Quiet and Loud Quitting: Deciphering rhetoric versus reality

Session Leaders: Sharna Wiblen, Jennifer Deal and Alec Levenson

Thursday February 9, 2023
8:00am PT / 11:00am ET / 4:00pm GMT

The challenges associated with “quiet quitting” dominated many HR and leadership discussions in 2022 as executives sought to navigate ways of working and leading in an environment shaped by Covid-19 and extremely tight labor markets. Now that it’s 2023 and some of the labor market pressures are receding, many leaders undoubtedly are hoping that things will go back to normal, whatever that means.

Yet the underlying labor market dynamics that led to concerns about quiet quitting during an extremely tight labor market are not going to magically disappear. Even if the number of job vacancies falls and the unemployment rate rises, increased workforce mobility, digitalization, and hybrid working options have permanently increased external job opportunities for your people. Losing your best people is a risk in any labor market. And for many organizations, employees quitting – whether quietly or loudly – can be the stuff of nightmares and keeping executives up at night.

This session addresses the workplace changes associated with quiet and loud quitting. We compare the rhetoric and reality by discussing some of the issues organizations are facing right now to decipher between those changes and patterns that are superficial, versus those that represent substantial changes to how and why people work.

This open session provides an opportunity for you to share your experiences – so please come primed with the success and horror stories of quiet and loud quitting.