Quiet quitting and its impact on mental health

Quiet quitting is doing just enough as required under the mandate of the work contract. Quiet quitting employees do not go beyond their call and get attached to their jobs harming themselves physically and emotionally in the process. It is a relatively new term for the old union concept of work-to-rule. Work-to-rule is an action taken by employees to bring pressure on the employer to negotiate a fair set of rules, procedures, and work conditions. It is a common and successful union strategy and highlights to the management how critical employees are to the organization.

With more than 11.3M views on TikTok, quiet quitting is thought to have been inspired by Chinese social media's Tang Ping, or Lying Flat, which is a now censored hashtag that was apparently prompted by the country's shrinking workforce and a work culture that mandated long hours.

Why Are We Seeing Quiet Quitting?

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a paradigm shift in making remote working the norm. It led to several side-effects like long working hours, virtual calls, additional responsibilities, and increasing uncertainty. Employees had to navigate an entirely new set of realities and were not adequately compensated.

Although quiet quitting is not new, it is manifesting now as workers subtly pushing back in search of a better work–life balance. A great resignation wave is being witnessed in the current job market. This signals that employees are concentrating on living a life of intrinsic worth rather than working hard toward external validations like higher salaries, swanky homes, and so on.

The search for meaning has become apparent for most of us. We came face-to-face with our mortality during the pandemic, which has made people think about what place should work take in their lives and how can they look for purpose in their job roles that is more aligned with their values.

There may be several reasons why this movement resonates with individuals, but the most prominent one is the hope of a better work–life balance. Work can overwhelm so much that it interferes with our personal lives, leaving us with less time to unwind, take care of ourselves, spend time with loved ones, engage in physical activity, and so on. According to a recent survey, 49% of workers globally say that they are not thriving or engaged. It is no surprise that many of us experience some kind of stress, anxiety, and depression during our working lives. These conditions have become more common and almost 30% of absenteeism is attributed to emotional and psychological reasons playing out as somatic disease.

The ordinary employee has to contend with uncertainty and job losses. The resulting financial impact is an erosion in the standard of living. Salaries have not kept pace with the post-Covid rise in the cost of living and yet the top brass are earning staggering bonuses and hikes. Quiet leaving is thus a signal of the disenchantment with the "corporate" philosophy of fleecing the bottom of the pyramid to enrich the top.

Does Quiet Quitting Help Your Mental Health?

It has been demonstrated that effectively establishing boundaries at work—for example, taking a lunch break or denying requests from superiors and coworkers that go beyond your job's outlined functions and responsibilities—can improve employee health and reduce burnout. It is particularly helpful in maintaining the separation between work and personal time. An effective approach could be to refrain from responding to work-related emails, calls, or texts after a particular hour and to resist from monitoring work messages while on vacation or during sickness. To this extent, quiet quitting is indeed a welcome adjustment to work ethos.

Quiet quitting is not about leaving the job but setting boundaries. (Image via Pexels/ Olya Kobruseva)

Is there a downside to quiet quitting? Research has shown that anything of value can be created only with adequate effort. Therefore, employee engagement is a non-negotiable element in the organization's success. Employees may feel like their work-days are pointless, uninteresting, and monotonous as they don't see value. Those who do not invest energy into their jobs are prone to suffer poor job satisfaction. It could set off a round of emotional and psychological challenges. The golden mean of maintaining the right attitude to work while allowing ourselves to thrive by self-care is necessary. Keeping a pulse on how any changes in your efforts at work may be affecting your mental health is essential.

Striking proper work-life balance is tricky but not impossible. (Image via Pexels/ Pixabay)

Takeaway

Work can be stressful, so it's not surprising that some people are choosing quiet quitting. Choosing to work hard, especially if you're working toward specific career goals, is not wrong but it should not prevent you from taking up other aspects of life like family, hobbies, community service, and so on. Even if you love your career, you shouldn't put your other interests or welfare on the back burner. Whether you choose quiet quitting or not, its important to see whether the work helps you maintain work–life boundaries or not.

Janvi is a counsellor with a master's degree in applied psychology with a specialisation in clinical psychology.