In this episode of the Employee Survival Guide ®, Mark discusses the causes of quiet quitting and lays direct blame on employers themselves. Employers have long instituted anti-employee rules and implemented employer favored laws, but employees now have the advantage. Quiet quitters cannot stand the current corporate work establishment and want something drastically different for themselves and I suspect everyone who works. Mark explains the tide has permanently shifted and he has offered easy solutions that the old school work establishment would perceive as being radical. It’s only radical because employers are losing power and they don’t like it. Listen in and send Mark any comments you have; free speech is welcomed here. mcarey@capclaw.com. Thank you.
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Transcript:
Unknown: 0:09
Hey, it’s Mark here and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide where I tell you what your employer does not want you to know about and a lot more. Today we’re going to talk about the really recent topic, the causes of quiet quitting, and a radical solution. Quiet quitting is a viral phrase being used among younger employees and rapidly spreading to all age groups. Quiet quitting is simply doing your job as it’s defined in your job description, and nothing more. Quiet, quitters don’t actually quit. They just work the minimum number of hours each week and nothing more. Although the phrase is a bit negative, and I agree, it does not actually reflect the employees outlook here. It has taken on immediate hold and spread throughout the press like wildfire. I think what the employees are really trying to say is we don’t like your work culture. Mister establishment. Employers are really to blame, not the employees. Employers are the ones to blame for quiet quitting. Those who control the pest control the future. According to George Orwell, his book 1984, employers have always controlled the narrative of quote unquote, work at the founding of this country and continue to do so today. That narrative filled with anti employee, pro employer favor rules, laws and employment agreements. And I want you to think about forced arbitration. I don’t think any employee ever want an arbitration agreement, non disclosure agreements for sex offenders and the their victims, non compete agreements for about roughly 50% of all working employees in this country. That’s a lot of people and wage theft due to improper wage classifications for employees are not managers and not entitled to overtime and don’t have any discretion. But yet they’re labeled as exempt employees to save who money employers, arbitration grants that keep company secrets from public view. General Electric actually did this, and so did Behringer Ingelheim, and a host of other companies to keep their secrets from public view and keep them from the litigation dockets. And finally, my most favorite one of all is the most notorious of all the narratives that companies created. It’s the outwell rule. And it shields so much employment discrimination, that no one talks about it, because it’s the kind of the grease that makes capitalism work in this country. Finally, the 30 Something group where this phrase started out, presumably quite quitting. They’re sending a message to the larger audience of people who are already working and establishment. They’re saying We don’t like your work culture, not one bit, and we’re going to change it. And the employers want to fight back and stop them from doing it. A new tipping point in favor employees, everyone seems to be looking for the tipping point for a brand new work culture, in this post pandemic or whatever you want to call it phase. Hence, all the press on remote work, surveillance of employees, remote work, and now quiet quitting. Are we there yet, of course, but the power brokers want to quell any momentum. And then you cue into the consultants, the naysayers, the pundits, the Society for Human Resource Management, and the Chamber of Commerce, and so on. If employers can kill the inertia, just like they are trying to do with remote working, then they win our employees to weak and to decentralize to stop them. Maybe not. Think Hong Kong protests a few years back? They used umbrellas, masks, flash mobs organized anonymously over social media platforms. I really liked that part one. It worked pretty effectively until the following thing happened. Violence and communist dictatorships controlled and put down the protest. But we’re not China. We’re a democracy in the United States. Things work differently here. Workers have rights but employers, state and federal general assemblies and the courts want to minimize them and those rights in favor are employers Money Talks, because companies have money and need more of it. But employees have information and communication power and influence in this so called age of internet. Quiet quitting is the new silent protest in America. Quiet quitting is different. Quiet quitters are not going to reveal themselves and will stay below the surface of working the required hours and getting the quote unquote meets expectation performance review rating. Meanwhile, employers continue to in metronome fashion, require them numbers quote unquote, aka employees to do their tasks remain silent. Provide undivided loyalty to their masters, the boss the executive leadership, rinse and repeat This is the same narrative format, underneath racism in this country, it never goes away because capitalism was built on it. Likewise, employers will continue to keep their workers in lockstep in order to control employees servitudes that make a corporation a corporation, and make profit. This is also known as, quote, a particularly virulent and unrestrained version of capitalism. According to Sarah Jones, and a recent article, I have a radical