HealthyGamerGG - Should you Quietly Quit your job?

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

Dr. K talks about Quiet Quitting, effort inflation, vacation, motivating employees, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

But now what happens is over time in order to get promoted if person A starts going above and beyond. Person B, if they want that promotion, starts going above and beyond. And so now what sort of happened is that in order to get that promotion, you don't just go above and beyond. You have to go way above and beyond. So let's take a quick look. There's a really interesting Washington Post article. So quiet quitting isn't really about quitting. Here are the signs.

Burnout is in an all-time high. And here's what managers should be on the lookout for. So this article was really interesting, and someone about a week ago or two weeks ago kind of came up with this term of quiet quitting. And what this article talks about is that, you know, what people are starting to do is renounce hustle culture and sort of quitting the idea of going above and beyond. And so what this sort of like means is that so people are sort of using this term quiet quitting.

And, you know, as I guess this person Kathy Cacher says, it's quiet quitting is a new term for an old concept, which is employee disengagement. So the article goes on to talk about burnout. You know, it talks a little bit about, you know, how quiet quitting is shockingly doing what you're paid for. And so there's like a lot of concern about burnout. There's a lot of concern about, wow, this is like great exposure for this ad. You know, what does quiet quitting actually look like? And so we're talking about things like diminished motivation, low engagement, being withdrawn from the team, limiting communication and interaction to only what is required. And then the article starts talking a little bit about, you know, what to do about it,

if you were a manager. Okay, so the target of this article is sort of geared towards manager. And so how should employers respond? You know, so like people are sort of like changing, like their work ethic, their approach to their jobs and things like that. So what the article sort of suggests is that to better understand how employees are feeling, we should frequently survey staff and go beyond productivity scores. and seek comments that help managers understand the full picture of engagement.

It goes on to talk about doing more onboarding and exit interviews by HR to see what motivates employees and drives them to leave. And then how do you build workplaces that don't want people to leave? And this is where they say managers can help burnout by encouraging employees to take breaks during the day and use their vacation and paid time off, right? So you're burnt out? Like, why don't you take your vacation? Because that's going to fix the problem, right?

And then they're sort of talking a little bit about a couple of other things like, you know, office yoga and taking mental health days. It's critical for managers that foster a workplace environment that is psychologically safe so that employees feel comfortable in asking for help without retribution. That sounds good. I think that's actually the best point which we're going to talk about. So what's the deal with this quiet quitting? Like what's going on here and like what should we really do about it? So I think there are a couple of things to keep in mind. So let's try to understand how we got to quiet quitting. The way we got to quiet quitting was through something that I would call effort inflation. So here's what used to happen at your job.

So you start with a job and there's certain expectations, requirements, right? This is what's required of you of your job. And then what happened is people realized, okay, there are five employees and one of them is going to get promoted to manager. So what employees started doing is going above and beyond because it's the employee that goes above and beyond who gets promoted. And so there was a benefit to going above and beyond. But now what happens is over time in order to get promoted, if person A starts going above

and beyond, person B, if they want that promotion starts going above and beyond, person C goes above and beyond, person D goes above and beyond. And so now what sort of happened is that in order to get that promotion, you don't just go above and beyond. You have to go way above and beyond. So now going the extra mile is the norm. And so as more and more people strive for promotion, what started to happen is companies started expecting this from their employees. Now it's become the norm, right? Because everyone's doing it. And then the employer is like, oh, this is kind of interesting.

Like everyone's going above and beyond. I guess this is the workplace culture. This is the culture of the workplace. That people, we want people who are go-getters. We want people who are going to go the extra mile. We want people who are going to, et cetera, et cetera. And so it's almost like a college degree where like before a college degree used to get you particular jobs, right? Like in order. to get that job, you needed a college degree, then everyone started going to your college. And so the value of the college degree went down. And now you need a master's degree in order to distinguish yourself. So there's like educational inflation. And we've seen this effort inflation. And so now like, how do we kind of approach this if we're employees, if we're employers? So for the record, I don't think that going above and beyond at work is necessarily bad. And we'll kind of talk a little

bit about that. But I think there's a lot of really interesting questions that you should ask yourself. So the first thing to consider is what kind of workplace you actually work at. And this is for employers and employees, because we've done corporate consulting before and in our career coaching program, we work with people who are primarily employees, but also managers and things like that. And the first thing to understand is what is the value in your workplace? You have to ask this question critically. What is the value in your workplace of a going above and beyond? Is it actually rewarded in some way? How is it rewarded? What is the expectation? And this is where if you're an employee and you've been going above and beyond and you haven't really been rewarded for it, that's something that you need to seriously like think about, right? What is the value to you going the extra mile? Because the truth is that there's a lot of value to going the extra mile in some places. And if you're an employer, you need to be asking yourself the same question. What happens to employees, how are employees who go above and beyond treated in comparison to employees who just do the bare minimum? And this is where we've got to be really, really careful because depending on like, you know, where you work.

