For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Isaac Newton’s third law is true everywhere – even in the workplace. That’s abundantly clear when you take a look at the trend of so-called quiet quitting. When someone starts doing less work or is actually fired or laid off, that excess work typically needs to be done by someone else.
But in a resource-constrained environment with uncertain macroeconomic conditions, it’s easy to see how this additional work could lead to even more burnout, quiet quitting, and actual quitting.
What is a quiet promotion?
The work being handed to a new person without additional pay or title bump is essentially a “quiet promotion.” This is a term I first spotted on Reddit and it truly resonated. As someone who leads a team that needs to continually do more with less, the act of a quiet promotion is something managers need to look out for.
If you’re a manager, are you guilty of shifting work from a low performer to a high performer? Is that low performer simply not motivated to do their best work or is it simply just more work than they can handle? The devil is in the details but it’s safe to say that handing over additional work to a new person will lead to that person feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and more pressured to perform than before. This can quickly lead to burnout, apathy, quiet quitting, and actual quitting.
The dangerous part? Quiet promotions can quickly lead to quiet quitting which becomes an exponential problem. For every quiet quitter (or laid off / fired worker), the workload increases on the rest of the team. Thus, that team burns out faster and is more likely to do mediocre work.
4 quick solutions to quiet quitting and quiet promotions
It starts at the top. Managers, leaders, and executives must all be trained and aware of how to spot and mitigate quiet quitting and quiet promotions. This type of training is not typically done at most companies but it’s worth considering bringing in an outside consultant or sourcing an internal expert who can help managers, leaders, and executives understand how to better support their staff.
A few of my tips and best practices for spotting and preventing quiet quitting and quiet promotions:
- Be human. When it comes to communicating with your team, highlight your humanity. Show pictures of your pets, share what keeps you up at night, and show that you’re more than a talking head on a Zoom call.
- Ask questions. Once you’ve done the above ‘Be Human’ step, I recommend you get in the habit of asking questions rather than talking at people. If you treat everyone in the room or on a Zoom call as being a recipient of whatever you’re saying and nothing more, they won’t feel empowered or even humanized. Get in the habit of asking people simple open-ended questions. You’d be surprised how much a “how are you and your family doing?” question goes. PRO TIP: the key here is adding the ‘and your family’ part to the question which makes it clear you are asking about their broader life not just for specific project updates.
- Share failings. Similar to the ‘Be Human’ tip above, share when things you do don’t work out as planned. You’ll destroy psychological safety if you try to act as if you’ve never made a mistake. PRO TIP: When possible, highlight your own mistakes as shining a light on the failed work of someone else can quickly turn into something akin to bullying.
- Support career growth. Just because someone is on your team right now does not mean they want to work for you forever. In fact, most people jump around from job to job every couple of years. To have an empowered and loud (opposite of quiet) workforce, you need to make it clear that you’ll help them get a different job if that’s what they want. Be their partner not their obstacle.
It’s not easy to prevent someone from getting demotivated. It can happen quite easily and your team’s culture can erode with you even realizing it. So, do a regular check-in with yourself and your team (ideally your direct reports) to ensure you all agree you’re still working towards a shared vision and mission while upholding your team’s ideals.
