The term quiet quitting is all the rage right now. Do I think it’s real? Yes, and no.

Yes, I think that people are “phoning it in” or “faking it until they make it” because they are tired, bored, or just really don’t care all that much about the work they are doing.

I am a believer in employee engagement.

I think an engaged employee is more productive and, therefore the organization or company benefits. At the same time, I’m a realist and know that some people are doing their jobs because they need a job, not because they wake up motivated to do their work every day. I’m not totally sure that’s not okay. (Caveat—I do think that every employee deserves a safe and dignified job and that employers have the right to have reasonable expectations from paid staff.)

I think that the reason why quiet quitting is getting so much air time isn’t because of the people I’ve described above. I think we are all panicking because the employees who were once highly motivated, engaged, and productive are shifting to a “good enough” mindset. Is that quiet quitting, or is it erecting boundaries that allow you to have the work/life balance that we all aspire to have, but many can’t seem to figure out? Perhaps our expectations have been too high, and instead of quitting a job that you might like enough to find another job that will expect what you consider too much, employees are just slowing down and finding a pace that works for them and still gets the job done enough.

So, yes, I think that many people will be motivated by more pay, or more paid time off, or free lunch on Fridays, and I think that radically disrupting the way we think about work is more than just giving people more to do more. Honestly, I think this form of quiet quitting is more like quiet resistance or quiet perseverance.  If you don’t look at the root cause, you aren’t going to change the results. I encourage us all to ask “why” as we work through solutions to these very real barriers to getting work done.