The World Health Organization defines burnout as a workplace phenomenon where employees experience severe and chronic stress. Burnout negatively impacts our mental health and our ability to perform well, and it is quite difficult to recover from.
A recent TikTok video about a concept called “Quiet Quitting” has generated discussions across the corporate world about what it means to be motivated at work. Interpretations of “quiet quitting” have varied, and taken at face value, it has a negative connotation for employees who have decided to disengage. However, if we examine the definition of “Quiet Quitting” set forth by Gen Z, the term means setting firm boundaries against working overtime in order to spend time with family or stop making their career their entire identity. Similar to Chinese Gen Z’s “lying flat” trend, the TikTok generation in Western countries like the United States and United Kingdom are expressing a need to retreat towards work-life balance in order to avoid burnout.
A recent study by Deloitte found that four in 10 Gen Zs (46%) and millennials (45%) feel burned out due to the intensity and demands of their work environments. The Great Resignation should have come as no surprise considering 44% of Gen Zs and 43% of millennials who have changed organizations in the last two years cited burnout as one of the top three reasons for leaving their previous employer. This same study by Deloitte found Gen Z and millennials are seeking flexibility, a sense of purpose in their work, and balance in their personal lives. Many young professionals are now deciding to either resign from their jobs or re-evaluate how much time and energy they are willing to invest in their jobs in order to keep from burning out.
“Quiet quitting,” as unsettling a term as it may be for employers, could have interesting ramifications. In a similar route to the Great Resignation, the concept of “quiet quitting” addresses the need people have to reevaluate their priorities, working styles, and motivations for working. A cultural shift in work-life motivation may just prevent disengagement among employees, as well as another wave of the Great Resignation.
We at RW3 CultureWizard talk about Motivation as a dimension of cultural values within an individual and team assessment called the Culture Calculator Suite. The motivation cultural values dimension measures the importance we place on work as a means of status, or work that allows for balance of personal time. Chinese and U.S. American cultures, for example, share an extreme motivation for work status and achievement. The pandemic has caused a cultural shift, especially for the younger generations. Anecdotally, we have experienced a multitude of teams across industries, whose cultural profiles seem to have shifted more towards work-life balance motivation as a way to reconcile the blurred lines of working from home during the pandemic. This means more team members are valuing connections where personal circumstances such as family life and health issues are acknowledged, in addition to working under the expectation that work hours have an appropriately-defined end time.
No matter what your team’s motivations are for working, it is important to maintain a level of engagement that works for everyone. One way to do this might be to consider the types of incentives that will be most effective with your team members that have shifted towards a work-to-live mentality.
A critical step that we can help with is evaluating where your individual team members stand in terms of their motivation for working. Using our TeamWork tool, we can help you create guidelines where everyone can feel comfortable and is enabled to perform at their highest. This includes creating an inclusive environment where employees are able to set boundaries to protect their work/life balance and an environment that supports them in doing so.
Want to learn more about ways to work with the different motivational styles in your team? Reach out to us for a consultation.
