In the past year or so, people started writing about the phenomenon of quiet quitting. It isn’t new, but it somehow became trendy as more people are doing this. This isn’t something I care about as much. People often describe me as a workaholic which is pretty accurate, and I love it. But I totally get the problem that triggers quiet quitting and its root is in a lack of loyalty. A cursory reader might think I’m blaming the employee for lack of loyalty, I am. But loyalty is a two-way street and some employees are merely reflecting something that we’ve been conditioned to accept for the past few decades.
Back in the days when I formed my consulting company and later on Codename One, I read pretty much every business management book I could find. Back in 2014 I read a rare book in that genre where I cringed at every page. I don’t enjoy reading business management books. This isn’t a pleasant read. But here I literally cringed at so much of the sage advice from Mr. Horowitz. Notice I don’t say the advice is wrong or even that it’s bad. I don’t think he’s a bad person for giving it either. I think this advice produces its exact desired intention, fast growth at any cost.
The fuel for this fast growth is people. They get burned and cast aside like the fumes of a jet engine. The expectation is fast turnover, by the time the person is “burned out” we’ll replace them anyway with a fresh “expert” to fit the current stage of the company. This approach to building companies wildly over emphasizes transferable skills while under evaluating pretty much everything else.
Company Values
Another book I read well before that was “built to last”, it has its own faults and problems but that’s a different story. One of the core ideas explored in the book was the idea of corporate values that are listed as a set of principles. They claim that great companies had codified their core values early on. This supposedly shaped their corporate DNA and helped them become great.
Back when I read it I always felt this was a load of BS. I don’t subscribe to such frivolous management drivel, but I’ve started rethinking that recently. I was always in the camp of interviewing people as a conversation and a process. Hiring “good people” is more about finding the right “fit” for the specific team. But how do we know we all share compatible values?
Even if we don’t, how do we align so at least “on the job” we can act consistently?
This came back to me recently. I think such values are indeed a crucial piece in shaping the right team. I know which value would be the first on my list when I form my next company: Loyalty.
Corporate Loyalty not That Way
Jobs often expect loyalty from us. I try to give it as much as reasonably possible. It doesn’t mean I don’t have open to other options on LinkedIn. It doesn’t mean I don’t demand a raise and imply I’ll walk when I think I deserve one. Those don’t imply disloyalty in any way. I won’t go to work for a direct competitor. I also wouldn’t want to work for a company that would pouch me as a direct competitor. This is the point I’m getting at.
Loyalty is given. Not asked. A company needs to declare loyalty as its value, not one it demands from the employees. E.g. when an employee makes a mistake. Even a big one. That employee shouldn’t be fired instantly. Hell, instant firings shouldn’t be a thing. A single manager or even the CEO shouldn’t have the right. Someone having a bad day shouldn’t impact their future livelihood.
A corporation should stand behind an employee who made a mistake. More than once. People need to feel secure in their jobs. When a corporation just blindly fires and hires they end up with jaded employees who don’t care. This affects the product and the company in a way that no corporate nonsense can wash away. The customers end up with an inferior service or product. A disposable employee or one that’s just stepping through, won’t bother.
Therefore, loyalty to employees should outweigh the loyalty to the customers. The customer doesn’t always come first. We need to tone that down. We can’t service the customer if our house isn’t in order. By backing our employees, these employees will give the customer better service and a better product.
I worked at very large corporations, in most cases I had managers that represented these values and I enjoyed working with them. It’s an uncommon experience compared to the typical corporate nonsense. But the thing about corporations is the constant restructuring, you can’t develop trust and good working conditions, without building that culture from the top-down. It’s also hard to plug this culture into a company that’s already too big.
Quiet Quitting
I get why people “quiet quit”. Why show loyalty to a company that will fire you in an instant. Why go “above and beyond” when the company won’t do the same for you. I think most people just looked for a new job and would switch jobs. In normal times that’s the right thing to do. But in these times, starting a new job with economic uncertainty is a risk.
Quiet quitting becomes an easy way out. Treat the job like it treats you, instead of being unemployed and looking for a job. This seems like something you can just turn on or off. But unfortunately it’s a state of mind. Once you think this way, it would be hard to get back to a positive workspace attitude. If you don’t get that, then good places won’t want to hire you. Can you keep “quiet quitting” for the rest of your life?
