While rage quitting, the act wherein a disgruntled employee airs their grievances for everyone to know as they walk out of their job, is flashy enough to get plenty of attention, there are two more insidious problems lurking within many businesses.
Quiet quitting and quiet cracking sound similar but can manifest in different ways.
Quiet quitting involves an employee disengaging from work and fulfilling their duties to the letter of the contract and offering no further effort or enthusiasm than that.
Meanwhile, quiet cracking is when an employee is staring longingly at the door but feels unable to leave their job due to a fear of unemployment.
We want to highlight these issues and consider ways that you can help prevent your team from succumbing to these troubling practices.
Why are quiet quitting and quiet cracking a problem?
The main problem posed by these approaches to work is suggested by the way they are named.
The fact that they are quiet means that the impact can go unnoticed for an extended period of time during which problems may arise.
Productivity may fall, deadlines might get missed, and the resulting drain on energy felt by the rest of the time could result in a quiet cracking epidemic as your team yearns for a more collaborative workforce.
Quiet quitting is more common in younger generations who may fail to see the reasoning behind outdated approaches to work.
Millennials have been found to “consistently work the least number of hours” compared to other generations and show “the strongest evidence of quiet quitting.”
Quiet quitting was first coined in 2022 following the pandemic, and reflects a change in attitude shaped by the collective global trauma.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) reported that a lack of flexibility in working conditions could contribute to the rise in quiet quitting as employees forced into the office against their will were more likely to quiet quit than those given more flexibility.
If your business is one of the many that are encouraging a return to office exodus, “almost three in five workers said they were more likely to ‘quiet-quit’ if their manager did not provide the flexibility to work from a location that best suited their needs.”
When one or more team members begin to quiet quit, it is likely that others who work closely with them will quiet crack as they struggle under the pressure of the work that would have previously been completed by the quiet quitter.
How can employers tackle quiet quitting and quiet cracking?
Keeping an eye on the overall well-being and productivity of your team is the best way to prevent quiet quitting and quiet cracking from happening.
Conducting regular appraisals can be an effective way of determining where problems may arise.
If your team feel as though there is no chance of growth in career or skills, then they are more likely to quiet quit as they no longer feel valued by you.
It may also be worth varying the tasks assigned to individuals so that they do not feel like they are stuck in a rut.
Understanding your people, what makes them tick, is the best way to boost morale and cohesion as a well-synergised team is more likely to want to help each other and avoid passing on burdens to colleagues they like and respect.
Ultimately, if employees cannot get quiet quitting and quiet cracking under control, we may see a rise in rage quitting.
As much as rage quitting might be a fun spectacle when watched on social media, it would be less enjoyable if it happened in your own workplace.
HR teams should work closely with employees to catch problems early and implement effective plans to keep morale and enthusiasm high.
