Quiet Quitting and trends in the workplace

Mental health and wellbeing in the workplace is an increasingly important and rapidly evolving facet of business. There is a lot of public awareness around mental health and rightly so. We have just seen the acknowledgement of World Mental Health Day and The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand has recently celebrated Mental Health Awareness Week...but there is still a way to go before mental health priorities are normalised in the same way as physical health.

us, and that’s just the adults! A recent study in Australia found that school age children are now bombarded with the same volume of information within one week, that adults received in an entire year at the same age. The human brain is struggling to adapt to the rate of information exchange, and the pace is on an upward curve. So, what are the outcomes of all this ‘overload’? There are a lot of new terms floating around that allude to the general mood of populations around the world. Quiet Quitting, The Great Resignation, The Great Reshuffle... all commonly used terms but what do they mean?

Don’t get me wrong, mental health and wellbeing is a hot topic right now, but do we really understand the implications of mental health challenges and the potential economic consequences?

For a long time, mental health challenges have been viewed as personal or domestic problems, we’ve been told to keep them away from the workplace and manage them in private (if not explicitly told, certainly it has been implied). How times are changing though, in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, many of us are experiencing a confusing union between our physical and mental health, our digital and personal connectivity, our home lives and work life. These blurred demarcations and the overlapping and often competing nature of daily demands means a likely decline in overall mental health, and subsequently deterioration of physical health.

The fact is, we are now living in an age where many people are feeling a sense of overwhelm – social media and the rate that technology is developing, the increasing cost of living, wars, and geopolitical unrest, along with information overload... and of course, the effect that the pandemic has had on everyone’s wellbeing!

People are inundated with information from all different directions, plus the amount of work that we are actually getting through and what we have on our plates is far greater than generations before

The Great Resignation, also known as the Big Quit or the Great Reshuffle, is an ongoing economic trend in which employees have voluntarily resigned from their jobs en-masse. It began in early 2021 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and has continued to impact on employee retention and labour markets. It makes sense that as people step back to reassess and recalibrate their lives after a period of prolonged volatility, disruption and trauma, that change is inevitable to offset personal strain.

What about Quiet Quitting? It’s not as obvious as the Great Resignation but the impact on presenteeism is enormous and impact is much harder to measure. Quiet Quitting describes an uprising against ‘hustle culture’, the quiet rebellion against ‘going above and beyond’ and a more unyielding ‘work to rule’ approach where the bare minimum is the new benchmark for commitment and productivity.

Given we can no longer expect people to compartmentalise their work life and their personal life, organisations and leaders need to step up to re-establish boundaries. Pre-COVID-19 Workload and productivity expectations should be reassessed and redesigned to create a more positive work culture where work-life balance is prioritised. If this doesn’t happen, the people will speak, quietly or loudly and overall organisational performance may suffer.

Organisations with strong people and culture strategies including; realistic job design with appropriately balanced workloads and moderation of team and individual pressure; policies and procedures that support mental wellbeing and psychological safety; ongoing training and support programmes that exceed current health and safety standards, will mitigate the impact of Quiet Quitting.

Integration of mental health and wellbeing is a strategic decision that requires investment and commitment, it is not just about ROI (return on investment), it’s also about VOI (value on investment) and the intangible benefits of human connection and wellbeing.

Who are Humanex?

Humanex provides high quality, evidence-based mental health and wellbeing education, training and resources within the context of prevention and early intervention stages of the mental health spectrum. We have a unique and focused role within the broader mental health sector, offering targeted and proven services that are complementary of other mental health and wellbeing efforts.

Humanex work with a diverse range of organisations and groups, and we get the unique opportunity to make positive inroads into a broad population issue. We enjoy the opportunity to improve lives, we enjoy the people we work with, and we enjoy problem solving and the complexity of affecting positive social and cultural change.

Humanex is also an accredited provider of the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Aotearoa programme.

For more information on how to build a mentally fit and psychologically safe workplace, please visit www.humanex.co.nz or email us at hello@humanex.co.nz.

Kate Figgins, Director at Humanex and Accredited Mental Health First Aid Instructor. Kate’s background is in complex service delivery and solution design organisations across both commercial and not for profit enterprises. Kate has a focus on strategic development and business transformation, and is passionate about purposeful, measurable change.