Quiet Quitting: Why this viral Tiktok trend is defining Generation Z interactions

When 28-year-old Atemi began quite quitting, she wasn’t aware that it had a name or even that it was a fast-growing trend in the workplace. She works in sales for a company that supplies hospital equipment and hospital supplies in the city, a job that she describes as grueling. Then, a few months ago, she started getting ill.

“I went to the hospital with backache, headaches, and joint pains and after a battery of tests which brought up nothing, the doctor began interrogating me about my job. He said I was suffering from exhaustion ad recommended that I take a break from work,” she says.

With most of her pay being on a commission basis, taking a break was not an option. Instead, she made a conscious effort to cut down on taking on extra work in the office.

“I now do only the things that in my job description and surprisingly, in terms of income, I am making just as I was before,” she says.

Years of long hours, understaffed companies, and burned-out employees have all led to the latest TikTok trend: quiet quitting. Experts also indicate that the drastic workforce shift during the pandemic largely brought on the rise of this behaviour, and the shift is about stopping doing work that people think is beyond what they were hired to do and not getting compensated for rather than slacking off. 

Gen Z and younger millennials (those in their 20s) are at the helm of the movement and surveys show that they are least engaged with their jobs, as they are more likely to view work as a means to an end than a source of purpose. Some "quiet quitters" say they're simply reprioritising work-life balance, but experts caution that they could be making themselves vulnerable to layoffs.

Necessity 

Joy Munyiri, 34, also slipped into the quiet quitting trend out of necessity. She works in media and for the last decade has taken pride in being the hardest worker on her team.

“A career in media can be unpredictable, making sure that that I take on every extra task that came up was my way of securing my job. I was like a machine, if you needed a task done, you just needed to press a button and I would do it,” she chuckles.

Her hard work got her liked at her workplace but she was surprised when year after year, she was passed up on promotions.  Also, seeing as she was the one volunteering for all the weekend and late evening tasks, her social life suffered. Then finally, late last year, she was poached by an international media start-up. The pay at her new job was a few times more than what she earned at her old job and at first, it was a dream come true. When she settled in, however, she realised that on top of what was outlined in her contract, she was also supposed to do work for two other people.

“There was that clause in my contract that said that on top of my outlined duties, I would do any other tasks assigned to me. This turned out to be so much work. That first month, I spent as much time in the toilet bawling my eyes as I did on my desk working,” she recalls.

She was the company’s first hire in the country and slowly, the rest of the positions on the team were filled in. She was the team leader and she turned out to be the oldest. While she often didn’t take a lunch break, she noticed that the rest of the team would take the whole hour and when 5 pm came, all the computers would go off. These past few months, she has adopted these habits and her mental health is better for it.”

“Startups are crazy so sometimes it can get overwhelming but I’ve learnt to say ‘NO’ more often and take all the breaks available to me,” she says.

“I have learnt so much from this generation Z. They know how to take care of themselves. And employers know when they are overworking you and they do it because you keep taking it,” she adds. 

No more hustle culture

Quiet quitting which both Joy and Atemi are applying in their jobs is gathering steam on TikTok, a platform that is popular among the young. In a TikTok video posted in July by user @zkchillin and which has been watched at least 10 million times at the time of going to press and reshared 40 thousand times, workers from all around the world share their experiences with the trend and reminders on why it’s important to take care of yourself as an employee. “You’re not quitting your job but you’re no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality where work has to be your life. The reality is that it’s not,”one of the responders in the viral video says.

The hustle culture, where long working hours or personal sacrifices are admired and time-off is seen as a weakness, is one of the leading causes of burnout, experts say. In the words of hustlers, ‘sleep is for babies’, or, ‘you need to create eight sources of income’, means many have to sacrifice, meals, sleep, or other important events to get ahead. 

For the Kenyan woman today, the quiet quitting culture is a sharp contrast to the lives of yesteryear women. Two or three generations ago, life for the Kenyan woman meant, stress, strife, and carrying the weight of the whole community on your shoulders. From that generation, women who had the ability and willingness to suppress emotions, present an image of strength, resist help or being vulnerable to others, and have a motivation to succeed despite limited resources were celebrated. This phenomenon has been labeled Superwoman Schema a term coined by Amani Allen a professor at Berkeley University in the US.

Enter Generation Z and it looks like the flip has been flipped. Even as the millennials and the baby boomers frown at their life choices, this new generation of women glorifies the soft life. And when it comes to the workplace, they are breaking away from that tradition we have had in the workplace of overworking. The break out of Covid-19 which saw many companies downsize and remaining employees take on huge amounts of work only fuelled this trend.

