To think “quiet quitting” is just doing your job and nothing more?

[PearlTraybake]

Are we expecting too much from employees if we call it ‘quiet quitting’ when they just do what they’re paid for?

It used to be called working to rule.

It usually means they are doing as little as possible without getting fired. Let someone who wants the job have it.

If you are literally doing what you are paid for arrive on time, leave on time and work diligently for the number of hours you are paid for that's doing your job and that's fine. But that doesn't need a fancy name.

I thought it was doing 'your job', no more, no less, but being a bit passive aggressive with it. For example, if the task you're working on would take you three minutes past finishing time, you don't finish it, leave it half done. Or if your employer asks if you can switch days off one week to help with cover, you say no for no good reason, other than you don't have to. I'm guessing the 'quiet quitters' don't expect that to go both ways though.

This. The young 'uns don't join unions, more fool them, so they don't know the term.

I think for some people it’s doing their job and no more, for others it’s doing as little as they can get away with. So it depends on the use of the term. But it is certainly true that many employers expect “above and beyond” which is what employees are starting to reject, unless there is an above and beyond benefit for them.

It’s more of a concept for work cultures where salaried workers are expected to work significantly more than their contracted hours and pretty much everyone does. Big tech firms tend to be this way.

At my company, it's doing the minimum you can get away with.
So if (very basic example), working at a "normal" pace you might expect to complete 4 tasks, they will work slowly and only complete 2.

I don't think this is a mark of a good employee (or a good manager, if they are allowed to get away with it).

I work with a bunch of people like this but really they don't even do enough work to justify the pay they get. It's frustrating. Manager does nothing. Recently had a colleague who handed her notice in two months before the actual one months notice she actually needed to give and then did very little for the last 3 months saying that she was winding down her caseload which was barely anything in the first place. People don't keep themselves updated and the majority don't want to learn anything new. Manager just turned a blind eye. It really is awful especially as it's a charity. If I say anything I just get told my work ethic is exceptional ( it isn't) and that that it can't be expected of others. I appreciate the work isn't the best paid but then it's not awful either. It is also working with needy often vulnerable people and my way of thinking is why would you not do your best for others but I seem to be in the minority.

I'd be bored and frustrated working this way. Just leave and go somewhere else if you spend your time trying to screw your employer, right?

Work is more fun if you do it well.

People who did as little as they could get away with were first in line for redundancy in my previous job and quite rightly so.

Most of them wfh. If they claim it takes them a day to do 2 tasks (even if most people manage 4) and management is weak and doesn't pull them up on it, then who's to know if they are actually spending half the day doing something else?

But of course everyone wfh is actually very productive and never slacks, if anything they get more done than they would be in the office!

I thought it was an American term, as their way of working tends to be work yourself into the ground for promotion to prove your worth. So quiet quitting was just doing what is in your terms of reference/job spec. Standard for most places but doing minimal for them? Might be wrong though!