe a file scanned or something like that, at the end of the day — it can wait until the next day. My colleagues do not feel the same way. They answer their phones and answer emails outside of work and on vacations. Sometimes I'll come in on Monday morning and will see 5+ emails from co-workers sent at 7 pm on Saturday."

James Holverstott, laborer : "I have zero ability to do anything but do as I am required by my boss. The idea that 'quiet quitting' fits any jobs besides ones laden with keyboard strokes, spreadsheets, and meetings is patently foolish. It feels like more of a realization by people who have been more than happy to work 24/7/365 to chase the almighty dollar that their lives are being wasted in the pursuit of more stuff, and now they are presenting some laughable notion of 'I just realized I work too much, but luckily I can afford to do less because no one will notice anyway!' as somehow a paradigm shift in worker's rights. I am disgusted that this has even become something people believe could be effective for the bulk of the workforce."

Nick Ivanov, university research assistant : "No boundaries. I will do whatever necessary to make it possible to get a green card in the future. I cannot return to where I am originally from. I have to work 10 times more to be entitled to one tenth of what U.S. citizens take for granted."

Adrian Brothers, school bus driver : "The company I work for wants me to voluntarily put an app on my personal phone. I don't put it on there. ... If they want to communicate with me about work, they can either give me a phone call, a text-message, heck, even send me a letter in the mail. But I will not give the company access to my phone. If they want me to sign on to an app so they can message me every day, they can shell out the money for the phone to come with it."

Misty Moore, nurse : "I have the boundary of accepting as many assignments as I can handle and yet still provide excellent results. I do take on extra work but that is 100% my choice. No one should be looked down upon for not doing extra work."

• quiet quitting

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• CAREER FEATURE
• 03 March 2023

Fed up and burnt out: ‘quiet quitting’ hits academia

• Nikki Forrester 0

Nikki Forrester is a science journalist based in West Virginia.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

When Isabel Müller became an assistant professor in 2021, she started working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Although nobody expected her to work this much, she says, she couldn’t find a way to fit all her research, teaching and mentoring efforts into fewer hours. But as the first term progressed, Müller realized her pace was unsustainable. She needed to set boundaries if she wanted to continue working in academia: “It took another term, but now I try to stick to some rules.”

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Nature 615 , 751-753 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00633-w

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Quiet Quitting: Our Favorite Reads

• Paige Cohen

Are you quietly quitting or just acting your wage?

Have you heard? Quiet quitting is totally trending right now. At least in the U.S., it seems to be the hottest topic on career TikTok, Twitter, and in  business  media outlets.

• PC Paige Cohen (they/them) is a senior editor at Ascend.

Partner Center

Quiet quitting and performance management

Delivering performance feedback can already feel fraught. Now add in inflation, burnout, and a hot talent market that has workers quitting in droves. In this episode of McKinsey Talks Talent , talent experts Bryan Hancock and Bill Schaninger talk with McKinsey Global Publishing’s Lucia Rahilly about the talent trends that have managers on edge—and how to handle them.

McKinsey Talks Talent is hosted by Lucia Rahilly.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Quiet quitting, loud and clear

Lucia Rahilly: Today we’re talking about a few of the talent trends that have surfaced in the media headlines in recent months. Let’s start with “quiet quitting.” There has certainly been a lot of regular, “same-old” quitting going on, as we have covered heavily in our Great Attrition research. Bill, do you want to give us the quick and dirty on the persistence of “regular quitting” in today’s job market?

Bill Schaninger: Yes, people continue to quit. And in McKinsey’s most recent data , the number of people saying they would leave without a job in hand is still very high. The lower attrition numbers previously seen in sectors like healthcare or education are starting to creep up. Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a massive hit to hospitality and leisure. This trend could probably be traced to what was and wasn’t available to us during the pandemic.

We’re also seeing an interesting phenomenon where people are being hired and not showing up. Not showing up mentally or emotionally is aligned with the idea of quiet quitting—the idea that people are doing the bare minimum. Even in an environment where all these people are choosing to quit, there remains an undercurrent of people who have emotionally—and in some cases, cognitively—disengaged but are still physically there, which arguably may be worse.

Lucia Rahilly: For folks of a certain Gen X sensibility, the phrase quiet quitting might feel “slacker-ish.” But in the media, some are calling it a healthy expression of the need to rebuild boundaries that collapsed during the pandemic. What’s your take, Bryan?

Bryan Hancock: Setting boundaries, in a healthy work environment, means being engaged and having the time and space to invest in work projects that energize you. The difference between setting boundaries, which can be quite healthy, and quiet quitting is that quiet quitting makes it seem like you don’t care if you get fired. You’re just going to sit in the seat for as long as it takes for somebody to figure out that you’re not adding value, and then for as long as it takes for HR to process you out.