I personally can’t. That’s obviously a privileged stance of an individual who can spend years “unemployed” with only a minor impact on my lifestyle. I understand that not everyone can afford that privilege, and I’m thankful for it. But if you find yourself in this situation, I urge you to remain out of your comfort zone and seek alternative employment ASAP.
If you’re a manager who has the sense that employees do that. I suggest throwing them a lifeline. While you can’t change corporate policy, you can use the one on ones (which hopefully you have) to communicate with the employee. Have an actual conversation and try to help. Don’t talk about work. Talk about helping that employee, financially, emotionally and be genuine. Don’t do it with the goal of getting an employee to perform. Don’t expect loyalty, give it. Repeatedly. It will come back to you. This will positively impact your future employment opportunities along the way.
Latest comments (56)
The relationship between employer and employee is just a buy-and-sell relationship: I give you, say, 40 hours/week of my time and competence and you pay me an agreed amount of money. That is. As long as every side does its part, none can expect more from the other.
The idea that since you pay me a wage, I devote to you my entire life (in other words, I am your slave) it is just plainly wrong.
It is like when you go buying grocery: do you really expect that the seller gives you more food for the same money out of "loyalty"? I do not. Sure, every now and then the seller can give me something for free to taste, especially if I am a good customer; but that will be its decision and I have no right to expect it.
Honestly, if UBI was a thing, I'd have a much more positive position towards this whole "loyalty" concept, because then it'd really be about mutual benefit: The employer provides something beyond basic job security, and the employee provides something beyond basic fulfilment of their duties, aka. both parties get more than stated in the contract.
Yep. And it's even more ridiculous, because the definition is too simple to properly cover up how it literally just means "doing your job and going home".
I find that some people naturally like to above and beyond because it's just inherently whom they are by nature.
Great article and nice read, Shai!
My biggest problem is when employers take you on for a certain salary, and then fail to deliver inflationary pay rises when you're doing the job they hired you for year in year out to a good standard. That figure is, in real terms, shrinking in value every year. They're effectively cutting your pay & hoping you'll not notice & that you'll put up with it. The past few years in the UK inflation was fairly low, but now that Brexit and the pandemic and the Ukraine war are all hitting at once, it feels like we're being mocked, especially when the boss is driving a brand new Aston Martin & you're just hoping your 14 year old Audi doesn't throw its balance shaft drive chain. Inflationary pay rises for good work should be the norm. The company definitely puts its fees up year on year, and they lose so many good experienced workers to other companies by this shortsighted approach. If it takes £3-4K to hire a new developer, why not give half to two thirds that money to the developer you already have, to keep their loyalty and engagement? Worker exploitation is a sure-fire way to get worker disengagement & knowledge rot.
This isn't even relevant, in my opinion.
I have a job. I'm hired to do certain things, and I'm expected certain hours. These are explained when I'm hired.
If they want me to do more, I should be paid accordingly.
It has nothing to do with how "loyal" the company is to me, or not. It has to do with me getting paid for what I'm doing. Nothing more, nothing less. You want me to work more? Then pay me more.
That's not loyalty. It's just how capitalism is supposed to work.
Well said, Shai. Well said.
I think you're projecting stuff that I very specifically didn't say. I never told anyone what they should do.
I did advise that companies should improve their attitude to facilitate better attitude from developers. Whether developers choose to do that or not. That's entirely up to them.
Although I can’t do it because I’m also a workaholic and wired to give 100 percent. Your discussion is the first accurate one I’ve seen of this “phenomenon.” Years ago, people were expected to graduate, work at the same company for decades, and then retire. You gave the company your loyalty and the company did the same. As you said, now companies will fire you at the drop of a hat. If the budget is tight, get rid of people. When we’re flush, hire more people. It’s built into HR/project management lingo. People aren’t people, they’re FTEs (full-time equivalents). You can work your butt off and the best you can expect is a 4 percent raise.
As you said, loyalty is a two-way street. If the company isn’t going out of their way to support you, be loyal to you, or reward you for doing more than expected, then why are the people in the trenches expected to go above and beyond and kill themselves for nothing.
I think a more accurate phrase than “Quiet Quitting” is “Working to live, not living to work.”
So, yeah, while I have a hard time working to the rule, I totally get those that do.
Anyone who has worked in IT for 10 years or more know that Quiet Quitting has always been a thing. They've just named it now so people recognize it more easily.
