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Paris, December 20th (The Conversation) In September last year, the Gallup polling agency said that 50% of full-time or part-time workers over the age of 18 in the United States will “quietly leave their jobs”, which will specify “do not exceed at work.” themselves, just fit their job description.”
Immediately, the term “quiet smoking cessation” appeared in the public debate, and many French media also exposed this trend.
Admittedly, it’s too early to gauge the reality behind the word more accurately with a reliable measure. For example, the evolution of working hours, at least for executives, would provide a better indicator.
However, the emergence of this “buzzword” is still interesting because it signals a concern on the part of employers about whether, in an extension of the “big resignation,” employers would allow their employees to do their jobs as they please, (“The Big Resignation” ”), leaving US companies at a peak of 4.3 million in August 2021 alone.
an old question
This concern about employees who limit themselves to the bare minimum is also long-standing. More than a century ago, the work of Frederick Taylor, the father of scientific work organization, was aimed at eliminating and suppressing the “systematic loitering” of workers.
Quiet cessation thus evokes many concepts from the sociology of work and organizations, such as:
Work by the rules, which includes doing only what is prescribed and strictly following the rules. However, as ergonomics clearly shows, the gap between prescribed work and actual work is necessary for the smooth functioning of activities. It’s impossible, individually or collectively, when no one deviates from the rules to be “effective.”
Braking, that is, voluntary restriction of production. A now-classic study in the machine shop of a large US factory showed that workers could do more, as the sociologist Donald Roy showed.
Withdrawal. In French sociologist Renaud Sainsaulieu’s typology of the social model of work, this identity refers to employees who engage less professionally for the benefit of the personal sphere, especially in response to a lack of prospect and recognition.
Apathy, which refers to Belgian economist Guy Bajoit’s famous typology of responses to Albert Hirschmann’s dissatisfaction (withdrawal, speaking, loyalty) A work attitude, which may be similar to Quiet Quit, because it leads to a worsening of “cooperation”.
In the book Working in the 21st Century (Éditions Laffont, 2015), we have shown that it is a matter of doing minimum expectations for the position, in order to protect yourself from the deep disappointment of a job you love so much at first.
So Nadine, a nurse at the hospital, laments the excessive disconnect between them and the doctors, who relegate them to “technicians.” “We didn’t know if the child was infected, or if they were treated, why … we just took the medicine and that’s it,” she lamented.
For her, apathy has become a defense mechanism, as she feels she can no longer “take the initiative” and “think about what she’s doing.” However, forcing yourself to be indifferent is not always enough to make suffering at work bearable.
Florence, a manager at a mutual insurance company, has experienced the consolidation and rationalization of many activities she no longer supports, and the apathy that accompanies taking medication:
“We were on drugs. I was on antidepressants for a while, and I wasn’t the only one. […] Because I don’t want to work anymore. I don’t like this job, I’m in this job because you have to make a good living. […] For example, I can’t stand to update the points account for the agent! I can take any job that doesn’t!
ask meaning
The turnover rate for the first quarter of 2022, or the ratio of the number of departing employees to the total number of employees, was 2.7%. If we go back to the financial crisis of 2008, the rate was high, but not unprecedented. This metric typically falls during crises and rises with recoveries.
So, for the vast majority of employees, quitting is not an option in response to a job that no longer makes sense or that the working conditions are too demanding. The employment rate also reached an all-time high in the first quarter of 2021, with 73% of people between the ages of 15-64 employed, according to INSEE.
However, according to Animation Directions in Research, Research and Statistics (Dares), attachment to meaning at work develops at heights of health limitation. In January 2021, nearly 20% of workers reported a greater sense of purpose or pride in their jobs, while conversely, 10% reported a decrease in meaning.
Thus, the health crisis and its restrictions allow workers to take a step back from the conditions and meaning of their work.
Note that the meaning of work is an old question. In fact, major international surveys conducted since the 80s have shown more generally that the French place great value on work as an activity that provides income and dignity.
In 2015, a survey by the Center for Qualification Research and Research (Cereq) also showed that 33% of employees wanted to change jobs, and the reasons were always combined with meaning and working conditions.
The least qualified employees and workers highlighted their desire to escape instability, such as those related to the prospect of job protection schemes or untenable situations with multiple employers.
For employees and skilled workers, the desire for change also echoes a desire to move away from instability and a fear of degradation, but the latter also declares a rejection of repetitive and difficult work, and even their desire to better reconcile their lives desire.
Finally, managers and mid-level occupations also highlighted the fear of losing their jobs, but also the gap between their personal aspirations and the meaning of their professional activities, as well as certain moral conflicts.
In fact, for all socio-occupational categories, problems often arise in terms of health, both physical and mental. In fact, employees suffer when their work appears to them to be absurd, low-quality, unrecognized, and performed under unsustainable conditions.
Therefore, “quiet resignation” is probably not a cold and deliberate choice to maximize the individual, but a defense mechanism that is spontaneously established when the job has become untenable. The defense mechanism that mitigates the sense of absurdity, the lack of recognition, whether from colleagues, superiors, or salary, is the aspect of value sharing.
That’s how we understand the strike, which is at the root of the fuel shortages currently affecting France, for Total employees who don’t understand why their company’s record profits don’t worry them.
“Why Workers Work So Hard”
As Marx reminds us in the Grundrisse Critique of Political Economy, or Foundations, in a world where workers are “free” to sell their labor power, the problem of cooperation is itself fundamental to the production system.
Concepts such as Quiet Quit or Big Quit may therefore be essential today, as they reflect a concern for maintaining patterns of cooperation (availability, intensity, subjective and emotional investment, etc.) to cooperate.
Should we share this concern? If, on the other hand, “quiet resignation” consists, for workers, in questioning what is expected of them in the contract, in assessing the gap between what they do and what they are paid, and then giving up all or part of the free work, then the sum of these individual actions Potentially political by questioning the functioning of production systems.
Among the three public functions, the correct fulfillment of public service tasks depends to a large extent on this excess work: unpaid overtime, whether in nursing, education, the police, or the judiciary, for example! In the private sector, the creation of added value relies especially on overworked employees, who do not see the benefits.
However, as shown in our comparative study between France and Finland, professional availability limited to contractual expectations is fully compatible with high productivity requirements.
Quiet exits can thus constitute an invitation to stop bemoaning workers’ lack of commitment and instead ask themselves, as the British sociologist Michael Burawoy put it in his book Producing Consent, “Are they Why so much work”?
This will be an opportunity to better realize that the proper functioning of organizations depends on what workers do beyond what their contracts expect of them, and on people in all industries and socio-professional categories from workers to executives. (dialogue)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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