In the United States, more than 50% of the workforce might be practising quiet quitting, a trend where people do the bare minimum in order to satisfy the expectations of their managers, no more and no less. This was revealed in June by a study conducted by the Gallup polling firm.
Since July, this pattern has been making headlines in the United States. Should we be concerned about it interfering with the Quebec labour market?
Generations Y and Z: in search of balance
The search for work-life balance is one of the pillars of the quiet resignation. This is mainly adopted by Generation Y and Z, i.e. 50.8% of the working-age population, according to Statistics Canada.
Joëlle Carpentier, a professor in the Department of Organization and Human Resources at the Université du Québec à Montréal, said in an interview with Panorama in August that “unease at work and the search for balance” would be two of the causes of the quiet resignation. She also indicated that this phenomenon illustrates a swing of the pendulum away from how earlier generations devoted a good part of their life to work.
Case in point, a recent survey Léger commissioned by the Regroupement des jeunes chambres de commerce du Québec (RJCCQ) revealed that 62% of young professionals aged 16 to 35 give priority to their personal life. Deloitte tells the same story. In the report of its international survey: Striving for balance, advocating for change, young people from Generations Y and Z affirm that work-life balance is the main reason why they choose to work for a company.
Humanizing work by appropriate management
Managers have an important role in countering quiet resignation.
The Gallup and Deloitte studies make some suggestions to management teams. One of those solutions: empowering the workforce. They conclude that it is important to establish a corporate culture in which people have the opportunity to learn and grow, to be engaged and to develop a sense of belonging.
Quebec is not immune to this trend, since it portrays the requirements of generations Y and Z. Companies are called upon to review their strategy in order to attract and retain talent from the new generations in search of balance, while maintaining their own development. It is a delicate balance that needs to be redefined.