Employee Survival Guide® - The Causes of Quiet Quitting and a Radical Solution

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, it's Mark here and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide where I tell you what your employer does not want you to know about and a lot more. Today we're going to talk about the really recent topic, the causes of quiet quitting and a radical solution. Quiet quitting is a viral phrase being used among younger employees and rapidly spreading to all age groups. Quiet quitting is simply doing your job as it's defined in your job description and nothing more. Quiet quitters don't actually quit. They just work the minimum number of hours each week and nothing more.

Starting point is 00:00:42 Although the phrase is a bit negative and I agree, it does not actually reflect the employee's outlook here. It has taken on an immediate hold and spread throughout the press like wildfire. I think what the employees are really trying to say is, we don't like your work culture, Mr. Establishment. Employers are really to blame, not the employees. Employers are the ones to blame for quiet quitting. Those who control the past control the future, according to George Orwell in his book 1984. Employers have always controlled the narrative of quote-unquote work at the founding of this country and continue to do so today. That narrative, filled with anti-employee, pro-employer-favored rules, laws, and employment agreements, and I want you to think about forced arbitration. I don't think any employee ever wanted an arbitration agreement.

Starting point is 00:01:31 Non-disclosure agreements for sex offenders and their victims. Non-compete agreements for about roughly 50% of all working employees in this country. That's a lot of people. And wage theft due to improper wage classifications for employees are not managers and not entitled to overtime and don't have any discretion. But yet they are labeled as exempt employees to save who? Money. Employers. Arbitration grants that keep company secrets from public view. General Electric actually did this and so did Beringer Ingelheim and a host of other companies to keep their secrets from public view and keep them from the litigation dockets. And finally, my most favorite one of all is the most notorious of all the narratives that companies create.

Starting point is 00:02:19 It's the at-will rule and it shields so much employment discrimination that no one talks about it because it's the kind of the grease that makes capitalism work in this country. Finally, the 30-something group where this phrase started out, presumably, quiet quitting, they're sending a message to the larger audience of people who are already working in the establishment. And they're saying, we don't like your work culture, not one bit, and we're going to change it. And the employers want to fight back and stop them from doing it. A new tipping point in favor of employees. Everyone seems to be looking for the tipping point for a brand new work culture

Starting point is 00:02:58 in this post-pandemic or whatever you want to call it phase. Hence, all the press on remote work, surveillance of employees at remote work, and now quiet quitting. Are we there yet? Of course. But the power brokers want to quell any momentum. And then you cue in the consultants, the naysayers, the pundits, the Society for Human Resource Management, and the Chamber of Commerce, and so on. If employers can kill the inertia, just like they are trying to do with remote working, then they win. Are employees too weak and too decentralized to stop them? Maybe not.

Starting point is 00:03:37 Think Hong Kong protests a few years back. They used umbrellas, masks, flash mobs organized anonymously over social media platforms. I really like that part one. And it worked pretty effectively until the following thing happened. Violence and communist dictatorships controlled and put down the protest. But we're not China. We're a democracy and we're in the United States. Things work differently here. Workers have rights, but employers, state and federal general assemblies, and the courts want to minimize those rights in favor of employers. Money talks because companies have money and need more of it. But employees have information and communication power and influence in this so-called age of Internet.

Starting point is 00:04:27 Quiet quitting is the new silent protest in America. Quiet quitting is different. Quiet quitters are not going to reveal themselves and will stay below the surface of working the required hours and getting the quote-unquote meets expectation performance review rating. Meanwhile, employers continue to, in metronome fashion, require the numbers, quote-unquote, aka employees, to do their tasks, remain silent, provide undivided loyalty to their masters, the boss, the executive leadership, rinse and repeat. This is the same narrative format underneath racism in this country.

Starting point is 00:05:04 This is the same narrative format underneath racism in this country. It never goes away because capitalism was built on it. Likewise, employers will continue to keep their workers in lockstep in order to control employees' servitudes that make a corporation a corporation and make profit. This is also known as, quote, a particularly virulent and unrestrained version of capitalism, according to Sarah Jones in a recent article. I have a radical solution. Two, actually. Maybe three or four. The solution is transparency in all things employment.

Starting point is 00:05:42 Ban the stupid at-will rule, because it's stupid and it only works to promote racism and biasness. Ban non-compete agreements. And Mr. Biden did ask the Federal Trade Commission to look into the issue, but nothing really happened after that, Mr. Biden. Of course, it's a monopolistic type of behavior. Why do you want to stop somebody working at McDonald's and going to work at Wendy's? That's where the non-competes are occurring. Institute termination for cause in every job. What does that mean? It means you got to screw up and you know when you did screw up, you were warned in advance and you had notice of it. It doesn't mean we're going to fire you for no reason. If people know you have that type of trust in their jobs, they're going to get your back, Mr. Employer, and they're going to work harder for you.

