Quiet quitting, in THIS economy?!?!

Kristen: I’ve been having conversations, Nat, about quiet quitting. I have. About quiet quitting. And I was like, quiet quitting? Quiet quitting was around a couple years ago when jobs were aplenty, and it was post COVID, and it was booming, and people had the luxury of choosing any job they wanted. And so while they were looking for jobs, they quietly quit their current jobs. And lo and behold, it is back. And it’s a bit of a paradox to me personally because I’m like, the economy is brutal. Why the heck is quite quitting back? But before we get into it, shall I read what it is?

Nat: Yes. But before we before we get into it, have you noticed that every trend is coming back faster and faster? Like, fleas are back and, like Wait. What’s jean flares and bumps to jeans and, like, the black kind of leggings, but they were, like, slightly flat at the bottom than I were when I was fourteen. They’re back. So it makes sense to me that quiet quitting has also returned because trends are coming around very quickly these days.

Kristen: I don’t I don’t need to worry about fashion trends because I’ve got a fashionista in the house. And so I’m, like, all across that stuff. But but actually, yeah, the middle part and the side part, that’s I think that’s still quite controversial. Earring in the side. I’m airing in the I’m not quite middle. I’m full middle.

Nat: Side. Full middle because I’m terrified of being called a millennial.

Kristen: Yeah. I’m like, what am I? What am I? Okay. Quiet quitting is a workplace trend where employees only do the bare minimum required by their job description, refusing to go above and beyond. They do not wanna work overtime, and they do not let work consume their personal lives, all while keeping their jobs and obviously getting paid. So that’s quite quitting. It’s like just like, I wouldn’t say coasting, but it is like the classic clocking out at exactly five o’clock. You’ve, like, checked out of your job.

Nat: You checked out. You’re kind of there. You’re paying lip service to doing it, which feels weird because there is quite a continuum at the moment. I’ve just come off a bunch of calls with some fabulous Power Suit members this morning.

Kristen: Yeah.

Nat: And they’re all at the other extreme end, which is just, like, running themselves ragged. And the challenge I gave to a couple of them was regardless of your power suit membership, just try and challenge yourself to find half an hour once a month to, like, not be running. And they were, like, kinda shocked by that. And I was like, yeah. If we if you don’t do that, it’s not gonna change. You’re gonna end up stuck in this. So it’s kind of interesting in that it there’s no one really in the middle. Everyone’s either burning out and really stressed and running, or they’re kind of checking out and kind of over it.

Kristen: Yeah. Well, I was chatting last week to a woman who is definitely on the go go go hustle vein, which I felt that I always inhabit or I have most of my career. And she is looking at a number of people around who who are not. They are multiple sick days, lots of just bare minimum average quality work. And so it just got me thinking about is quiet quitting back? And and sure enough. And I and, again, I find this really interesting times because recent stats, sadly, show that, uh, global disengagement has hit the highest recorded levels, like, right now in twenty twenty six. So people are, like, actually either disengaged from their work or actively distinct disengaged. And what I learned about the difference between those is actively means they’re working against you. Yeah. Like, you’re not you’re, like, quite quitting, but then you’re sabotaging as well. Um, employee engagement is down, like, twenty five percent. Sixty two percent of the global workforce is no longer engaged. Um, they’re doing the job and kinda nothing more. Yeah. And I’m like, wow. In a shaky economy where there are fewer jobs than ever, which my brain goes supply demand, higher competition, how is that a thing?

Nat: It is that disengagement. This is something we talk a lot about to our partners because it is such an invisible cost. Like, you pay your salaries, and then you kinda just, like, hold your breath and hope for the best and assume that everyone’s doing great work. But underneath, you scratch that very surface layer. And and we’ve discussed things like meeting overload, people outsourcing their calendar management to other people, all the stuff that happens at one extreme end. But at the other, there’s people who are just really not they don’t care. And like you say, when they’re actively working against you, may not be as much as sabotage, but they are definitely telling all their friends how much they don’t like their employer and how much they hate their job, which is very bad for your employer brand.

