Employees are the greatest strength of any organization. They are counted as internal resource of an organization. Good and productive employees add to the brand equity of an organization. The employee add to the organization’s brand They are assigned to a specific person and can be influenced intrinsically. They include, for example, one’s own moral values, character traits, experience, education, personal interests and abilities.
Sometimes employees display behaviours that are not amenable to the culture of the company. Such employees not only undermine the values of the organization but also bring down the morale of co-workers. The common signs of a destructive employee are an unfriendly attitude, general unproductivity, poor morale, unwillingness to go the extra mile, indulging in backbiting, infighting or being uncollaborative. An old adage goes, “people are hired for their talents and fired for their behavior” here are a few destructive attitudes people exhibit: “That’s not my job”, “why me?”, “This is not done by me” such attitudes are portrayal of procrastinators who would do anything to shirk work.
When employees do not take their job too seriously and just kill time in the workplace the behaviour has a new name “quiet quitting”. The concept of quiet quitting is reverberating because during the pandemic people had time to reflect on and reassess their priorities. They could ponder on self-assessment which helps individuals to monitor their own work, abilities, find out what their weaknesses and strengths are, and self-diagnose relevant solutions.
The phrase of quiet quitting has generated millions of views on a video clip on TikTok platform which is prepared by Zaiad Khan, a Tik Tok user with over 10,000 followers. The video is shot in New York City subway with a soothing voice over. It says that when people are not outrightly quitting their job, but are quitting the idea of going above and beyond, and are still performing their duties for the sake of it. Today we see many youngsters rejecting the idea of growing in their careers, wanting to learn something new, labelling their lesser enthusiasm is a form of “quiet quitting.” It isn’t about getting off the company payroll, these employees simply stay aloof from their work. In fact, the idea is to stay on it, but focus their time on the things they would do outside their office. For today’s new workforce from the generation Z doing the bare minimum to keep their jobs is pretty cool and extremely appealing.
Every generation enters the workforce and quickly realizes that having a job isn’t all that great and fun. For many, navigating snobbish and disrespectful bosses becomes tyring job. Petty humiliation makes them gloomier. People’s mindset changes after exposure of few years in a job. Some become ambitious to climb the corporate ladder while some start withdrawing. After working at the same job for a while, people start to getting bored about their tasks and responsibilities and they look at green pastures outside. This is a natural part of growing, they become ambitious about positions, some become interested in learning new skills, while some look for higher salary.
Often, we expect people to take ownership of their job and be accountable for the outcome of the task. Accountability is about delivering on a commitment. It’s responsibility to an outcome, not just a set of tasks. It is taking initiative with reflection, strategic follow-through. Organizations expect people to take ownership of their job and be accountable for the outcome of the task. Accountability is about delivering on a commitment. It is responsibility to an outcome, not just a set of tasks. It’s taking initiative with thoughtful, strategic follow-through. A most common reason for quiet quitting is poor leadership. There are micromanagers, a leader without the ability to get the job done, a boss who likes to take all the credit for his team’s good work, a poor communicator, a non-communicator, a boss without ethics… the list goes on. I conclude quiet quitting is a symptom of poor management.
