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How to manage quiet quitting of remote team?
The work culture has undergone a rapid transformation in recent years. Many companies are offering hybrid work models or remote working patterns. Several employees found remote work culture relaxing and highly productive, as it offered greater flexibility.
But working remotely has its share of challenges. One of the major consequences of the shift to remote working has been the phenomenon of digital burnout. It has become one of the biggest threats to organizations, leaving employees feeling disengaged, unexcited, and unmotivated by their work.
Also read: How To Prevent Employee Burnout Among Remote Workforce
Such unsatisfied employees use “quiet quitting” to set more boundaries between their professional and personal lives. Currently, “quiet quitting” is a growing workplace trend, where employees work the bare minimum and do not make their jobs an important center of their lives or put in any extra time without compensation.
According to a report by Gallup, 50% of the U.S. workforce are “Quiet quitters”.
In this article, we will discuss in detail what quiet quitting is, how it works, its signs, its causes, and how to manage quiet quitting for your remote team.
Table of Contents
What is Quiet Quitting?
Quiet quitting is the term used to describe an employee who does the bare minimum in their role while still fulfilling the expectations of the job. Quiet quitting doesn’t involve quitting, but it is employee disengagement where they resist new responsibilities and avoid going above and beyond the standard job description.
How does Quiet Quitting work?
Quiet quitting is the new way of only doing the bare minimum to get the job done. It doesn’t mean an employee has quit their job but has limited his duties to those listed in their job description. They set clear boundaries to improve work-life balance and refuse to go the extra mile to demonstrate their worth to an employer.
Signs of Quiet Quitting
An employee might be a quiet quitter if they regularly showcase disengagement at the workplace. Their performance is restricted to doing the minimum requirements of one’s job and putting in less time, effort, or enthusiasm than necessary.
For instance, these employees lack the motivation to exceed expectations and may turn down new projects, withdraw from non-necessary tasks or activities, only take on easy assignments, and isolate themselves from coworkers. Another term for this concept is “silent quitting.”
Also read: 10 Question You Must Ask Before Hiring A Freelance Developer
The causes of Quiet Quitting in a remote team
The remote workforce has grown in recent years. Businesses and companies save costs by hiring remote workers who don’t have to commute to work daily. But the challenge lies in ensuring the remote workers stay productive and motivated.
Remote working might sound like an ideal situation for professionals, but certain factors lead to the quiet quitting of employees. Let’s discuss some of them below:
1. Excess Workload
Remote work often leads to digital burnout as it becomes harder for some employees to take breaks from home. The excessive workload is a result of staff turnover. When one employee leaves, other team members do all the work until the new hire arrives. And when there is a long wait for a replacement team member, employees become overworked. Hence, quiet quitting is often a sign that an employee is experiencing burnout.
2. Poor Compensation
Quiet quitting occurs when employees don’t feel adequately compensated for their workload. Many quiet quitters feel they are inadequately compensated for their efforts.
3. Blurred boundaries
Quiet quitting is often a response to work-life balance and a disregard for not respecting boundaries. Many who work remotely complain that they often feel as if they are always at work and there is a lack of leisure time.
4. Poor communication
Remote working has also changed workplace dynamics because employees and managers communicate in different ways through online meetings. These interactions may feel more formal than casual conversations in an office because they need to be scheduled instead of impromptu. Limited meetings or interactions are often a common cause of disconnection between an employee and his employer.
Also read: 15 Best Tools To Optimize Communication In Remote Work
5. Unclear or shifting expectations
Unclear or shifting expectations is one of the significant work stress factors. Either the employers keep adding responsibilities outside the job description without prior description, or the employee ends up working an entirely different role than what they were hired for.
6. Isolation from colleagues
One major challenge remote workers face is isolation from colleagues and lack of face-to-face interaction with them. It can lead to employees feeling lonely and struggling to stay motivated.
Top 10 tips to manage Quiet Quitting of your remote team
If you believe you have a case of quiet quitting in your remote team, the first step is to evaluate the situation. In most cases, it is an error in translation between what employees are asking for and what employers provide.
Employees want to be recognized and appreciated for their talent, passion, and hard work. They expect meaningful work and boundaries.
