The consensus view of “quiet quitters” as unhappy employees doing the minimum overlooks the more complex and nuanced factors at play in employees’ decisions to simply do their jobs.
“Quiet quitters” are employees who do their jobs, but don’t go the extra mile. They don’t work overtime, or look for extra work, or voluntarily take on additional responsibilities, tasks, or roles. Quiet quitters are often seen as a monolithic group of people who look out for themselves and do the minimum at work to the detriment of their organizations.
In a study based on in-depth individual interviews with more than 50 UK-based employees, mostly managers and supervisors, Lloyd Harris of Manchester University’s Alliance Manchester Business School shows the truth is more nuanced and complex beginning with the term “quiet quitting.”
Although all of the interviewees were engaged in quiet quitting to some extent, only half of the participants identified as quiet quitters. Others, while familiar with the term, did not see themselves as quiet quitters, which they considered a negative term. About 10% went further, arguing vehemently against the use of the term to describe themselves. One participant, for example, questioned why “just doing what you’re hired for and what you’re paid for” should be considered quiet quitting.
A wide variety of factors can trigger quiet quitting, including toxic work cultures, unsupportive leadership, a sense of being treated unfairly, unhappiness with the job or role, overwork and burnout, and/or the desire to achieve a healthier work-life balance.
As a result, employees may lose their emotional attachment or their sense of obligation to the organization (as one participant explained, “We don’t owe them our lives. We just owe them the hours they pay us for”).
Some (usually short-term) quiet quitters are motivated by a shift in their view of the benefits of continuing to work for the organization. Previously excited by the financial, social, or prestige of working for their organization, employees can over time find these benefits less motivating but since other organizations did not offer more attractive benefits, the employees stay put although slipping into a quiet quitting mindset.
Some longer-term quiet quitters were also less motivated by the personal benefits of working with the organization, but stayed because they knew that it would take some time in a new organization to acquire the benefits they already enjoyed in their current jobs.
What happens when employees become quiet quitters? The consensus is that the employees are happy they can just do their jobs and go home while the organization loses the benefits of strongly committed employees willing to go above and beyond for the sake of their employers. Again, the truth is a bit more complicated. Some quiet quitters are indeed happier to have achieved, in their view, a better work-life balance. Others, motivated by revenge, are happy to be “fighting back. But for many long-term quiet quitters, who bear no animosity toward the organization, quiet quitting benefits everyone: the organization has a happy employee who gets the job done.
Happiness, however, is not the inexorably outcome for quiet quitting employees. While perhaps happier with the work-life balanced achieved, they are also paying a price at work: colleagues and work friends unhappy with the quiet quitters’ workload push them away, promotions are lost, benefits are reduced, and even the ego takes a hit (“from thrusting young buck to the back seat” as one participant described their situation).
A second round of interviews conducted a year later with the same participants showed that most of the long-term quiet quitters and half of the short-term quitters from the first round still approached work in the same way. Time had a different impact for the other half of the previous short-term quiet quitters some had switched to different organizations, some had transitioned to personal goals (such as starting their own businesses), and some had decided to renounce quiet quitting to enhance their promotion aspects or to end what they viewed as a “temporary protest.”
Although approaching quiet quitting through the lens of a loss of commitment, this study shows that not all quiet quitters are driven by the same triggers, manifest quiet quitting in the same way, or experience the same outcomes. Therefore, instead of responding to quiet quitters with a one-size-fits-all mindset, it can be more productive to approach quiet quitters on an individual basis, seeking to understand their motivations and feelings, and tailoring responses accordingly. An employee who feels less obligated to the organization due to grievances may be open to constructive conversations that acknowledge those grievances. Or employees less emotionally attached to their current teams may be open to working in alternative teams or functions. Not all quiet quitting can (or should) be reversed, but given the complexity and nuance shown in this study, organizations and leaders may have more options for dealing with quiet quitters than they realize.
Lloyd Harris’ profile at Alliance Manchester Business School
https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/lloyd.harris
Commitment and Quiet Quitting: A Qualitative Longitudinal Study. Lloyd C. Harris. Human Resource Management (March/April 2025).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1099050x/2025/64/2
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