There’s part of the quiet-quitting trend that leans on quitting. You aren’t looking for boundaries; you’re not engaged in work; it’s transactional. You’re thinking, “My boss doesn’t check in on me. HR takes six months to do a write-up. I bet I can stay in this gig for two years and not do much.” And employees are confident enough in the job market that when they do get fired, it’s not a black mark, or they can voluntarily leave ahead of time.

There is a small subset of people who are now trying to game the system because of a strong labor market. And that, to me, is a very different phenomenon than people who are engaged but respect boundaries.

How managers can help

Lucia Rahilly: So how can managers help their employees set healthy boundaries—especially during this talent shortage, when some employees may be tired of having to overcompensate for staff who have left?

Bryan Hancock: We are seeing close to 40 percent of the overall working population self-report being burned out . That’s definitely a big percentage of employees saying, “This is a bit much, and I need to do something different to make it work.”

What managers can do is start with a conversation—literally start with, “How are you doing?” and “What is it that excites you? How does what we’re doing link to your own sense of purpose , of what we’re trying to do together?” Really try to engage the team.

The role of the manager is key  to helping workers align with purpose and with the practical day-to-day: “Looks like you have a bit too much going on. How can I help?” And then following up with ways to actually make a difference.

If managers aren’t there to help inspire, if managers aren’t there to help lead, if managers aren’t there to help follow up, it’s a logical extension that an employee might think, “Is anybody going to notice if I don’t do this for a week? Or two weeks? Or, wow, it was three months until somebody had the conversation with me.” At some level that’s quiet quitting, but at another level it’s just a failure of management.

Bill Schaninger: The nature of the work relationship, which is a relationship like any other, is that there’s a give and there’s a get. But the minute an employee perceives that the boss no longer cares about them as a person, or doesn’t care about what they’re working on, they begin to think, “Why should I care?”

If you’re going to trigger apathy, trigger indifference, trigger an attitude like, “I dare you to catch me,” it’s likely your employees have been massively underled. Because if they weren’t being underled, you’d have caught them much earlier. The price you pay for authority is that you have real responsibilities to other people.

Bryan Hancock: If you really try to dig into why people are quiet quitting, some of it is that they don’t feel a connection to their job, to what they’re doing, to the broader mission. And there’s a sense of loss because everybody at some point in their career takes a job because they aspire to be bigger. They dream of something more inspiring, more captivating. And when they get to a point where that dream is gone, they check out. And then the question becomes how to reignite that spark—that sense of mission and that alignment. If quiet quitting is actually a broad phenomenon, then a lot of people have a real sense of loss for a pretty big part of their work life.

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Lucia Rahilly: Gallup published some data showing that employee engagement is falling specifically among younger workers, Gen Zs and millennials under 35. Have we learned anything from our life-stage research about these younger demographics? What they might want in terms of purpose from their jobs? And what might be lacking?

Bryan Hancock: One of the things we’ve seen is that younger generations are much more likely to be in what we would call the “idealist” segment—the segment truly looking for their calling. They’re leaning into that. They’re willing to take less compensation, to work longer hours, for a job they believe in and are growing in.

So there’s a set of folks asking, “Hey, what is my calling? Where is it? How can I grow?” And they’re disproportionately in the under 24-year-old segment.

Bill Schaninger: The research on individual purpose  we did 18 months ago revealed this difference between the idealist and the pragmatist. It’s pretty telling. When we asked younger workers, “Does your work have to have purpose?” the answer was a resounding “Yes”—an off-the-charts “Yes, it has to make a difference.”

But their ability to describe the difference they want to make was really limited. It was broad strokes: “I need to make the world better.” “I want to improve access to healthcare.” “I want to improve the quality of schools.” But when you asked, “Well, what would that look like if you were there?” They’d say, “Well, that’s your job. It’s your job to help me figure that out.” And then the minute they had a major life event, like a long-term relationship or having a child, they’d reel back on the grandiosity of the purpose, and get way more specific.

Building ties that bind

Lucia Rahilly: Are your clients talking about quiet quitting?

Bill Schaninger: From clients, I haven’t heard much about quiet quitting specifically, but I’ve not had a time in my professional career at McKinsey, which is a little over 22 years, where we haven’t thought about “social loafing.” In other words, people figure out, particularly if they were on a recently high-performing team, that they can skate. And then the same people always get leaned on. That’s been a phenomenon forever. There’s a good amount of research on what happens to team morale when social loafing goes unchecked.

We’ve had a perfect storm: the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home, bosses not checking in as much, feeling disengaged. The more you’re away from your peers, the easier it becomes not to do your part.

Lucia Rahilly: What about engagement? Are you seeing clients do anything interesting to try to increase engagement, particularly in a hybrid context ?