Starting point is 00:06:18 How about a kinder and gentler HR department? Boy, how many times do I hear that when the call is from new potential clients and they say they talked to the HR department, they didn't help them, they did an investigation, the investigation revealed nothing happened. There was no discrimination of any type or any whistleblowing or whatever they complained about. It's just a cultural issue. The employers want to keep employees in lockstep control because otherwise when you start to allow them to have their own say and voice, they get unruly, so to speak. I feel like a child in a grade school principal's office. How about ban enforced arbitration for all employment claims, not sex discrimination claims or just like we just recently did that, of course, but how about all types of claims?

Starting point is 00:07:00 Keep things out in the open instead of burying them back in the hallways of the jams, folks, in the arbitration review panels in New York City. How about free mental health services during the pandemic, et cetera, and everything else? Which is people are having issues. They're burning out. That's what we hear in the press about quiet quitters. Well, let's help them. Why are you burning out? Well, I'm telling you why they're burning out.

Starting point is 00:07:26 How about provide cash rewards for anonymous employee tips? I don't know how it's going to work, but people are motivated by cash, and they're going to turn in other employees if they see bad behavior. How about longer vacations? How about four weeks of vacation? Okay. Allowing people to take a time off instead of working them to the nub like they do at some warehouses we know. How about equal pay for women? You know, instead of the 80 cents on a dollar like women are currently getting now at the age of 35 and above,

Starting point is 00:07:55 the implementation of all or some of the above situations or solutions will create immediate employee trust and promote fully engaged employees. will create immediate employee trust and promote fully engaged employees. Wow. It didn't take me more than two seconds to say that, but they spend millions of dollars each year, corporations, to find out how to re-engage employees. Because you know why? 80% of employees in America are disengaged. I mean, they go to work and they say, I don't like my job, but I got to do it because they're

Starting point is 00:08:22 stuck. It's like a, I don't know, a bronze golden handcuff instead of a golden handcuff. And then recently just read an article that companies now – this is coming from a consultant advising corporate 500 companies to co-design work relationships with employees. Wow, co-design. I mean give them a voice and allow them to have a say? I don't think that's going to happen. And then the article also did mention too – and by the way, this is in Fortune magazine.

Starting point is 00:08:55 You can read it. They discuss the issue that I see all the time, that employees who are for whatever reasons by qualification or office politics, they play up the ladder and they get promoted into a managerial position. And guess what? They suck at managing. I'm sorry. I didn't really say that because it's a fact. And everybody knows what I just said, knows and seen that, that managers who get promoted don't know how to manage.

Starting point is 00:09:20 And where does culture come from? You're a manager. It doesn't come from the CEO because he's too high up. He comes from the frontline manager. But people are not trained to manage. I repeat that. People are not trained to manage. Companies don't spend millions of dollars managing managers to manage.

Starting point is 00:09:38 So there's no school. People don't go to classes or whatever to learn how to manage. They're just stuck in these new roles, given a higher pay grade, and they have their ego shut up and they say, well, now I'm managing. Look at me. Let me increase my status in my LinkedIn profile. Okay. Get a clue, folks. Managers don't know how to manage because we don't tell them how to manage. I'm trying to tell you that now the employees are trying to tell the managers, you're not very good at your jobs. Corporations are not hearing us, and we're just going to slow down.

Starting point is 00:10:09 We're not going to quit. We're just going to slow down, and you're not going to earn as much money out of us. So why don't you turn that tide around, provide for remote working and whatever flexible work status you want to do, and listen to employees today. They're giving a loud message like a megaphone. And let's see where this goes, because I think that the tide has tipped and we're now looking at a new reality where the corporations are saying three years after the pandemic, we're not going back to the office in full stride. Apple, you may want to shove us back there, but employees are really not wanting to go there, not because of COVID, because they like the flexibility that they have in their own personal lives today.

Starting point is 00:10:48 And don't we all agree with them? I do. So food for thought. I've been thinking about this topic. I'm actually pretty happy about it. And I want to hear more about it. So send me an email if you like it. Or if you don't like it, tell me why. I'm glad to hear it. And have a great week, and I will talk to you soon.

Employee Survival Guide® - The Causes of Quiet Quitting and a Radical Solution

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