Let’s Call Quiet Quitting What It Often Is: Calibrated Contributing

For employees who are rationally matching their effort at work to what they get in return in an increasingly unbalanced system, quiet quitting is not the right term.

Jim Detert Reading Time: 6 min 

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Janet is a pharmacist who worked in person throughout the pandemic, enduring daily risk to her own health and a stream of abuse from scared, frustrated customers. For this commitment, she made less than 1% of the salary of her company’s CEO in each of the past three years.

Alex works in IT support. For several years, he actively tried to help improve his group’s efficiency and culture but found his ideas repeatedly ignored. When the pandemic hit, he figured management would finally listen to and act on his insights about how to keep virtual workers positive and productive. He was wrong.

Like millions of other Americans, Janet and Alex eventually concluded that what they were getting out of work — be it their financial compensation or a sense of control or respect — didn’t match what they were putting in. They were, in short, giving more than they were getting, so they decided to scale back their efforts. Janet still does her job well, but she won’t stay late or take extra shifts. Alex still handles the same volume of support calls, but he has stopped speaking up or investing effort in coming up with potential improvements.

Apparently, this makes Janet and Alex “quiet quitters,” a fuzzy term meaning either doing a job’s bare minimum or no longer trying to overachieve. I’m not doubting that this is happening a lot these days. It’s been happening for decades among employees who are disengaged and disillusioned with their jobs.

What I’m bothered by is the label: Quitting seems like a decidedly derogatory, adversarial term for situations like these. Why not call Janet and Alex calibrated contributors — employees who are rationally matching their effort to what they get in return?

The notion of calibrated contributing would recognize that Janet and Alex are simply trying to enact their views of fairness or balance, having concluded that their employers and our laws in the U.S. aren’t going to do that for them. Their choices illustrate equity theory’s core prediction about motivation.1 Put simply, equity theory says that fairness is a relative judgment — the ratio of what one puts in and gets out compared with some relevant other’s contributions and rewards.

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About the Author

Jim Detert is the John L. Colley Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and the author of Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021).

References

1. J.S. Adams, “Inequity in Social Exchange,” in “Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 2,” ed. L. Berkowitz (New York: Academic Press, 1965), 267-299.

2. L. Van Dyne, L.L. Cummings, and J.M. Parks, “Extra-Role Behaviors: In Pursuit of Construct and Definitional Clarity (A Bridge Over Muddied Waters),” in “Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 17,” eds. L.L. Cummings and B.M. Staw (Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press, 1995), 215-285.

3. N.P. Podsakoff, S.W. Whiting, P.M. Podsakoff, et al., “Individual- and Organizational-Level Consequences of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Applied Psychology 94, no. 1 (January 2009): 122-141.

4. L. Van Dyne and J.B. Ellis, “Job Creep: A Reactance Theory Perspective on Organizational Citizenship Behavior as Overfulfillment of Obligations,” in “The Employment Relationship: Examining Psychological and Contextual Perspectives,” eds. J.A.M. Coyle-Shapiro, L.M. Shore, and L.E. Tetrick (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2004), 181-205.

5. N. Fairclough, “Language and Power,” 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2013).

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Comments (3)
GLADYS VAZ
If the percentage of quiet quitters, is 5% , then HR needs to engage with the concerned team members and the immediate superior, to understand reasons for it, and, rectify it where possible. Often, the immediate Superior is responsible for quiet quitters. HR will need to analyse such cases, and take it up with the concerned HOD.
Roberto Bonilla
In Mexico, the equivalent to quiet quitting, goes like this: If you pretend to pay me “well”, I will pretend to work “well”.
Stuart Roehrl
I appreciate your explanation of the distinction between the notion of quiet quitting, with its negative implications, and  calibrated contribution, which evokes a sense of measured fairness and setting personal boundaries in the context of reasonably perceived inequities or unacceptable treatment.  Of course, one might quit going above and beyond while still performing adequately their required tasks.  But this could mean that, in their heart, they are already moving on.
Stuart Roehrl