What is quiet quitting and what are the ways that can prevent it?

If you have recently been seeing a lot of blogs, news articles, video clips on social media apps, and online forums about employees experiencing low engagement with their jobs, you are not alone. 

What is employee engagement? 

In the field of Human Resources, employee engagement means an employee’s level of passion and dedication towards their job. When employees are engaged, they invest not just their skills and time, but their care towards company success.

When I read what Martin Luther King Jr. said about work, I am reminded of very high work engagement. The famous orator said, “Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.” 

The phenomenon called “Quiet Quitting” 

However, at the close of the Covid-19 pandemic, there arose a collective paradigm shift in employees’ view of their work. Statistics now say that half of US workers are on the cusp of or have experienced quiet quitting. 

Quiet quitting has been described by workers as their decision to meet their bare minimum job requirements and not exert any more effort in doing more than what they have to do. 

Companies have cited this as a major threat since a lot of jobs require workers to give either a little more or a lot more effort to work with their team or provide customer satisfaction. Quiet quitting also happened along with more people resigning from work in 2021. 

On the other hand, quiet quitting has also shown organizations what employees view as important: opportunities to advance, to feel cared for, and to have company values align with their personal values.

What can companies do to increase engagement and decrease quiet quitting in 2024? 

Surveys estimate that every percent in employee engagement in the US represents about 1.6 million million full time or part time employees. As of 2023, 33% of employees report themselves as engaged in their work. This number is a slight decline from last year’s figures.

As employees become more engaged, company productivity is increased and company goals are met. In addition, improvement in engagement would also mean that companies are responding to employee needs. 

• Organizations who offer creative benefits to employees communicate their care for employee welfare. 

Surveys show that employees need support in bearing the cost of going to the office to work. Some companies have responded by giving employees options to work fully-remote or hybrid. Others have created benefit systems to share in work-related costs. 

• Housing support. Some companies have called for return to office. To help employees adjust, they give subsidies for employees to afford accommodations near the office, or give them opportunities to live in their company’s apartments near the office. 
• Financial wellbeing promotion. Harvard Business Review surveys show that employee financial wellbeing decreased from 27% to 24% in 2023, making companies offer financial education and financial planning sessions. 

• Opportunities to advance motivates employees. 

Millennial employees now comprise the job market, and the younger GenZ workers are also filling in junior-level positions. Surveys on these generations show that when they receive timely and meaningful feedback at work, they tend to feel more motivated to perform well in the job. In addition, when their prior good performance and skills are taken into account as a basis for promotion, they feel valued by their companies. 

• Developing a personal connection with company values. 

Hiring trends for 2024 predict that empathy will play a huge role in employee attraction and engagement. The recent pandemic have helped employees realize the role of an employee-centered approach in company growth.


By creating work systems that give employees the chance to take care of themselves and those that are important in their personal lives, employees perceive that their company empathizes with them. Company values therefore do not remain as words on posters or on the wall, but are values that both employees and their company live by. 

Major shifts in the workplace require companies to respond by taking care of their employees, and promoting personal connections and giving them chances to grow, so that employees stay and continue to thrive within the company. 

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