While 鈥the Great Resignation鈥 is still underway, with millions of Americans quitting their jobs each month, the next workplace trend has already emerged, and it鈥檚 called 鈥渜uiet quitting鈥. As opposed to those who leave their jobs in search of higher pay, better working conditions or more promising career options, 鈥渜uiet quitters鈥 don鈥檛 actually quit though. The latest trend is more about abandoning the idea of going above and beyond for your job, a perspective on work particularly popular among young Americans whose unwillingness to put work above everything else is often perceived as entitlement or plain laziness by their older compatriots.
And while 鈥渜uiet quitting鈥 appears to be all the rage, with articles on 鈥渢he latest workplace trend鈥 popping up left, right and center, a suggests that it may not be quite the mass phenomenon that it鈥檚 sometimes made out to be. According to the survey among 1,000 U.S. adults, 56 percent of respondents had never heard of the term 鈥渜uiet quitting鈥, and among those who had, there were different perceptions of what the term actually means. 37 percent of those who had heard about the trend thought that it describes doing the bare minimum of work, just enough not to get fired. Meanwhile 19 percent thought it was about declining additional work without compensation, with the most common definition lying somewhere between these two.
One in four respondents misunderstood quiet quitting for resigning without telling anyone, while 6 percent of respondents thought it means no longer being silent in work meetings. These findings clearly show that the term 鈥渜uiet quitting鈥 may be too ambiguous, and thus not ideal for transmitting what is at the heart of the movement, i.e. the unwillingness to sacrifice one鈥檚 private life for work when it is not appreciated or compensated for.
