Loud quitting: why it’s detrimental to both the company and employee
The latest trend that’s emerged is ‘Loud quitting’, which involves people leaving their jobs publicly or dramatically. Such as by handing your notice in in front of other people in the office, or publicly talking about leaving your company on social media.
‘The Great Resignation’ and ‘Quiet quitting’ are phrases that have previously been thrown around, particularly during/ coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, where people were seen to be questioning their career choices and work-life balance. However, the latest trend ‘loud quitting’ has arrived, and it’s safe to say it’s not benefitting anyone.
What is loud quitting vs quiet quitting?
Loud quitting is the latest quitting trend, where employees openly and publicly express their dissatisfaction with their jobs and the company they’re working at, often publicly handing in their resignation – whether that’s in front of other employees, or publicly online.
In contrast to quiet quitting, a trend that involves employees only completing the bare minimum expected from them during work hours and ‘mentally clocking out’ of a job, without physically quitting.
While both negatively impact a business, loud quitting has the potential to significantly tarnish a business’s reputation.
Who is loud quitting?
This is more common in Gen Z and Gen Y workers, but as Gen Y alone makes up half of the workforce, and Gen Z are expected to make up 27% of the workforce by 2025, keeping these groups happy is important.
But it’s not just the younger generations participating in this. According to research by Gallup, in 2023 almost 1 in 5 (18%) of employees globally were either loudly quitting or actively disengaged.
While it’s mostly a limited number of people jumping on this latest quitting trend, it has gone viral on multiple social media platforms such as LinkedIn, X (formally Twitter), and TikTok, with some people going as far as filming their resignation process and uploading it to social media sites.
Why are people loud quitting?
There’s a combination of reasons why people are loud quitting – typically it’s done when an employee’s frustrations with work have built up over time, so loud quitting is often done with the intention to make a statement within a toxic workplace, whether it’s a micromanaging manager, toxic culture, or are fed up with being underappreciated.
The other side of this is that people with hard-to-find skills believe that they can find another job more easily as their skills are sought after. This is resulting in people making split decisions to quit their jobs, often with nothing lined-up afterwards.
What employees need to consider before loud quitting:
Although your reasons for loud quitting might want to be to raise awareness of the negative impacts or structure your previous employer has. You must consider that in doing so, you will likely burn bridges and create potential problems when trying to get a reference or recommendation for a new job.
Loud quitting via public social media platforms can also mean that other companies are likely to see your posts and feel reluctant to hire you as you might risk their reputation.
If you’re thinking of loud quitting, then you should consider whether this movement is more likely to have a negative effect on you as opposed to the company you’re leaving.
What businesses need to consider:
Poor management, unfair treatment of staff, and poor pay might drive people to resent your business. Employees can be powerful influencers when it comes to talking about how good (or bad) the business they work for is.
Commonly, people often check sites such as Glassdoor, or find ex-employees on LinkedIn and message them to ask what the company was like and why they left. Having a negative culture that drives people to leave your business might impact the word-of-mouth and hinder your future recruitment.
Employee advocacy is vital when it comes to retaining and attracting new employees, therefore a focus on the employee experience and workplace culture needs to be prioritised.
How should businesses deal with loud quitting?
Mitigating the risk of loud quitting and having people leave on bad terms needs to be done by focusing on employee wellbeing and creating a positive working culture.
To create a positive culture, senior leaders and management should regularly ask for feedback and listen to the staff to understand what they enjoy about the workplace, vs what might make them disengaged or unhappy.
A recent survey conducted on LinkedIn by T2M Resourcing found that 29% of people believed encouraging open conversations between managers and employees was the best way to promote a healthy work culture and employee wellbeing.
Mitigation strategies against loud quitting:
- Creating opportunities for open and honest feedback.
- Focusing on employee wellbeing and culture.
- Providing opportunities for development and growth.
- Regularly reviewing salary and benefits to remain competitive where possible.
Remember loud quitting isn’t unheard of, but it’s a lot easier to mitigate quiet quitting than it is to deal with the aftermath publicly. Start listening to employees’ feedback and prioritise workplace culture!
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