Bill Schaninger: We’re thirsty for interaction with others. We’re not meant to be isolated. Organizations should think of getting together in person as a dimmer switch, not an on/off switch. For some reason, we’ve seen a lot of “fully in” or “fully out.” But prepandemic it wasn’t that way. I think it’s really come at the cost of social capital, ties that bind, a feeling of belonging. And I think now we might have to overinvest in bringing people back, not just to work but rather to remind ourselves that we like the people we work with.

We’re thirsty for interaction with others. We’re not meant to be isolated. Organizations should think of getting together in person as a dimmer switch, not an on/off switch. Bill Schaninger

Bryan Hancock: It’s a society-wide problem, too. Look at the amount of research on loneliness. For example, the number of men who have a guy who could pick them up after a colonoscopy—it’s incredibly low. Loneliness is in some ways so pervasive. It’s pervasive on college campuses, among people just joining the workforce, among people who are more tenured.

A lot of folks created their community through work. And we’re seeing a disruption of that, across age cohorts and seniority levels. There’s a desire to connect, to engage—but also to do so in a way that feels authentic. People are trying different ways of making it work, but I think we’re pretty far from having a good solution.

Lucia Rahilly: Let’s talk more specifically about the social-capital research, which dovetails with this notion of quiet quitting. What has happened to social capital over the course of the pandemic?

Bryan Hancock: What’s interesting in the social-capital research  is that, across all demographic types, people say they have fewer connections now than prepandemic. But the biggest decrease in social capital tended to happen among women and people in diverse groups. We need to really think about why—when we have entire departments focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion—we’re seeing these social-capital results that are quite stunning.

Lucia Rahilly: We’ve spoken enough, on this podcast  and elsewhere, for me to know that neither of you thinks returning to the office full-time is the answer to reaccumulating social capital. So what else can clients do? Have you seen clients take any interesting approaches to facilitate rebuilding social capital in the hybrid context?

Bryan Hancock: One thing I saw a global investment organization do was to recognize that knowledge sharing across different silos is important. Leadership noticed the workers didn’t share knowledge by uploading it to a central digitized system. Instead, they had verbal conversations to work issues out.

To improve connections between discrete teams, they created a training program to enable colleagues to talk to one another, build deeper connectivity, and do something fun together under the auspice of getting work done. They recognized that if the training were built as a social event only, people wouldn’t come.

Bill Schaninger: We need to reinvigorate the idea, “Other people can help me do my job” versus “I alone do my job.” Everything has to come with a dose of community building.

When performance feedback feels fraught

Lucia Rahilly: Do you expect the rise of quitting, and the lowering of barriers to job switching or taking time off, to affect year-end reviews? How should managers be thinking about year-end evaluation and feedback, when shortages are growing and the threat of churn is looming?

Bryan Hancock: It makes it harder for managers to give tough feedback, which is ultimately what helps individuals grow and organizations advance to a better place. And we know from McKinsey’s research on feedback  that if you don’t deliver tough feedback, if you just let people skate by—that has a demotivating effect for strong performers and team players.

A healthy conversation looks like, “You’re doing great on these two things, and you need to improve on these four things.” Unfortunately, people haven’t been trained to have that healthy conversation. And they’re scared to have a conversation that may be more direct and affect compensation. So they soft-pedal it and end up not having a conversation that needs to be had.

Bill Schaninger: You won’t have the difficult conversation because the thought of losing another employee is devastating. Several years ago, we started tracking leaders who said they were eliminating year-end reviews. They’ve all come back with some form of administrative evaluation because they’ve realized they can’t differentiate quality of work from year to year.

We haven’t cracked the nut on how to stop focusing on the year-end review “season,” on the “event,” and focusing throughout the year on having good performance coaching conversations. In that case, for the vast majority of people, the year-end review would be almost a nonevent—a summation of what you’ve talked about throughout the year.

I do worry that, as we become more fractured and more fragmented, we’re still in the world of the season, where the leader has only been trained on filling out the form, versus actually talking about meaningful performance coaching.

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Lucia Rahilly: Is it possible that giving feedback via technology, and not in a face-to-face way, could enable more frequent, more direct feedback? It might not be as terrifying as sitting across from someone face-to-face and saying, “You really fell short on this one.”

Bryan Hancock: For a small subset of technical skills and tasks, where what you’re getting feedback on is how many lines of code had bugs in it—that can be automated and can be given more frequently. It’s level setting and gives you a sense of where to go. But social-emotional feedback can’t be given in an automated way. That has to be a direct conversation. And those conversations are the hard ones. Those are the ones where you have to recognize where the person is coming from; you have to be centered so you don’t put blame on the other person. Those conversations are more complex.

Some people are born gifted in having those conversations, and some aren’t. But every manager needs to be able to have conversations that help put on the table some of the social and emotional issues going on in the workplace and be able to coach somebody through them.

