Quiet quitting and burnout - learn more about the two concepts here

Quiet quitting

Have you become familiar with the concept of quiet quitting? It is a term that is gaining ground globally and indicates that employees "mentally resign".

According to experts and indicative studies, quiet quitting can both help to create a healthy company culture, but also result in a "lazy mentality".

In this article, we will help you understand what the terms quiet quitting and burnout mean and how you can identify if one of your employees is burned out.

What is quiet quitting?

The phenomenon, quiet quitting, puts an end to how ordinary employees and employers work - and thus helps to give a new view of what a healthy work culture contains.

In short, quiet quitting is about working as little as possible. This means that the employees solve their work tasks, but no more than that. One of the reasons why quiet quitting became popular was because of the actor, Zayed Khan.

The actor shared a post on the social media site TikTok that included the text "quiet quitting". His post, which also contains the text "work doesn't have to be your life", got around half a million likes and has subsequently created a wave of people who choose to quit their jobs due to mental fatigue. In continuation of the "quiet quitting" phenomenon, the concept of "tang ping" has also emerged in China, which broadly resembles quiet quitting.

The trends have arisen in a landscape where several employees have already reviewed their working lives, which for example is due to the corona shutdown, which led to the dismissal of many employees. The consequence of mass layoffs was that the remaining employees had to work even harder to keep up with the heavy workload.

During the corona shutdown, the opposite scenario also played out: A large number of employees resigned. This trend has later been named "the Great Resignation", "the Great Reshuffle" or "the Big Quit". One of the reasons for this was precisely that the employees were dissatisfied with the working environment, and for example felt burnt out.

Employees may experience the quiet quitting mentality for various reasons, but one of the reasons may be burnout. We will take a closer look at this in the next section.

What is burnout?

Burnout is a workrelated form of stress and is often the consequence of longterm mental and physical overload. According to several guideline studies, burnout typically occurs among employees who work with people, including patients or clients who need assistance.

Burnout is typically caused by two things, namely:

1. The employees become emotionally burdened because they experience over a longer period, that it is extremely difficult or impossible to solve the patients' or clients' problems
2. The emotional strain experienced by the employee is not met with adequate resources or guidance. Furthermore, the employee affected by the crisis has no influence on decisionmaking processes

Your employee may show symptoms of burnout, for example:

• Emotional exhaustion, where the employee can not  bear to deal with the problems of their colleagues
• Negative and cynical attitudes, this can especially be a warning sign if the employee was positive and open early on
• The employee has started to perform considerably worse during the working day

Burnout can develop over several years, so it's not something that happens after a few exhausting work weeks. The process can be described as follows:

• Commitment: The employee is committed and considers their work meaningful. In addition, the employee achieves good results due to their good attitude
• Doubt: The employee experiences that it is becoming more difficult to meet objectives, these can be objectives defined by the management, but also the employee too. The failing results continue to haunt the employee, and perhaps lead to conflicts with management or colleagues
• Frustration: The employee begins to feel powerless. This is a crisis-like state, where the employee is exhausted and tries to save energy, here quiet quitting can be one of the consequences
• Meaninglessness and withdrawal: The employee has given up hope of achieving their goals. In addition, the person in question can not  adjust the goals to a more realistic level. The employee further isolates himself from the management and colleagues
• Apathy and cynicism: The employee's work or position does not provide value or meaning to them and the employee places an emotional distance from the work. It can be an unmanageable task to help the employee on the right course when this stage occurs

Like stress, burnout can be a consequence of a mismatch between work demands, resources and influence. It is therefore crucial that your company works to prevent burnout among employees. This can for example do this by focusing on a healthy working environment. We have prepared an article