So I think like government service is kind of like a good example where like your promotion rate and your salary increase tends to be based on seniority. So going the extra mile doesn't necessarily get you a whole lot. Now I've worked with some people who are managers in government service who do actually really reward employees and things like that. So there's their exceptions to that rule. But for you to just critically think a little bit about, okay, what is the situation in my workplace?

The second thing that that really kind of bothers me about this article and this is something that we need to really think about, is that this article is geared towards managers and employers. And it's not really advocating to truly understand what the employee experiences. And this is a huge problem. So I'll give you all just a simple example. And this is something that I struggle with myself. So the article says, and as a manager encourage people to take vacation days. So there's two kinds of work.

There's work in which vacation is time off. And there's work in which vacation is procrastinating. with your work. So if I take a week off of vacation, do I just do that work of that week before vacation and after vacation? Because in some employment situations, when you take time off, it's not like you do less work. It's just all that work gets delayed till you get back from vacation. And the week that you get back from vacation, you have to do twice as much work as you usually would. And so these are the kinds of things where like instead of encouraging people to take time off, a better question would be why on earth aren't people taking time off, right? Because

in some work situations that I've seen, I've been in, and actually content creation is one of them, where it's like, we, you know, I have to stream additionally if I'm going to take a week of vacation. I actually don't, I don't get time off. I just reallocate time. And are you in a work situation where time off is really time off? Or is it just piling on work to the next week? And so these are the kind of fundamental things that you can encourage your employees to take time off. But the question is, what kind of work situation are you in? Like, are you in a situation where time off really doesn't exist? So a good example of time off being time off is the medical profession. So that's usually where, for example, if I'm a doctor and I go on vacation and someone covers my patients, it's not like

the work from that week is waiting for me, right? So if something happens during the week that I'm on vacation, one of my colleagues covers for me and then I come back and it's like back to normal. So another thing that they talk about is frequent surveys and exit interviews. What bothers me about this is that there's sort of this attitude that, okay, like, if you want to know how to motivate your employees, like, ask them, right? Try to figure out what motivates them so that you can structure the environment to kind of maximize their motivation, which sort of makes sense from an employer's standpoint. The problem that I have with this kind of approach is that I don't get the sense that people are genuinely trying to understand for the employee's benefit, right? We're trying to

understand from the manager's benefit. So the way that they sort of structure this is like, okay, They do like, you know, onboarding interviews and exit interviews to try to maximize motivation. Whereas, like, that seems to me like the employer isn't actually caring about the employee. They're really thinking about their own goals, which is like, okay, how do I maximize productivity of my workers? And the other thing that I'd sort of say is that if you're in a manager and you're struggling with employees who are quiet quitting, it's not about trying to assess their motivation so you can maximize it. It's about actually asking them, hey, what's going on? Like, do you feel like your extra work is rewarded? And so quiet quitting is going on all over the place.

And I think part of the reason is because for a long time, we've been advocating for hustle culture. We've been advocating to work hard to get ahead. The challenge, though, is that working hard no longer gets you ahead. So, like, that's why people are quiet quitting. Like, that's simple, right? It's that simple. And if you're an employer and you're trying to figure out, like, okay, like, why aren't

people, like, going the extra mile anymore? And so that's because human beings are going to do what rewards them. Like there's like behavioral reinforcement mechanisms in our brain. And if you, if people are quiet quitting on the job, like there could be something going on personally with them. Could be. But it could be because the way that you've structured the work environment doesn't actually reward people going the extra mile. A couple of other things to kind of think about is like, you know, encouraging people to take vacation is like, why aren't they taking it in the first place? So I don't think that going the extra mile is bad.