solution to actually be three or four. The solution is transparency in all things employment, Ban the stupid at will rule, because it’s stupid. And it only works to promote racism and biasness. Ban non compete agreements. And Mr. Biden did ask the federal trade commission to look into the issue. But nothing really happened after that, Mr. Biden, of course, it’s a monopolistic type of behavior, why you want to stop somebody working in McDonald’s and going to work at Wendy’s. That’s where the non competes are occurring. Institute termination for cause in every job, what does it mean? It means you got to screw up. And you know, when you did screw up, you are worn in advance and you had notice of it. It doesn’t mean we’re gonna fire you for no reason. If people know you have that type of trust in their jobs, they’re going to get your back, Mr. Employer, they’re going to work harder for you. How about a kinder and gentler HR department? Well, boy, how many times do I hear that when the call ins from new comp potential clients and they say they talked to the HR department that didn’t help them they did an investigation investigation revealed that nothing happened. There was no no discrimination of any type or any whistleblowing or whatever they complain about. It’s just a cultural issue. The employers want to keep employees in lockstep control because otherwise when you start to allow them to have their own say, and voice that they get unruly, so to speak, I feel like a child in grade school principal’s office, about ban of forced arbitration for all employment claims, not sex discrimination claims are just they we just recently did that, of course, but how about all types of claims, keep things out in the open instead of burying them back in the hallways of the jams folks in the arbitration review panels in New York City, about free mental health services during the pandemic, etc, and everything else, which is people are having issues. They’re burning out, that’s what we hear in the press about quiet quitters? Well, let’s help them. Why are you burning out? I’m telling you why they’re burning out. How about provide cash rewards for anonymous employee tips on how it’s gonna work, but people are motivated by cash. Now I’m going to turn in other employees, if they see bad behavior. The longer vacations have a four weeks of vacation, okay, allowing people to take time off instead of working them to the nub, like they do with some warehouses, we know about equal pay for women, you know, instead of the 80 cents on $1, like women are currently getting now at the age of 35. And above the implementation of all or some of the above situations where solutions will create immediate employee trust and promote fully engaged employees. Wow, it didn’t take me more than two seconds to say that but they spend millions of dollars each year corporations to find out how to reengage employees, because you know why 80% of employees in America are disengaged. mean, their go to work, and they say I don’t like my job, but I got to do it. Because they’re stuck. It’s like a, I don’t know, a bronze, golden handcuffs instead of a golden handcuffs. And then recently, just read an article that companies now it’s it’s coming from a consultant advising corporate 500 companies to co design work relationships, employees, wow. codesign allowed me to give them a voice and allow them to have a say, I don’t think that’s going to happen. And then the article also did mention to and by the way, this is in Fortune Magazine, you can read it, that they discuss the issue that I see all the time, that employees who are for whatever reasons by qualification or office politics get, they play up the ladder, and they get promoted into a managerial position. And guess what? They suck at managing? I’m sorry, I didn’t really say that because it’s a fact. And everybody knows what I just said, knows and seen that that managers get promoted, don’t know how to manage. And where does culture come from? Your manager doesn’t come from the CEO because he’s too high up. He comes from the frontline manager. But people are not trained to manage IRB that people are not trained to manage. Companies don’t spend millions of dollars managing managers to manage so there’s no school people who don’t go to classes or whatever to learn how to manage they’re just stuck in these new roles given an a higher pay grade, and they have their ego shut up and they say well now managing Look at me, me increase my my status and my LinkedIn profile. Okay, get a clue folks. Man managers don’t know how to manage because we don’t tell them how to manage I’m trying to tell you that now, the employees are trying to tell the managers, you’re not very good at your jobs, corporations, you’re not hearing us, and we’re just going to slow down. We’re not going to quit, we’re just going to slow down, and you’re not going to earn as much money out of us. So why don’t you turn that tide around, provide for remote working, and whatever flexible work status you want to do. And listen to employees today. They’re giving a loud message like a megaphone. And let’s see where this goes. Because I think that the tide has tipped. And we’re now looking at a new reality. The corporations are saying three years after the pandemic, we’re not going back to the office in full stride. Apple, you may want to shove us back there, but employees are really not wanting to go there not because of COVID because they liked the flexibility they have in their own personal lives today. And don’t we all agree with them? I do. So, food for thought. I’ve been thinking about this topic. I’m actually pretty happy about it. And I want to hear more about it. So send me an email if you like it, or if you don’t like it, tell me why. I’m glad to hear it. And have a great week and I will talk to you soon.
Tags: Quiet Quitting