On the Clock: Gurus Say They Can Curb Quiet Quitting

"His name is Dean Lindsay, though that's not what he goes by on LinkedIn. "Quiet Quitting Keynote Speaker" is this search-savvy consultant's new moniker, and he says it's helping him get hired -- at $10,000 to $15,000 a day -- by companies sweating the latest buzzy term for employee disengagement.

Mr. Lindsay, who has been advising businesses about corporate culture for two decades, says quiet quitting is closely related to burnout, work-life balance, stress management and other phenomena that came before. His prescriptions are largely the same, too.

When he saw the viral TikTok phrase had quickly migrated from social media to the C-suite, compelling many bosses to think about how to stop workers from checking out, he didn't hesitate to rebrand.

"I just jumped on it," he says.

If you're running a company now, chances are your inbox is full of messages from experts claiming they can goose morale, foster connection, boost buy-in and make various other jargon-studded dreams come true.

 The people who claim to know the most about quiet quitting are real go-getters, it turns out.

The extent of the problem these consultants aim to solve, and whether it's new, is debatable. Many of them say that's beside the point. Getting people to care more deeply about their jobs and colleagues may be a perpetual corporate mission, but it's an important one, the argument goes. So what if it took a meme to intensify the sense of urgency?

Some, like Mr. Lindsay, run rousing workshops full of motivational mnemonics. (It's all about the six P's of progress, he says: pleasure, peace of mind, profit, prestige, pain avoidance and power.)

Less experienced consultants advertise youth as an advantage, saying they can get through to millennials and Gen Z. Still others offer to set up employee-driven charitable campaigns, using company dollars, to make people feel better about where they work.

Rising Team, a Palo Alto, Calif., startup that sells camaraderie-building software designed to reduce quitting (quiet or otherwise), just closed a second venture capital round, bringing total investments to $6 million.

For human-resources leaders, the pitches can seem endless.

Priti Patel, chief people officer at G2, a technology marketplace, says she gets daily emails about solving burnout and quiet quitting. "I don't even count anymore," she says.

While some solicitations strike her as gimmicky, Ms. Patel says she doesn't roll her eyes at all of them. She landed her current position last year after first working with the company as an independent "conscious leadership" coach, which she describes as helping managers deepen their emotional intelligence.

Her take on quiet quitting is that it's simply the notion of having boundaries at work -- hardly new.

Nevertheless, establishing the boundaries is a real challenge for managers and direct reports alike, she says, and sometimes an outsider can help set expectations that work for everyone.

Karyn Twaronite, Ernst & Young's global diversity, equity and inclusion officer, adds that HR consultants can lend valuable perspectives if they represent the views of young people or others who are missing or rare in the executive ranks. EY uses a mix of internal and external advisers, she says, and conducts quarterly "pulse" surveys, asking whether employees feel that they belong at the firm and are free to be themselves.

"These feel like softer things, but we know that they're critical because if people don't feel this way, then they could, in theory, quit," she says.

Data is a main selling point for Rising Team, the venture-funded startup that Facebook, Google and Yahoo veteran Jennifer Dulski launched in 2020. Her young company starts by polling a client's staff to measure the likelihood they'll stay, and says in a few months it can deliver a meaningful increase in the share who plan to stick around.

Ms. Dulski, who teaches management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, aims to get co-workers to know and like each other -- and without resorting to hackneyed exercises like trust falls. Rising Team's "kits," as she calls the software, lead groups of employees through virtual or in-person discussions every six weeks or so. A kit for a 10-person team costs $99 a month, and companies with many teams can get discounts for buying in bulk.

Money helps, too, though raises and bonuses aren't the only ways to promote loyalty and engagement, says Tess Murphy, director of strategic partnerships at Kiva, a microfinance nonprofit. Her pitch to companies is that they can pump up employee enthusiasm by letting every worker direct a small sum -- as little as $50 -- to a favorite cause.

Appealing to executives who are confounded by their younger employees, Adam Owens left a steady human-resources job and started his own consulting operation this year. If you're a Boomer or Gen Xer trying to figure out Gen Zers, he says, hire someone like him, a former philosophy major who dropped out of college in the aughts and built a career without the typical credentials.

Many young workers aren't unmotivated, he adds, but they don't necessarily measure success like their predecessors or do what they're supposed to do in the eyes of others. Mr. Owens aims to help bosses understand what these employees really care about.

"Millennials are uniquely positioned to deal with this challenge," he says. "We function as a bridge between the other generations."" [1]

1.  On the Clock: Gurus Say They Can Curb Quiet Quitting
Borchers, Callum. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 06 Oct 2022: A.11.