Kristen: Normally, I’m like, just quit. Go find something else. But I in this economy, it’s like, you don’t. You can’t. And I think what they’re tying actually, we’ll talk about pros and cons in a minute because I’m like, there’s a lot of cons to quiet quitting. Like, it’s really bad for your mental health. But, anyway, let’s let’s chat about some reasons of which I don’t think you’re gonna be surprised at. Number one reason why people are quite quitting, poor management. Only one in three managers themselves are engaged. They’re not setting clear expectations, and so it’s cascading from there. That’s the top reason. And I wanna fold into number two before we talk about this, which is lack of recognition. So feeling overlooked for the effort. And I’m like, that actually just fits into poor management. Like, not setting expectations, no clear recognition. They’re checked out. In fact and or I should probably add busy and overwhelmed and don’t have time to properly manage someone.

Nat: I have read something recently, and I’m not gonna quote myself on this because I don’t know the exact stats, but managers have all the hard bits with none of the good bits anymore. So there’s a lot more doing more with less, so you’re expected to often take on a full workload as well as managing people. You haven’t had the training. There is, like, all sorts of pressures coming from all angles. So I think managers are in the group that are the biggest jump in disengagement, that you’re kinda like, why am I taking on all of this extra work and stress? And hate to break it to your power suitors, but each one of you is a major stress in your manager’s life because they are charged with caring for your well-being, for your future success, for making sure you’re delivering, and all of that regardless of how great you are, add stress to someone. And they’re sort of looking and going, for what? How much extra money am I getting for doing all of this?

Kristen: Well, and or it feels like a really common theme is you just get once you get really good at your job, we know this, you just get tapped to manage a bunch of people. Yeah. And I’ve taken the both the CliftonStrengths and the high five strengths test amongst other tests as have you. And coaching is not in any of my top five list. Like, I’m actually not a great manager of what

Nat: we what company we started.

Kristen: Yeah. I know. But I’ve always said I’ve been really honest with myself. I would I it is not in my, I don’t know, my strengths area to actually manage another human being because doesn’t mean I don’t wanna lead them or inspire them or engage them to do great work, but I I don’t wanna do the day to day thing. Like, think some people act well, many people actually like it. Yeah. No.

Nat: I think people really do like it, but it is a small proportion. And I think given that in those strengths tests that coaching is one of multitudes of strengths, I would imagine that a lot of people don’t have that in their top and in management positions because we’ve created a world where the only path up is through management, is through people management, which is, you know, its own systemic problem to solve. But I also think the other reason why we’re starting to see a lot more of this quiet quitting is I actually think have you found it really interesting that I know this is the case in different formats around the world, but New Zealand has effectively been in a recession for a year or more now. But our economy has been in a very poor shape for probably four to five years, and I hear that reflected around the world, which means we have spent an incredibly long amount of time, longer than most other periods of this, in this economic downturn, which just I think has left everyone feeling trapped. Like, we all know it’s not a good time to get another job because I don’t know other countries, but we’ve just had our new unemployment stats, and they are very high. So it’s not a good time to find another job. It is a lot going on. We’ve got AI coming, so people feel trapped. And so what we do as smart humans is we go hunker down and stay, which means a lot of people would stayed in a job that may not may no longer fit them a lot longer than they should have.

Kristen: I think it’s that natural churn, and we’ve we’ve spoken about it in another episode. I can’t remember which one. It it was along the similar vein, though. People were just noticing team members being flat, and, um, there isn’t that natural churn as a result of the economy. So, yeah, that that’s such an interesting, um, thing. But, again, it’s a paradox to me because if you do lose your job, you’re kinda screwed. I guess there’s that yeah. I just find it really interesting. Yeah. It is putting yourself at risk of not of being out

