What companies must do to stop 'quiet quitting'

Today’s leaders must understand that the management levers that worked in the past no longer cut it, says Slack's Tech Evangelist.

Today’s leaders must understand that the old management levers that worked in the past no longer cut it says Slack's Tech Evangelist Derek Laney.

Companies need fewer commanders and more coaches if they want to halt the trend to “quiet quitting” and employee churn, according to research into leadership styles in Australian companies.

The work, carried out by the instant messaging software company Slack, found workers need to be given more power and autonomy in a tight jobs market where more than 50% of employees in some industries say they are likely to quit and look for another post in the next 12 months.

Slack Tech Evangelist, Derek Laney, says today’s leaders must understand that the old management levers that worked in the past no longer cut it.

“Often in the old world, it was about managing by working around and that was seen as great practice - a leader who was on the floor, living what's happening in the company,” he said on Wednesday. 

“That was the way you were able to observe (employees) but in an increasingly hybrid world that observability is lost for leaders and they're feeling quite desperate.  They don't understand what's happening. 

“Maybe they never really knew everything that was going on, but they had a sense of confidence. They're losing that sense of confidence.”

Those pressures were causing leaders to suffer burnout at higher rates than their staffers, he says.

“We saw in this research that 60 per cent of knowledge workers are feeling burned out and leaders are bearing the brunt of that,” he says.

“So our advice for them is to lean into flexibility and change their way of working. We need less commanders and more coaches.”

And unless leaders changed the way they worked, the only result would be the “return of employee access cards” as people looked for new jobs.  

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The Slack research looked at issues such as the likelihood that people would leave jobs, and the connections between leadership and burnout and quiet quitting – doing the minimum at work.

The report said poor leadership and employee engagement were known causes of low motivation, output, and drive among employees. 

Employees with poor or average leaders felt they had much less of a voice, less control, and less autonomy over their work - all of which could lead to quiet-quitting.

It found government employees are most likely to churn and quiet quit; finance workers have the highest rates of burnout; retail workers have the lowest confidence in their leaders. Meanwhile tech workers are most likely to have competent managers and least likely to feel burnt out.

“Burnout is also significantly more common for respondents whose leaders do not communicate well."

Overall 59 per cent of knowledge workers are feeling burned out, according to the study. Not surprisingly, workers in healthcare are faring the worst, with 71 per cent reporting feeling overloaded. 

Close to half of all Australian knowledge workers (45 per cent) are considering moving jobs in 2023, while 12 per cent say they have “quietly quit” dialling  back their efforts to the bare minimum. 

The study said: “Burnout is also significantly more common for respondents whose leaders do not communicate well, with 75 per cent agreeing that they’ve felt overloaded in the last 12 months. Poor leadership communication also correlates with quiet quitting, with more than a quarter (27 per cent) of knowledge workers (whose) leaders don’t communicate well switching off.

 Slack’s research, conducted by Honeycomb Strategy, was based on responses from more than 1000 Australian knowledge workers within organisations of more than 100 employees.