WorkLore

Everyone seemed to be talking about quiet quitting – with mixed reviews. Some love it, some loathe it, mostly for the same reasons. In a nutshell, quiet quitting is when employees decide to stop doing all the extras, the above-and-beyonds that organizations explicitly or implicitly ask for. 

As someone who has held two roles at one time (when budgets were cut but the work was still there) and then three full-time roles for a half a year (during budget constraints and a gap in hiring), I definitely relate to the sentiment that you shouldn’t be doing additional labour that isn’t being compensated.

But does quiet quitting hurt you?

Quiet hiring suggests that it does. Quiet hiring is when organizations promote those employees that are seen as eager, going above and beyond what’s expected. The exact opposite of quiet quitting. 

It would seem then that quiet quitting and quiet hiring are two sides of the same coin. That quiet hiring is the reward for not quiet quitting, but sticking things out (it’s the consistent question of Grit or Quit?). 

But I would argue these two things are not related. Based on my experience working multiple roles, you don’t do either (or all) of them well. Maybe satisfactorily. Maybe you keep all the balls in the air for a while. But sooner or later those balls start coming down. Because you aren’t two or three people. And you can’t keep doing the work or two or three people. 

And quiet hiring isn’t about promoting the people who have dropped the ball. 

Even when they’ve been given too many balls in the first place. 

Now chances are, if you are in a situation where you are doing two people’s jobs because the money is tight, then there’s no quiet hiring (or loud hiring for that matter) going to happen. But the promotion of grit, of hanging in there and going above and beyond because maybe you’ll get noticed and get that promotion keeps too many people in positions where they are headed straight to burnout. 

And that’s not fair to anyone. 

So let’s stop promoting the notion of quiet hiring. It’s unlikely that hanging in will get you a promotion, when what you need is a better alignment of your skills, knowledge, and energy to the work you are doing.