Nat: of a I mean, like, I suppose actual quitting, we probably wouldn’t recommend without a backup plan. Although I have heard of a bunch of power suitors who have just upped and left their job with no actual plans to go to, and I I can sense that there is a growing number of people in that position who are just like, I’ve got a bit of a financial safety net. I can’t do this anymore. This is a huge problem for employers, by the way, and it’s something that I find really we find it all the time, the disconnect between people we’re talking to who are like, we’ve got it all under control. And then we talk to a bunch of the people, and we’re like, you are wasting so much money and have a team who is feeling really unsupported and is wasting an awful lot of time because they’re not having these structures in place. And it’s not their fault. It’s just that it’s invisible, this gap. I yeah. I I find this whole situation really fascinating, and I think it’s going to be a real blip in over the next few years, we’re going to look back and see this real blip.

Kristen: Give me a pro of quiet quitting.

Nat: The only thing I can think of is what we were talking about at the start at the extreme other end is these crazy insane schedules and people not giving themselves a moment to breathe, letting go, outsourcing control of their calendar to whoever books a session, not having a minute or putting in place blocks to prioritize their work, reprioritize their work, a triage each morning or throughout the day of like, do I need to do this? The constant interruptions, whatever it might be. So I think maybe not as extreme as quiet quitting, but I like the idea of us all taking a collective deep breath and going, COVID left us with a massive hangover. And, actually, it is time to come down the other side of that roller coaster and put in some boundaries about how we work and put in some rules for focusing on working smarter, not just running ourselves ragged.

Kristen: In addition to the manager thing of why people quite quit, another big reason is burnout. And so I think there are a couple camps of people. And on that, that that absolutely is that self protection. Like, this is not in a to burn out is not a great thing. No. Therefore, that self protection is important. But I what was interesting, and I I alluded to it earlier, was the case against it. It is they score lower on emotional stability, those that actively choose to quiet quit. Like, they’re not, um, going well. Like, they’re at a state where they are yeah. Like, you’re going trudging in into a place, um, resentment builds, uh, probably anxiety, uh, and there are worse mental health health outcomes as a result, not better. So it’s this like you said, there’s this collective breath or sigh you’re inviting people to do, but actively quiet quitting, and I hope I described it okay up top, is actually just going, I’m gonna check out until I find another job, which could be twelve, eighteen months away, um, results in, like, kind of terrible mental health outcomes, really. You feel like crap about yourself, about the role. Like, you go into a negative spiral. We’ve seen it.

Nat: You know? Do you think that quiet quitting is something that people intentionally do? Because I think that’s kind of interesting that if you are actively thinking I’m going to leave and putting in place a plan and starting to take steps, my understanding is that’s not quite quitting. Quiet quitting is more I’ve sort of given up and I’ve checked out, but I may not have intentionally done it, which and I say this because we both love Aileen Wu, and we create our own realities. And if you have found yourself stuck in this sort of checked out, but not necessarily consciously checked out, you talk negatively about your work, you have what is it? The Sunday horrors. You turn up like, you create that downward spiral through all of those actions and not addressing the mindset and the language you use and the attitude you bring into work. All of that stuff creates a very negative spiral. But the moment you decide to take control of it and do something proactive, I think you can start to spiral back up.

Kristen: I think it might start unintentionally out of frustration, I do think it’s an intentional action. I do think you go, well, if they don’t care about me and if I feel this way or, um, I’m upset or frustrated, that’s it. I am out at five. I do think it becomes an intentional thing.

Nat: Yeah. Do you think and it’s only just because I’m I’m curious about the difference between maybe just a really good sustainable work schedule and one that is quite quitting because some of the things you’ve described like taking sick days, leaving at five, you could equally argue just really sustainable work practices. Like, neither of us are big believers in the longer you spend at work, the more hardworking you are. Like, it’s actually about your the outcomes you create, the value you add. So I’m curious to know what is it is it tied to a sense of my assumption is it’s tied to a real sense of disillusion and maybe like like what you say, well, I’m sort of over it. If they don’t care or if nothing’s gonna get better, I’ve sort of throw it’s sort of done in a throwing my toys way rather than in a I am really purposely looking at how I can create boundaries around my work to be able to do it in a way that works for me.