Joan Wagichugu, 50, the CEO of Cannon Hygiene, a Nairobi-based cleaning company reckons that a lot of women from her generation could learn from this generation.

“I was a cleaner when I started working in this company many years ago. The people that mentored us told us that the only way to rise up the ladder was to work so much more than anyone else. That was very bad advice because some of the people who I started working with and who were the most hardworking are retiring when still in their entry-level positions,” she says.

Instead of working 12-hour days and hoping someone would notice me, I went back to school to add to my skill set and applied for other jobs in other companies. The higher I went up the ladder, the more free time I had to spend with my family. The trick isn’t spending as much time as you can as work, it’s taking on fewer projects and then doing your best on those projects,” she says.

While women before planned their lives around their jobs, with the new trend, women today are trying to make work fit into their lives. And not the other way.

“Life can’t just be about working. You’ll miss out a lot. Aim to work in a way that you still get the time, energy, and money to enjoy the other things that life has to offer,” Joan advises.

It can be problematic for your career

Still, there are those who are against this culture. Emily Smith, a career counselor, also on TikTok where this trend has been popularised cautions in a video that opting for quiet quitting is putting your career in jeopardy.

Instead, she recommends looking for a different job, with different terms which make it possible for you to take time off.

“Don’t I know it!” Njoki Gathua, a 31-year-old interior designer says when asked about her take on quiet quitting.

She talks about going above and beyond to edge out her colleagues at her immediate former job. She was at the center of the company office politics. If someone was making a move, she knew about it. Then she got married and had a baby and she no longer had the energy, time nor is motivation to be everybody’s everything.

“I was fired. My bosses were so used to me always giving 150 percent that when I gave 100 percent, they thought I was being lazy. I think it may not be a great idea to just change in the midst of a job, especially in this job market,” she cautions.

She was jobless for 11 months before she nailed her current job where she says she gives just as much as her contract says she should and no one is complaining.

Research

To find out just how many Kenyan women have gotten into the quiet quitting trend, Saturday Magazine conducted a dipstick survey on 25 employed women aged between 22 and 47 from all around the country.

Of the 25, 19 said they felt pressured to give more than was reasonable at their jobs, those in the private sector feeling it more than those employed by the government. Five shared having tried quiet-quitting in the last year and loving it. 14 however expressed apprehension that working less would put their jobs in jeopardy.

Ivy Nyawira a HR professional and a recruitment manager with Recruitment Plus Kenya a Nairobi-based recruitment company reckons that quiet quitting isn’t a new phenomenon.

“What people are referring to us quiet quitting is simply findings ways to take care of yourself while maintaining employee status. There are people who have successfully done this over the years,” she says.

In the current economic state and job market, her advice for someone considering quiet quitting is to be smart about it.

“You don’t need to announce that you are taking on less work, just volunteer less and set firmer boundaries for your time and energy and doing the work that you are paid to do well,” she says.

An even better idea is to keep an open eye when applying for jobs to make sure that a company’s culture matches with the goals that you have for your career and social life.

“However you want to look at it, sacrificing your physical and mental health will catch up with you one way or the other. It’s up to you to choose either to have boundaries that will give you a satisfying long career or to neglect your needs and then burn out and have career interruptions in the end,” she says.

With worries of an economic slowdown swirling, productivity levels are a major concern to company executives, this culture is rubbing many employers the wrong way. 

 “Slowing down at the workplace will definitely cause tension between employees and executives and also between employees and their colleagues who will have to pick up. This means productivity levels go down and this will cost companies money,” Ivy Nyawira explains.

As to how far this culture transforms the workplace no one can tell. But for the trend supporters, like Product Marketing and Communication Leader, Albert Fong indicated in the LinkedIn debate on the topic, “For far too long, the hustle-culture mentality has trained us that work has to be your life, and well, it isn't. Is quiet quitting for everyone? Of course not, and there are certainly plenty of people who are simply disillusioned with their work. But for many others, it's really about balance and reestablishing loyalty - to one's self.”

SIDE BAR

Smart ways to take care of yourself

In a regular Kenyan company, simply stopping to do what has been considered your job will not go down well. What other options does an employee have to take care of themselves while keeping their job? 

• You could try the good old talking about it. Go to your manager with a strong clear case of your expectations of your job and get your views on it to see if you’re on the same page. Be honest about your dissatisfaction.
• Set stronger boundaries with your time. As opposed to refusing to do the work assigned, you can enforce your working hours. This could be as simple as stopping to answer emails past working hours.
• Lead better. If you are a manager in your workplace, take this opportunity to have candid conversations with your team about job satisfaction and the things that are and aren’t working for them. Also, delegate as needed.