Activity: Your Managers are the Key to Stopping Quiet Quitting
ICYMI, check out our earlier post about quiet quitting here, where we talk about some causes and symptoms of quiet quitting.
Here, we’re going to look at a short hands-on activity that you can do with your leadership, managers, and team leads that will open some eyes. As you’ll see, your managers are one of the most important elements in both causing and preventing quiet quitting at your workplace.
First: Why is quiet quitting becoming common now?
Before the activity, let’s take a second to remind ourselves why this is happening now. The reality is that quiet quitting in a reframing of plain old disengagement. But it’s happening more now because of changes in the workforce.
Gone are the days when workers looked for a company where they could stay 40 years and retire with a gold watch. Typical career moves happen within 1-2 years, and it’s a constant cycle.
The result of this faster pace is that people don’t necessarily tie their personal identity up with their work identity in the same way. People are working to live, not living to work (if you’ll forgive a bit of a tired phrase). The natural consequence of this is that they are less inclined to be heavily invested in their job and go above and beyond.
The second big cause of quiet quitting
Imagine you’re working for a company. It’s a fine job. They treat you well and the work is in your field. You have a job description and your regular duties, and you do those. In exchange, you get paid and all the perks, benefits, etc.
That’s a solid deal. But then, your manager adds another layer. You’re now expected to do more than just your job. They want you to train others, lead some initiatives, take on extra work… Oh, and they’re not giving you a raise! It’s just expected, and that’s how you’ll get ahead, they say. Or it’s just to be a good team player. Support the mission!
This is something bad managers do and in some cases it’s actually pretty toxic. It’s changing the terms of a deal after it’s been signed.
A lot of the time, this happens as a very slow creep in expectations until the dam breaks in the employee’s mind. They realize they’re being taken advantage of.
And they’re very unlikely to say anything: hence the term quiet quitting.
Here’s the Activity:
Preparation:
Pick a team with at least one manager, and have all of the non-managers write a list of all the tasks they do in a week. Keep these organized by role.
Also gather the job descriptions for each role in this activity.
You can scale this up to the whole company, or keep it one team at a time.
Activity:
Gather the manager(s) of all the people from whom you received a task list. Ask the managers to write out all the tasks they expect each role to perform in a typical week. This can be done effectively in person or online, so pick whatever works best for your team.
Next, for one role at a time, compare the manager’s list to the team’s list. Then, bring up the job description. A lot of the time, we’ll see big differences between the lists, and also many responsibilities that aren’t part of the job description.
If the lists are very different (and they often are!), it’s an opportunity. We’re not here to shame anyone; we’re just taking inventory of where the gaps are. You’ll usually get some great “wow” moments from your managers.
Repeat this for each role and manager.
Discussion
There are a 3 big outcomes you can expect from doing this with your team:
Make your managers aware of any responsibility creep that’s happening
Educate your managers of the relationship between creep and quiet quitting, and their role in it
Find roles, teams, or individuals that are at risk of quiet quitting
Have a talk with your managers about next steps. Are the gaps you found together cause for concern? Do you need to hire more people, or maybe redistribute some responsibilities? Maybe the tasks are fine where they are, but you should consider a compensation review because of significant creep over time?
Next Steps
You can also empower your managers to talk with their teams about this. How do their people feel about the results of this activity? What else can the managers do to help their people feel like they’re getting what they need?
And before you jump to doing salary reviews, it’s not always about the money! For many, skill and knowledge development is a highly desired return on their investment. It might be time for an engagement survey to ask your people what matters to them.
Moving to a people-first HR strategy is not a small feat. It’s an investment and it will take time. Even if you have an entire HR team, they’ve already got daily ops on their plates. Hello HR provides expert strategic consulting and insight. We’re like a superpower both for leadership and HR teams!
Drop us a line and we can get the ball rolling with a free discovery call.
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