Kristen: I’m glad you asked that, Nat.

Nat: You’re welcome.

Kristen: It’s a great segue because I wanna share with you a little bit about Gen Z. And this is often when we chat to people and, uh, they are like, they were a pretty tough generation to manage. Uh, they do not work as hard as we do. Like, this is what we’re hearing, just secondhand information. And digging into the stats, if we’re taking Gen Z as a whole, they are more likely to quiet quit than anyone else. They are in fact two point three percent more likely than boomers.

Nat: Two point three times, not two hundred Two point three times Very

Kristen: clear that paws brings. Is that two hundred and thirty percent? I think so. Yeah. Okay. Two hundred and thirty three percent more to quite quit than boomers. Who knows boomers? I’m a Gen X. Um, but anyway, the reason why, number one is this generational like, the formative timing of when their values were locked in, which is when their children, but equally when their workplace, um, when they’re entering the workplace. These are, um, growing up during COVID, now AI, now lack of jobs. Uh, therefore, work equals lack of stability. So there’s that. There’s the broken promise around hard work used to be able to get you a home and a lifestyle that you could aspire to. That is now no longer the social contract. And finally, um, they have already an immense amount of stress, um, from all sorts of places, like the world itself consuming the things that we didn’t consume in a digital way growing up. Um, and therefore, they have a lower tolerance to absorb dysfunction. I think we were taught, and I’m saying the broad we of maybe my generation, of, like, you just work hard and you get on with it. Like, that’s just what you do and your work ethic is tied totally to your personal brand. Whereas they’re like, we are just not putting up with it. It’s not worth it anymore. We already have anxiety. Why are we adding to it? No. Thank you, but no thank you.

Nat: Thanks for no thanks. Yeah. Is I I find the generational commerce com

Kristen: That’s okay. I’m gonna go sixteen fifty to you might wanna cut this for YouTube as well.

Nat: Okay. If you send me that note, I will cut it as well. I always find the generational thing really interesting because the other thing I’ve heard is we always like flip flops. So we are the least like the generation after us because they’re looking at us going, idiots. We wanna do things completely different. Exactly the same way as we often date someone very differently from our last partner because we’re like anything but them. But in the New Zealand stats, I’m not sure if you saw of unemployment. So we live in a country, I think at the moment, about ten percent of our population is Maori. I think so. It’s on the rapid increase, but they were represented in a quarter of the unemployment stats, which is a sign of just, like, huge generational inequity and discrimination. But the scariest, scariest part was a third of young people between eighteen and twenty five, I think it was, were underemployed a third in New Zealand. And I suspect that so, I mean, if you are I think when you talk about us kind of going suck it up and work harder, that was because we had been promised a world where that would pay off, that the harder you work, the more value you add, the more benefit you get. And that was somewhat a lie to our generations. The boomers learned it, and they passed it on. And for them, it wasn’t a lie as much. Obviously, there’s there’s ex exceptions to that. But for Gen Zers, they have looked at us and gone, so wait a second. You’re all burning yourselves out. You value yourself and your identity by how long you can work. And many of you can’t afford a house and the world’s still blowing up. Like, that’s kind of a dumb call, and I believe them. Like, I’m looking at that going, yeah. That’s not really logical. And I also would look at boomers and say the reason that they’re not changing is that there is a whole group of people now entering the last decade of their working lives in this exact same world just going, I’m gonna have to cling on because my next job is not certain. And that might mean early retirement, which has its own set of complications. Complications.

Kristen: Can I just say a special shout out to Gen Z? Because, um, it is a it feels like a generation that I’m getting to know more and more through my children and their friends and having dinners with them and driving them places, and they’re all turning into really incredible adults now. And, firstly, they are underemployed. Like, it was really tricky for, um, them and, um, my son to find work. Just just like normal work that we would go out, pass out CVs, and have forty hours of work like that. You’re lucky. Their contracts now say, we will employ you for a for a minimum of four hours a week. Four hours. Like, how anyway, that second shout out to Gen z. One of my son’s friends in a soccer club found us and sent it to everyone. And so just to say we have some new followers. I found our podcast. Found our Insta. Shared a reel, and we have a bunch of new followers, um, from these lads. So just to say, we are inspiring the next generation that Just shout it.

