What were you thinking?
I was reading a CNN business article the other day that cited the following statistic: “Only 24% of Americans thought their managers had their best interests at heart.” Now, I don’t know about you, but that statistic is very disappointing. I have known some employees who don’t like or trust their managers, but such a low number means more employees don’t trust their managers. This leads me to believe that certain workplaces are not good places to work because there is little to no trust in the leaders within those workplaces. This also means that employees are not happy or content with their jobs.
The article discussed what it called a growing workplace trend - quiet quitting. Allow me to rant about the name of the trend for a moment. Quiet quitting does not mean people are simply leaving their jobs without notice, because, sarcastically, that would be too smart. No, ‘quiet quitting’ is when employees don’t perform requested work or duties outside their job description. For example, when your supervisor asks you to work beyond your 40-hour workweek, you will only be compensated for 40 hours, not 48. I will credit the author for stating the obvious; the catchphrase is misleading.
This is a problem I anticipated well before the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Resignation. This ridicules the workplace trend hashtag. Workers have always been asked to go above and beyond their required duties. Workers who were not asked to stay longer hours or complete tasks outside their job scope were often influenced and urged to do so, with an implied promotion, advancement, or future pay increase as bait. It’s a story as old as time, a quid pro quo of the sort that often benefits the offeror, not the offeree. I knew that workers would eventually start ‘quiet quitting’ because, as with everything, progress can only happen with change.
The pandemic was the catalyst needed to bring about this workplace change. It’s long overdue. Here’s the deal. As leaders in the workplace, it is our responsibility to manage and supervise our employees. We are the overseers who make sure people are doing the work and providing the service to keep the business profitable and running. Unfortunately, that responsibility endows power on people in management roles, and we all know that power can corrupt. The ‘quiet quitting’ trend is just a result of that corruption. As leaders, some of us can be assholes, dumbasses, scandalous freaks, oligarchs, dictators, pigs, and the least favorite person. Sometimes those titles are very much deserved, and sometimes they are the unfortunate namesakes that come with the job.
Why are we not listening to employees? Why are we so obsessed with hierarchy and categorization? Why do we have the attitude that employees should be grateful to have jobs and paychecks (especially when that paycheck isn’t enough to afford their basic needs)? What in the world is going on? Employees make things happen because without them, there is no business, company, or organization. There is just an idea. Ideas are great, but without people to bring them into reality, they are just flashes of thought.
Employees are not ungrateful heathens whom we wish would go away, of course, after they do their jobs, and we could do without them. It makes me uneasy when I hear or read about employers threatening employees who wish to continue working from home. Images of gladiator slave ships pop into my mind, with rowers whipped and told to row faster - which, by the way, is a stupid way to motivate people because eventually you are going to kill them, and after that, who is going to row the ship?
Employers and leaders have to change their perspectives and attitudes about leadership. We are not above the people who work with us every day. We are not the overlords of the organization. We are part of the organization, company, or business mechanism. We, too, are replaceable. We have bad days and would honestly love to work from home, too. There is no reason to mistreat employees. It is not the employee’s responsibility to foresee possible disruptions to the workplace. It is the responsibility of leaders to select the right people for the work, manage the workplace, and create positive work environments. Threatening people is not managing. Repeatedly asking people to stay longer hours is not proper supervision, and creating a negative work environment with nasty attitudes or behavior does not motivate or encourage employees. Seriously, it’s time for those in leadership positions to take a look at themselves and their treatment of the people who work with them and ask themselves: what were you thinking?
*Marples, M. (2022). Quiet quitting is the latest workplace trend, but it doesn’t mean what you think it does. Retrieved from https://cnnbusiness.com
By Nick Higgins