I don't think that all employers are evil. I've worked in particular situations where I did go the extra mile and it like actually does. did work out really well. You know, one of my mentors once said going the extra mile for a patient is going a mile too far. So there are times where actually going the extra mile actually encourages other people to slack off. So you've got to be careful about that kind of stuff. And if you're in this situation where you're quiet quitting or burning out or things like that, I think first of all, that's completely okay. If you're a manager where your employees are doing this kind of thing, I think this is where you've got to start to ask a lot of questions. Does my workplace actually

reward my extra work. And that's where, you know, what we've learned in career coaching is that you may say like, oh my God, no, they don't. Like, I'm so, like, resentful because I work so hard and, like, they don't reward it. And this is where in career coaching sometimes we'll, like, discover something very interesting, which is that when the client comes in, well, like, how does your employer know you're doing extra work? Well, I don't know. They just like, they should know. It's like, wait a minute. How should they know? Have you ever told them? You're like, no. Like, why not? Well, because I don't want to, I don't want them to think that I'm like, I'm not trying to, like, take too much credit. I don't want to be a brag. I don't want to brag about what I do and all this

kinds of stuff. So what we've sort of really discovered is that interacting with your employer can be like complicated in ways that we don't realize. And there can be other kinds of perceptual biases and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, I think that quiet quitting is fundamentally happening because of something like effort inflation where going the extra mile used to get you promoted, but it doesn't necessarily anymore. And if that's the case, then as an employer, you've got to really think a little bit about how can I reward people who go the extra mile. A couple of other things to consider is instead of just telling people to take vacation, like really think about why on earth would employee not take vacation, right?

It's just a net positive. And chances are there are things that you don't understand about the workplace you've created. And this sort of gets to the last kind of general point that I have is that what I'm noticing is that employees are trying to shape employee behavior, which sort of totally makes sense, without really understanding the perspective of employees. And you can try to shape employee behavior all you want to, but I think it's like, it's not about maximizing their motivation. It's about recognizing that your employee is a human being and that human beings, you know, have desires and fears and want to do a good job. They want to distinguish themselves.

And like trying to actually understand who this person is and why they do what they do is going to be very, very helpful. And when we've done even things like corporate consulting and we sort of take that approach, which is like forget about productivity for a second. recognize that your team are human beings and what's going on with them. And the cool thing is when we actually prioritize the human being, we actually see an increase in productivity. Questions? Chat, pause, due to scroll. Oh, my God, so many things. Ercels say the managers are too overworked to do that. Beautifully put.

Brilliant. Right? And so, like, that's exactly what happens. So here's the other thing that leads to, like, quiet quitting. Is that sometimes stuff just keeps on getting piled onto your plate. And there's like scope creep for your work. And so like I've seen this a lot where I work with a lot of good managers who want to do right by their employees. But the structure of the environment that they work in doesn't allow for that.

And the number one leading cause of burnout is actually someone trying to do a good job and a systemic thing that gets in the way and prevents them from doing a good job. It's kind of, it's bizarre, but there's been a ton of research on this. Burnout doesn't come from overwork. Burnout doesn't come from laziness. shockingly. In fact, the opposite. Burnout comes from excessive effort with minimal benefit. So I get burnt out as a physician when I'm trying, I can work 30-hour calls and feel good about it at the end of the day. I can work 30 hours in a day, in a day and a half, I guess. Like, you know, it's going on Monday morning, I leave Tuesday at noon. Actually, it doesn't burn me out.

What burns me out is when I spend three hours on the phone with an insurance company, trying to get medicine for a patient that needs this life-saving medicine. It's when I'm spending a lot of work and I can't even help the person. Like, I'm happy spending time to help people. And this is where another thing that I kind of want to say is that for far too long in our society have we taken advantage of people who are doing altruistic jobs. So for far too long, we've taken, and I'm thinking especially of like teachers and people in the medical profession where these are jobs that we like value,

almost like on a moral sense, right? Like you're saving lives. And like since like we're educating children and it's for the children, what we've managed to do is create situations where we take advantage of individuals altruism. And so what I tend to see very, very often, I don't know if this is statistically correct or not. I see employees getting taken advantage of the most in these two professions. Because you're saving lives, like you're doing it for a good reason, right? So why are you complaining about the pay? And what we also tend to see in both of these professions, if you look at like tuition, right? And you look at like college education and things like that.

If you look at the education industry and the medical industry, this is also where you see like tons of profit.