Nat: Boys. Yeah. Football lads. I love it. Yeah. I think I it is it is interesting, the generations, how we’re all experiencing this. And I do think it is probably our generations who are overrepresented in burnout stats, and I think it’s something that we really need to examine. We should link to last week’s newsletter talking about the difference between hard work and burnout and just this prolonged even, like, I’ve just come back from a fabulous weekend away, and one of the criteria for burnout is a holiday is no cure because you have spent a prolonged period in unmanaged stress. And I think that’s a really important thing to notice that hard work doesn’t lead to burnout alone. It is a lack of managing your stress, and that is a skill we need to learn in some of our generations who’ve been raised in this idea of the harder you work, the more value you add is it is actually our job now to individually learn the skill of stress management because burnout won’t fix itself. And if you get to the point that a two week holiday, you just come back feeling worse, that’s a real problem. And it probably is I would imagine part of that group is represented in this quiet quitting because you are at your absolute wit’s end, and there is there are ways out of it, and and it is worth looking into those ways because it’s not a nice way to live, is it? It’s not how we wanna spend our fabulous thirties, forties, fifties.

Kristen: I was just trying to think of how I manage my stress.

Nat: I don’t really get stressed. And do know why I think I don’t get stressed is because I overindulged as a twenty year old. Like, try starting a business when you’re twenty three and you have people to pay and you’ve never really worked in a job and you’ve got a team of four people who are relying on you paying payroll every week. And I think going through that made me go, well, most things aren’t gonna be as stressful as that. And so I have a really high threshold now, I think. So I don’t

Kristen: find anything wired to experience less stress in a lot of areas of other

Nat: people around. Because who else would do something so stupid as to start a business at twenty three? Like Yeah. Wait. Just for me younger than that.

Kristen: I think my me and my family are wired to experience stress more acutely, just even stupid stuff that you’re like, what? And that’s just we’re predisposed to it. We’re

Nat: No. It’s definitely a thing. Different way. Yeah.

Kristen: So we are predisposed to stress, but I, um, thankfully don’t feel stressed at the moment. So I but I was just musing out loud, like, where are the places that make me feel good? And it’s definitely outdoors. And it’s definitely as much as I hate it working out. It’s getting those endorphins up. So I think that’s Yeah. Working out does help. Yeah. The other thing, there’s

Nat: a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy stuff, and I’ve looked at other people’s homework and really like the the worst case scenario thinking part. And it’s effectively a lot of our brains go straight to catastrophizing. So something happens and they leap to it’s sort of like solutioning. They leap to the worst possible outcome. And there’s some really nice workshop workflows we can go through to go, okay. That’s one outcome. What are all the other outcomes? How likely are these other outcomes? And rewire your brain to not leap straight. Or if it does leap straight to catastrophizing, how do you work your way back out of it? And I think depending on brain wiring, there’s lots of stuff you can do there. But I think by the time you’ve quite quit, you’ve sort of just gone you almost moved beyond stress. Right? Into like, I don’t care or I’m actively trying not to care.

Kristen: Yeah. I’d like to just shout out PowerSuite dot com. If you think you fall into one of these camps, you are currently thinking about quite quitting or you are in quite quitter mode, is there a real need that should be met kind of underneath it all? What is it? Is it a boundary? Is it, um, energy management? What is it? Join PowerSuite. Um, we wanna help you with that. But also for managers, like, just the number one reason why your people are quite quitting is, um, they feel, uh, overlooked, um, underappreciated, uh, expectations aren’t very clear. They’re probably not getting really specific feedback. Appreciate managing people as the hardest, one of the really hard job, but, um, it is something that we’ve kind of gotta get right.