I remember, over 20 years ago, I was in QA & there was a developer who we all chatted about because at a certain time every day we would hear snoring come from his cubicle. That's a loud form of Quiet Quitting. 🤪
Quiet Quitting has occurred because there is no reciprocation on the company's (manager's) part. I've worked at large & small companies over 30 years in IT, those companies have been in civil engineering, real estate, legal data, ecommerce, banking and bio tech and every single one of them had terrible middle managers.
They cared about no one, didn't help employees.
Maybe we should've made up a term like Maniacal Management and it would've got some traction.
So, finally someone puts term to the thing that has always happened when employees finally react to the terrible management practices & people think its the employees' fault. Nope. If managers engaged employees quiet quitting wouldn't even be a thing except in rare cases.
In 2008, Seth Godin wrote the book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensible? I read it 2 times right away and then I've read it again each year. If you really want to know about the opposite of Quiet Qutting, read that book.
I've tried to get managers to read the book all those years, but none of them will.
Most employees think being a Linchpin means being over-committed to an employer, but it doesn't.
It means being the best you can be.
When will we start addressing the "Quiet Firing" that has been going on for centuries now? /s
No /s needed; "quiet firing" is actually a term being used to describe when an employer or manager creates an intentionally hostile and unfair environment for an employee to encourage them to quit. It's very much a real problem.
I meant it more in the sense of "you only get paid what your contract states"
Oh nice, yet another tantrum about workers doing their jobs.
That's cool and all, but if it's not in the contract, that's just the employers opinion. You get what you pay for.
There's more to loyalty than not being fired for the smallest thing. Just like employer loyalty goes beyond not quitting at the first inconvenience.
If the best you can offer is "I won't fire you", then don't expect anything more than "I won't quit" in return. What are you actually providing an employee beyond what's in their contract?
That's very true. Loyalty is also expressed in many little things but job security and working in the same job for decades... That's a pretty big thing.
I worked at a tech company where people had 10 or 20 year plaques on their desks. Currently, it's amazing if people last 3 years. A lot of that is by their choice because employees don't respect things like work-life balance.
Every definition I've seen of quiet quitting is "doing what you're paid for". I don't understand where the idea that this is bad comes from.
When I worked in a call centre I worked my hours. I got paid for each hour I worked. If I was asked to work more hours, and I agreed, I would be paid for those hours.
Is this localised to America? I'm UK based. I've worked in various sectors. I've never been expected to work extra hours and not be paid, or given time in lieu.
It's doing the minimum that's required. That's fine.
I don't advocate going overboard. I leave work at 3pm to be with my kids. But I'm passionate about my job and if I need to do something extra I try to be as available as possible.
I don't want to work in a 9 to 5 place where I have a fixed set of expectations. I want to feel that what I do matters. The thing is, my employer is loyal to me by letting me leave when I need to even though he stays there until 10pm.
I'm not sure what that means. You like being asked to do things that are not within your job description? You don't want to have a job description? Something else?
I think it irks me that it's been called "quitting" at all. People are "silently not allowing themselves to be driven to burn out" is probably more accurate.
Perhaps the people like us who work for companies that value their employees are the lucky ones.
My specific job is fluid. I'm a developer advocate so the job description is so vague. I love that my managers just trust me to do the "right thing" and always have. It's not about hours, it's about a relationship. It doesn't mean you need to give up work life balance.
I think the term is something that people who do it came up with. I agree, it doesn't represent the actual state of mind.
I very much appreciate the luck I've had in jobs over the years. But some of that luck is due to spirit. I rarely interview. Almost every job I ever held was through a person who knew me from a previous job and brought me in. So I think I made at least some of my luck.
I tell my anxious juniors all the time when they're talking about shifting their vacation because something went wrong at work or doing some extra hours because they really want to impress: "The only reward for saying yes to everything is burnout".
I 100% agree with that. A loyal company would force you to take vacation and won't bug you on vacation. Having a normal vacation isn't quite quitting.
I leave work every day around 3pm and my boss is 100% OK with that. I need to spend time with my kids. I make up for this later and they get me.
Exactly. Abusive employers call it "Quiet Quitting". But it really should be called "Doing your Job" 🤷.
That's a great insight. I don't like the term "quiet quitting" at all. It's all about doing your job as prescribed, and not more than you're supposed to.