Every manager needs to be able to have conversations that help put on the table some of the social and emotional issues going on in the workplace and be able to coach somebody through them. Bryan Hancock

Bill Schaninger: I participated in a demo of an AR/VR [augmented reality/virtual reality] experience for having difficult conversations about ten days ago. It was fascinating.

Lucia Rahilly: That is so interesting.

Bill Schaninger: It wasn’t just an avatar. There was a person controlling the avatar, and they were speaking; there was a blending of the person’s lips for the mouth movement of the avatar. Within about 30 seconds you were responding to the avatar as if it were real. The person who’s speaking gives some scenarios to which you respond.

So it’s clearly practice, and it doesn’t feel as charged. You probably get closer to the clean read on what someone’s instincts would be, as opposed to saying, “Oh, I need to be protective here, or on guard.” I found it remarkable in its efficacy.

Early on I thought, “Well, this is hokey.” But about 45 seconds into it I thought, “Oh, this is legit.”

Bryan Hancock: That’s super fascinating.

Bill Schaninger: Many people are scared of receiving any feedback other than “You’re so special, and it went swimmingly well.” So you also have to practice receiving feedback that gives you an opportunity to grow.

Comp and the inflation factor

Lucia Rahilly: We spoke on The McKinsey Podcast about year-end reviews  and the importance of them being conducted fairly and transparently. Anything substantive to add since that episode aired?

Bryan Hancock: Some jobs require interdependencies—how you’re working across teams and connecting with the sales group, the innovation group, the finance group. For those roles, it’s hard to figure out how to measure what “good” looks like. So there’s a potential trap where you risk rewarding the people you see the most, talk to the most, over the ones who are independent.

And we know the people coming back most to the office tend to be male, tend to be less diverse. If you’re inadvertently rewarding the people who are showing up, you’re also inadvertently not recognizing some more diverse folks who, for a variety of reasons, are more remote than in-person.

So for those interdependent roles, you should give very specific, actionable feedback. Wipe away some of the general impressions like, “Hey, this person looks like a team player.” Instead, focus on more measurable data like specific behaviors. You have to be really disciplined as you’re going through the review process.

Having remote workers means you’ve got to work a whole lot harder to get the specific points of reference to make the feedback useful. So it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody who doesn’t have enough employees and is having a hard time just getting the core work done—if that person is emotionally drained and may just mail it in.

The other thing that I’ve been thinking about is how many companies tie compensation to review season. And, right now, a lot of compensation has been changing. You’ve got overall wage inflation. You’ve got a decline in wage premiums for markets like New York and San Francisco—places where you’ve typically needed to pay more because the cost of living is more. And you’re seeing increasing nationalization of wages because you can work remotely for many knowledge-worker jobs.

A lot of compensation is in flux. And if you put that in the context of a performance review, which some are attempting to do, it could have a potentially devastating effect on morale.

What I’ve been encouraging my clients to do is think about feedback and compensation as two separate pieces. Think about the feedback you want to give. And think about what it takes to really recognize people at the very top and the very bottom. Then, separately, think about what pay means in the context of wage inflation and the nationalization of wages.

Because if you try to mix them together, then you can end up with somebody feeling like, “Hey, that feedback was unfair, and this comp is really unfair.” And we know that if somebody perceives comp to be unfair, it is a significant demotivator that sticks with people for much longer than if they just thought the feedback was unfair.

Bill Schaninger: Welcome to the impetus for quiet quitting.

Lucia Rahilly: Bill, anything to add there? How do you expect inflation to affect thinking about year-end comp?

Bill Schaninger: People sometimes want to avoid talking about how inflation affects comp. Sometimes this specter of, “Well, we had to keep comp quiet” guides behavior. I would go the exact opposite right now. I would want to be loud and proud in saying, “Let’s talk about comp. Let’s talk about how we’re acknowledging inflationary pressures, talk about understanding the market as a commitment to you, the employee.”

I’m not detecting a ton of that transparency. When the collective is involved, I think we should be super transparent. And for an individual performance kicker, we should break up the appraisal into parts and be clear about how comp does and doesn’t connect: “This was market-driven. This is about the company. This is about you.” Really tease it out so people can see where they have a lever and where they don’t. Very few are being transparent about “the why” behind compensation. They aren’t breaking compensation into these component pieces: market adjustment, company performance, and individual performance.

Also, it used to be that performance chats were an annual exercise at best. But the market dynamism that we’ve seen in the past two years suggests that it’s a good idea to give formal feedback more regularly—quarterly, maybe even monthly for some roles that are really in demand—and to break it down into the components I mentioned.

Lucia Rahilly: Great discussion. Thanks so much.

Bill Schaninger: It’s always great to be here. I’m so happy we’re in person.

Bryan Hancock: Great to be here.

Lucia Rahilly is global editorial director and deputy publisher of McKinsey Global Publishing and is based in the New York office.

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