In July, Zaid Khan, a 24-year-old engineer from New York, posted a video about quiet quitting, and it went viral.

Since then, the trend has spread like wildfire, with hashtags like #quietquitting, #quitting, and #quieting.

Does anybody want to work anymore?

Then, the mainstream media became covering it.

Like, working overtime? No, thanks. Late Night emails, ignore those.

Quiet quitting is a really bad idea; If you're a quiet quitter, you're not working for me.

The world is changing, and the way of work is changing.

Even people saying, "I'm not going back to the office, and if I do, I'm definitely quite quitting until I find a job that is a lot more flexible."

COVID was the ultimate reset.

COVID was that moment where people start to ask a bigger question,

"What do I want from my life?"

Do I want to continue working the way that I have, or do I want something different?

Do I want to continue to work, which is awesome, but do I also want to be able to enjoy my family?

Do I also want to be able to enjoy my life?

So, I think all of these things are coming in stages.

And I think quite quitting is just the trend that's come as a result of the ultimate reset, which is COVID.

Something like 40% of workers are now saying they plan to change jobs this year.

The pandemic also triggered the Great Resignation.

... and to retain people, but they're really running scared.

Millions of Americans quit their jobs in 2021.

Some for better opportunities, some for a career break.

The pace of quitting continued well into 2022.

This chart tracks job openings and labor turnover in the US economy, JOLTs for short.

We do think that quiet quitting is part of the Great Resignation story.

So, it fits into the general story of having a high level of quits over the past year, year and a half, and certainly a very tight labor market.

And in that type of labor market, it makes a lot of sense that workers may not be willing to work as hard as they have in the past 'cause it's very easy to get alternative employment.

So, the question is: What is quiet quitting?

Quiet quitting is referring to a situation where employees are making a choice to not necessarily go above and beyond what they're being asked to do.

It doesn't mean that they're not doing their job.

They're just not going above and beyond.

Back in my day, it was called coasting.

For me, my last time quiet quitting was five years ago.

I used to be in tech sales.

What I did was work less⏤I wasn't putting in the 40 hours anymore.

I wasn't giving in to the drama anymore. I wasn't giving in to work gossip anymore.

I wasn't answering emails or texts or Slack messages, you know, DMs after the work days, so weekends were free; they were mine.

Even though it's Millennials and Gen Zers who are actively talking about it on social media,

quite quitting has been happening amongst Gen Xers, which I'm part of the Gen Xers, for the better part of two to three years.

The anti-work movement is not a new trend.

In 2021, the "lying flat" or "tang ping" movement took off in China; many viewed it as an anti-work phenomenon.

This is a labor protest movement in China against the country's relentless work culture.

Some argue that quiet quitting is similar to the lying flat movement.

In the US, quiet quitting could also be a backlash to hustle culture, the 24/7 Startup Grind popularized by figures like Gary Vee and others.

I think it is almost direct resistance and disruption of hustle culture, honestly, and I think it's exciting that more people are doing it.

When it comes to hustle culture and quiet quitting, we're seeing from Gen Zers, especially.

They're really focused on ensuring that they have that work-life balance, and, really, mission-driven purpose when it comes to work.

And we see this across Millennials as well.

People are being more honest about the fact that they just don't want to give beyond the 40 hours of work that they normally would give because they're tired.

There has been a tsunami of job resignations.

In 2021, the Great Resignation dominated the economic news cycle.

... or need to remain in their roles, so...

In the second quarter of the same year, US productivity data posted its biggest ever annual drop.

And some economists blame workers leaving jobs or not trying hard at their current jobs for the hit to productivity.

Quiet quitting is probably part of the reason for the slowing in labor productivity.

It's hard to tell, from aggregate data, exactly why labor productivity has slowed so much over the course of the pandemic,

but it is certainly one of the reasons that you would expect to be weighing on labor productivity right now.

Employee engagement also appears to be declining.

A recent poll from Gallup showed employee engagement in the US dropping for the first annual decline in a decade, dipping from 36% engaged employees in 2020 to 34% in 2021.

Disengagement⏤not being engaged⏤that's affecting the productivity.

Mentally, they're just not there, and they really aren't giving it their all anymore, and they are just trying to stay under the radar and they are disengaged, that's very much been impact productivities.

I do think quiet quitting is a part of the Great Resignation.

People are so burnt out, we've just gone through and are still going through a pandemic.

We are recognizing that life can be so fleeting and so short, and we want to spend it doing something we love.

And that doesn't mean work has to be our dream job.

I think that myth of the dream job is slowly or rapidly dying.

People that shut down their laptop at 5, want that balance in life, want to go to the soccer game, 9 to 5 only, they don't work for me, I can tell you that.

Labor demand remains red hot in 2022.

That's despite the looming risk of a recession; economic downturn could make quiet quitting a short lived trend.

Well, if the labor market were to turn, you'd imagine that quiet quitting would become less of a phenomenon.

While the risk, if you're a quiet quitter, is that the economy would slow and then you could find yourself in a situation where you're in a job where you haven't been given the most effort that you can,

and it puts you at a disadvantage in terms of moving forward at that job.

If others have been giving more effort, they're more likely to have a greater job security than otherwise.

So, certainly, as the labor market slows, and if we were to go into a recession, (it) could potentially put those workers at a disadvantage.

In addition to talking to thousands of employees per year, I talked to thousands of leaders per year, all the way from your supervisor all the way up to your C-suite CEOs.

And I will tell you that they are bothered by this trend because it speaks one of two things.

One, we have employees who are doing their job, but they're not going above and beyond.

Two, what have we done as an organization to these employees that make them feel like they can't give their best effort?

We're evolving as a culture, we're evolving as a people, and the workplace is evolving.

And we need to be OK with it.

Because it's the same concept for me as people saying, "Just because I didn't have it, means you shouldn't have it too."

"You should have to work hard."

Just want to be careful about just saying that quiet quitting is the the, you know, the Gen Zs and the Gen Ys.

I think that it can be happening all over the place.

And the more we stay engaged and connected and share our purpose, the less of an issue disengagement will be.

And then, hopefully, the quiet quitting term will start fading to the background.

And we'll see both employees being productive and well engaged and employers being very successful.