Have you seen those articles about an allegedly new phenomenon, quiet quitting? You might have read about it and thought, “That doesn’t sound new,” or “That just sounds like not working very hard.” Maybe you even thought, “Well, they’re probably about to get fired.”
We read about it and thought, “We can fix that.”
As work management experts, we’re intimately aware of the reasons employees disengage from their work and how burnout affects employee productivity. And we’re shouting from the rooftops (well, at least from our desks and into our phones) that work management software is the solution to quiet quitting.
What is quiet quitting?
First, let’s ensure we’re all on the same page and understand this new phenomenon. Quiet quitting is a term for doing the bare minimum at your job. Over the course of the last few years, for a variety of reasons, workers have become increasingly disengaged from their jobs. According to a recent Gallup poll, ‘quiet quitters’ make up “at least 50% of the U.S. workforce — probably more.”
This increase in actively disengaged employees coincided with the pandemic when many workers reevaluated their roles, workplaces, and work-life balance. The job market may also have played a part in employees acknowledging their disengagement, as the increase in job openings pushed workers to resign at record rates.
How the Dark Matter of Work is driving quiet quitting
Those factors have likely contributed to the rise in quiet quitters (or disengaged employees), but our research on the Dark Matter of Work tells us that the problem is even bigger. Our report uncovered mind-blowing statistics about employee attitudes in an age where software abounds, and work-life balance is a constant mirage.
Put simply, work has gotten more taxing, and employees are exhausted by the sheer amount they have to juggle daily. Workers are using up to 14 applications just to get their daily work done. That often means 14 sets of logins and passwords, 14 different user interfaces, and multiple streams of communication, duplicated messages, and tasks that fall through the cracks.
It’s no wonder 70% of employees feel stressed juggling multiple tasks, systems, and apps. And to add fuel to the slowly smoldering fire, workers have to endure unproductive meetings and increasingly little visibility into the work they’re completing and why they’re being asked to complete it.
Sound familiar? We thought so.
Now, the really bad news is that if you’ve got disengaged employees who are stressed because they’re juggling too much with not enough support, you’re likely also facing these bigger problems:
- Missed deadlines
- Canceled projects
- Low employee productivity
- Diminished ROI
These are issues that will eventually (if they’re not already) negatively affect your bottom line and put your business at risk.
The good news is that we have a solution.
Work management software to the rescue
If you’re experiencing quiet quitting among your team, you’ve got a few options. You could ignore the problem and hope it goes away, fire those quiet quitters once and for all, or install employee surveillance software that makes everyone even more stressed.
Or you could employ effective work management software to solve the issues, avoid employee churn, and help your employees actually enjoy doing great work again.
Here are some of the underlying problems your team or organization is likely experiencing:
- Duplicated work and unproductive meetings
- Wasted time spent switching between apps
- Disconnection between individual tasks and big-picture company goals
- Low visibility into work that’s already been done
- Struggles to collaborate between teams
When these problems are present, workers understandably struggle because their day-to-day is a slog. And when workers are struggling with their everyday work, they become disengaged and offer the bare minimum effort.
So here’s how work management software can help. Work management software like Wrike is designed to provide your team and organization with a single platform that streamlines work, increases visibility and collaboration, and makes work easier. Here’s how Wrike does it:
- All your work happens in one place: With Wrike, you’ll do your work from a single platform. You won’t have to manage email threads looking for the latest information. Instead, you can create your own tasks, or managers can assign them to team members.
- Project information and status updates are clear: You don’t have to chase down status updates by email or Slack because task and project progress is visible within Wrike.
- Apps are integrated, so you don’t have to switch windows: Wrike integrates with over 400 apps, meaning you can use all the tools you love without logging in elsewhere. That saves valuable time and energy.
- Big-picture goals can be connected to individual tasks: Employees need and want to know that what they’re doing matters. Wrike allows you to easily break big-picture goals into individual tasks, making that connection clear. And it works both ways — employers can see the work employees are accomplishing and give them credit where it’s due.
- Tasks can be cross-tagged to avoid duplication of work: There’s nothing more discouraging than realizing you’ve duplicated work or having to repeat lost tasks. With Wrike, you can cross-tag tasks or information so it can be visible in multiple places.
- Teams can easily communicate with each other: Instant @mentions and multi-user live editing make communicating within and across teams super simple.
- Admin tasks, requests, and approvals can be automated: If your team engages in repeat tasks, Wrike’s powerful automation functionality can help by streamlining admin, gathering the information you need, and securing it in one location.
Work management software can be the key to removing the obstacles that cause employees to struggle in their day-to-day work. It can give structure to processes that streamline workflows, so employees don’t feel defeated at every turn. It can smooth the sharp edges workers get caught on throughout their days. It can bring your team into a single place to collaborate, communicate, and do their best work. And it can reconnect employees to work that matters by helping them feel valued and seen.
It might not solve everything, but we believe work management software can solve quiet quitting.
If you’re interested in seeing Wrike in action, sign up for a free trial.