Employers need to notice the signs of quiet quitting and devise ways to prevent their employees from quitting. Here are a few suggestions to manage the quiet quitting of your remote team:
1. Effective communication
A culture of open and honest communication can prevent quiet quitting. Reserve a couple of hours a week to communicate with your remote team and create a welcoming environment that encourages them to speak and be heard.
Schedule weekly calls to connect with them and motivate them. Discuss their role, validate their work, and offer suggestions for their career growth. These regular meetings can open the door to preventing quiet quitting.
2. Manage the team's workload
Quiet quitting is common among employees suffering from burnout due to unmanageable workloads. Effectively distributing and managing work across the team enhances their performance while they are focused, productive, and on track.
If the employees are expected to take up extra responsibilities, the additional workload should include incentives or an official promotion. Assigning extra duties against the employee’s consent can violate the work agreement and the job he has signed up for.
3. Adequately compensate your team
Poor compensation is one of the top causes of quiet quitting. The issue is not that employees are unwilling to do extra work but that the employers refuse to acknowledge it or discuss adequate compensation.
Continuing to pile on tasks regardless of employees’ comfort levels, current workloads, or protests indicates that employers value output, not the employee’s well-being. An equal exchange of labor for compensation is integral to maintaining employer trust and respect.
Remember that compensation can be non-monetary and take the form of recognition, perks, benefits, and flexibility.
4. Establish and maintain boundaries
Remote working generally provides employees with more flexibility in their schedules. Allow your employees to select working hours that are best for them and be mindful of those hours. Limit outreach, stick to those boundaries, and not intrude on their personal time.
Taking action can show employees you are serious, and supportive. The simple act of trying can go a long way in restoring employees’ faith and work ethic.
5. Promote healthy engagement over hustle culture
Hustle culture often results in burnout, workaholism, and toxic productivity. Most workplaces applaud working extra hours by giving promotions and raises, but practising a hustle culture leads to poor mental health, anxiety, and stress of the employees. Promote a healthy culture where employees can balance their work responsibilities against their overall well-being.
6. Introduce employee recognition strategies
Quiet quitting arises when the employees feel under-appreciated, especially when their work goes unnoticed and un-praised. Employee recognition programs are an effective way to battle this mindset and prevent them from quiet quitting. Acknowledging and rewarding employees for outstanding work shows that they matter to the organization and are less likely to fade into the background.
Also read: How To Create A Diverse And Inclusive Remote Workforce?
7. Monitor mood and behavior changes
A sudden drop in productivity or enthusiasm of an employee could indicate the beginning of quiet quitting. An employee who was once a top performer can suddenly scale back and become average; similarly, an outspoken employee goes quiet in meetings unless directly addressed. Regardless of their behavior change, it is crucial to be aware of the state of your employees and keep a watch for team members acting out of character.
8. Support employee well-being
Many employees frame quiet quitting as an essential part of mental health. Employers must prioritize their employees’ physical, mental, and emotional health. The focus should be on establishing the workplace as a safe space to help employees be fully themselves and tap into their full potential. Introducing virtual employee wellness programs is an excellent choice to improve remote employees’ mental, social, and physical fitness.
Also read: 7 Books Every Software Developer Must Read Right Now
9. Encourage breaks and sustainable growth
This is one of the key features of React.js that allows developers to reuse any built component. It makes the code more modular, making it easier for any change to happen in the future. It results in decreased development time and complete utilization and re-utilization of the components.
10. Perform an exit interview
When it’s too late to fix quiet quitting, it may be time to part ways, especially with those employees who spread negativity throughout the team. You might have hired the right person, but the employee needs to be in a better place to do his best. You can schedule an exit interview with the departing employee to pinpoint the specific reasons that led to it. Employees need to understand the repercussions of quiet quitting or getting fired for it.
Conclusion
Quiet quitting is an issue that has been growing for several years. Most remote employees opt for quiet quitting to deal with burnout and maintain the perfect work-life balance. Employees are considered the most valuable assets of any organization. Employers need to make a conscious effort to avoid and overcome quiet quitting. Rest their boundaries and avoid toxic hustle culture. They should offer support and focus on rebuilding relationships and trust with your employees to set them up for better success!
Abhishek Ghosh
