Quiet Quitting: How to Deal With Employees Who Do the Bare Minimum

Quiet Quitting: How to Deal With Employees Who Do the Bare Minimum There seems to be a surge of articles of late on "quiet quitting". Not that this is a new experience, but something that has been around for as long as I can remember. It went by different names. For example, one that I used to hear a lot was "retired in place". The characteristics of the behavior are the same; do the least amount of work to keep from being terminated. Of course, this is not a good thing for a company. They think they have spent a significant amount of money to recruit and train their staff and only get a small percentage of the expected output. Recently, the term "ghosting" has been applied to this behavior. Ghosting is the millennial generation saying, "I've lost interest and am moving on without telling you." And that is what happens in these situations. The person stops showing up and communicating, and it's as if they have ceased to exist. There are some reasons why people do this. It could be that they've been passed over for a promotion or raise and feel unappreciated. Maybe they've been given additional work that they feel is outside their scope or competence. It could be that they're burned out and just don't have the energy to keep up the pace anymore. Or, it could be a combination of all of these factors.

How Can We Deal With The Situation? My experience over the years has been to allow my teams ownership for their deliverables and delivering on customer value rather than focusing on when they are at work and being focused on "check box" activities. I also work with my team to ensure we have a good match of skillset to activities. For example, if someone is more of an analytical thinker, I ensure they are not on a project requiring more of a "people person". And if someone is more of a people person, I make sure they are not on a project that requires more of an analytical thinker.

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