Loud Quitting - An Antidote to 'You're Fired'?

Much has been written recently about ‘quiet quitting’. Quiet quitting is when employees perform the minimum requirements of their jobs yet continue to collect their monthly or weekly paycheque.

Simply put, quiet quitters reject the notion that work has to take over one’s life. Quiet quitters work hard at doing the bare minimum required of their jobs, never going the extra mile, never working longer hours than those prescribed by their employment contracts and displaying no enthusiasm whatsoever for their jobs.

The term ‘quiet quitting’ is, however, a misnomer as the employee doesn’t actually leave the job. Quiet quitting is akin to working to rule (without the connotation of industrial action) and is, essentially, an employee doing the absolute bare minimum and getting paid to do it.

A new trend has recently emerged. It’s called ‘loud quitting’ would you believe, and is, you might say, the antidote to being told, ‘You’re fired’! The term is exactly what you would imagine – leaving your job in a loud, disruptive, and impactful manner.

Oftentimes, disgruntled employees will want to ‘get in first’ so to speak by employing loud quitting tactics before being fired. They make use of social media or other public forums and platforms to air their views, trash their employer, and ventilate their anger and frustrations.

In certain instances, loud quitting is used to expose injustices at the workplace, harassment, toxic workplace relationships, or toxic workplace cultures.

Whatever the reasons, loud quitting is aimed at drawing as much attention to the areas of discontent between employee and employer as possible, to air this ‘dirty washing’ in the public domain, and to derive maximum effect in the process.

Whilst, it could be argued, loud quitting might serve as a cathartic outpouring of pent-up emotions (to read anger) by the disgruntled employee, this is certainly not an emotion shared by the employer. Understandably, many employers are pushing back against these loud quitters, oftentimes pursuing the litigation route.

A report recently published by the US consultancy firm Gallup found that one in five, or 20%, of employees, globally, are ‘loudly quitting’ or ‘actively disengaged’. The report defined loud quitting ‘as employees who take actions that directly harm the organisation, while undercutting its goals and opposing its leaders’.

Global statistics suggest that loud quitting poses a significant risk to employers, both from a reputational damage and staff turnover perspective. Risk management practitioners would be well advised to incorporate ‘loud quitting’ in their corporate risk management plans and strategies.

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