The latest phenomenon emerging from TikTok is the concept of 'quiet quitting', as stressed and burnt out workers begin to push back against their high workloads by rejecting the extra tasks they were not hired to do.
It comes as the ongoing pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic have led not only to higher workloads and fewer staff, but also forced people to hit pause and consider healthier boundaries in the workplace.
The Southern Cross Health Insurance – BusinessNZ Workplace Wellness Survey, carried out between March and June last year, found 66% of businesses reported an increase in stress levels, with 91% citing the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as a partial reason why.
BusinessNZ employment specialist Paul Mackay told 1News 'quiet quitting' is "an old name for a new concept".
"'Quiet quitting' has been around for a long time under a different form, particularly in tight labour markets where people basically say, 'Look, I’m just going. I’ll find another job eventually – I don’t care. I’ll get one,'" he said.
Mackay said the more recent iteration of the concept is centred around "people who are particularly getting overworked because they’re taking on more work that they never started with", adding that much of it is being driven by the pandemic.
"They’re basically saying, 'I'm just going to go back to doing what I was hired to do. I’m just going to do my job that’s in my job description is what I’m going to do and all that extra stuff that people have loaded onto me, I’m not going to do that.'"
While some may confuse the concept with people doing "the least possible", Mackay said that’s not the case.
“It’s all to do with not taking on all those extra things that companies have said, 'Hey, we've lost all these people. Can you take on this and this and this and this, please?’ People are starting to push back on that and say, 'No, I'm going to stick with what you hired me to do.'"
He said the "ultimate upside" to the concept is that it has now forced companies to consider new ways of getting tasks done or hiring more staff.
"It's definitely an apocalyptic moment for companies who are saying 'I've got all this work to be done and replace existing staff and now staff are announcing they’re not going to do all of that extra stuff, so we’ll have to find other ways of doing it.'
"It could lead to some quite innovative thinking or it could simply constrain businesses because they can’t get people to do the extra so there’s upsides and downsides.
"It’s definitely forced some rethinking on the part of companies. Whether that’s good or bad, time will tell."
Mackay said while 'quiet quitting' is "not a phrase being bandied around here in New Zealand very much", he believes it could take off here too.
"As time goes on, TikTok seems to have a lot of influence. I think we’ll see more of it.”
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