Nat: Um, I mean, I’m sure the managers are feeling exactly the same as you said and be like tick tick tick because So we’ve got people are managed by someone else so we can play those two roles.

Kristen: I know. But, anyway, we’ve got great Parasuit resources inside Parasuit as well. So reach out to us if you wanna learn more for a bit of a demo and join us.

Nat: Well, that’s actually a really good point because we obviously do professional development. And five hundred dollar a year price tag, it’s not very high, but it’s still a lot of people feel uncomfortable asking for budget because they think it’s like being greedy. And I suppose this episode, if nothing else, would argue that five hundred dollars spread across a year for a person on an average salary, you kinda need to save an hour a month in wasted time, effort, stress, whatever to pay back your membership. And so it could actually be the most economical way to support your employer if that’s what you’re concerned about. If if you feel like you need some tips to try and help you boost that ability to all that stuff we talked about, plan your week, prioritize, find that time to breathe so that you’re working intentionally. It’ll probably be the most affordable investment they can make in you because they’re paying you a salary anyway. And it’s probably this feeling of quiet quitting is probably costing them a lot more than five hundred bucks.

Kristen: I have two random tidbits to share before we knock off. The first Get a girl. There’s a total eclipse of the sun on August twenty eighth of which from New Zealand, we will not be able to see it. However The sun will be eclipse. It’s a lunar eclipse. That means

Nat: We can’t see the eclipse or that we can’t see the sun?

Kristen: We will not see it because we’re at the wrong angle.

Nat: So we will see the sun.

Kristen: We’ll see we’ll still see it. However, if you I wonder what

Nat: we’re seeing. Are we seeing the sun?

Kristen: We don’t get to see anything. But what I’m inviting people to do, if you are setting a boundary and need a holiday, get yourself to Iceland, Greenland, or Sweden, of which many are doing, like this, like, eclipse tourism. It’s a thing. Saw interesting stat this morning. People were gonna flock Iceland for a, um, marvelous lunar eclipse on August twenty eighth. So there’s a there’s a tidbit if you wanna go to Iceland. I mean, I love

Nat: that all these quiet quitters are gonna have the budget to get themselves

Kristen: to Iceland. Hey. There’s never been a better time. And secondly secondly, um, did you know that people who spend over thirty thousand dollars on their wedding are three times more likely to get divorced than people who spend under ten thousand? So, Nat, how much will you spend on your wedding? A million. Well, that’s not good. That stresses me out.

Nat: I said, I can’t carry ten thousand. So I’m like No. I won’t be spending more than thirty five thousand because I wanna be getting married. Well, you’ve told me I have to get married in Mexico. I’m not allowed to get married in Las Vegas, and that’s gonna have a big price tag. Although, actually, we’re not gonna get married legally.

Kristen: You’re gonna illegally get married? Well, because I

Nat: was listening I told you I was listening to the twenty fifteen version of one of my favorite podcasts, which is Mamma Mia Out Loud. I think power suitors would really like it. It’s a nice podcast. They’re smart women.

Kristen: Yeah.

Nat: And in twenty fifteen, they were talking about in Australia, gay marriage was still not legal. And I just had this sudden like, oh, yeah. We’ve sort of adapted to this idea here. But going back to that time where people were still like, ten years ago, where people were still debating whether or not people like me were allowed to get married, it just triggered my rebellious streak. I was like, well, this is the one. Not interested. Not interested. But have

Kristen: a party in Mexico and fly all of us there.

Nat: That’s why it’s gonna cost me a lot of money because I’m gonna fly over in there.

Kristen: Be the exception to the divorce rates. Well, yeah, because we’re not getting married. True. Okay. Done. This is how we’re getting around it. A very exciting new poll. Okay, everyone. Check out powersuit dot com, and we will if you want us to cover a topic, let us know. Hello at powersuit dot com. Check us out. Chat with us, and we will catch you next time. Bye. Bye.