Quiet quitting takes centre stage

The term “quiet quitting” is increasingly common in HR discourse, according to Elaine do Rosario, CHRO and AVP at the University of Guelph,

But it’s important to understand why employees are refraining from going above and beyond at work, meaning they’re “doing what they're paid to do, nothing more, nothing less,” she said.

“What does it really mean? What are the real drivers?”

Do Rosario was speaking at HR FutureFest in Toronto on June 3. The session — titled "Clocked in but tapped out? How to manage quiet quitting" — unpacked the roots of employee disengagement and explored leadership’s role in reversing the trend of so-called quiet quitting.

Pandemic aftershocks 

Speaking on the panel, Isioma Coker, HR director at SaskTel, said the pandemic fundamentally changed how people view their work and lives.

“After COVID, there was a change in the workforce, and it was also a change for a lot of people personally,” she said, reflecting on her time at Shell during the pandemic.

Organizations quickly adapted to remote work, proving their operational resilience, but did not anticipate the long-term effects.

“Since then, we've kind of been spiraling from a change perspective across a lot of organizations,” Coker said.

She highlighted that while companies raced to innovate, they often neglected the human impact of these rapid shifts.

“We're not thinking about what the impact of those changes are on people who are in the organization... What you’re seeing is people are burnt out, people are fed up,” said Coker, adding that many have realized they have other priorities than work.

Change fatigue and leadership friction

Mike Jackson, partner, human capital management value at UKG, who was also on the panel, agreed that the rise of remote work during COVID led to many leaders questioning if employees were being productive.

“And we got so used to presence equals performance that we kind of lost the plot along the way around ‘What is engagement? What is productivity?’” he said.

“And that burden fell on employees, and they're feeling it. There's this constant pressure of organizational change, constant pressure of being monitored, and as a result, there's a burnout, there's a lack of belonging, and just this quiet disengagement, where people feel like ‘Why am I here when I could be doing something else more rewarding, more fulfilling?’”

That continuous organizational change creates tension for employees, said Jackson.

“Employees are going through a lot... and you've got a bit of a friction problem as a result,” he said, citing change fatigue as roles and structures evolve quickly.

Jackson pointed to increasing use of short-term disability as a barometer of employee burnout.

“When you peel back what's happening there, it gives a sense of why: ‘‘I can't bring my full self to work. And so I can't apply myself, I can't use the skills I have,’” he said.

Supporting teams to avoid quiet quitting

Jackson acknowledged that leaders are caught between innovation demands and retention needs.

“They have to be either an enabler of change or an enabler of retention, and I think you can do both things, but the role of retention has to be about engagement,” he said, citing the importance of two-way dialogue.

Leaders can support their teams by setting clearer role expectations, even in environments of constant flux, said Jackson.

“What can I do as a leader to help... to create parameters, barriers around the roles, so you can get it done [amid] constant change?”

Supporting stressed managers and humanizing leadership

Panelists also stressed the role of middle managers in curbing disengagement. Coker described walking into a high-pressure team environment where employees were hesitant to apply for leadership roles.

“They were just like, ‘It's too much. There's too much going on, everything needs to be changed,’” she said.

Managers often bear the brunt of organizational expectations without adequate support, according to Coker.

“A lot of people leave organizations because of their managers,” she said. “We need to find a way to support managers, to balance a business partner [role and] to also have that ability to do the human part as well... because that's where you have the gap.”

It’s also about being “courageous” to step up and extend a project deadline or even stop a project, she said, adding that such acts can restore employee loyalty and rebuild trust.

Boosting employee engagement

When asked who owns engagement — HR or leadership — the audience at HR FutureFest leaned toward both, which do Rosario noted as a positive shift.

But Jackson urged HR professionals to operate with empathy.

“Humans are weird. Honestly, we're not predictable... We as humans will do the same thing five times, and then the sixth time do something totally different,” he said, highlighting a weakness of annual engagement surveys.

“They have a place, but the reality is, when you do it once a year or once every two years, it doesn't really fit with humans... We're unpredictable, and so if you ask me a question once a year, you're not going to get much value out of that, right? The data is skewed. If you ask me ‘How am I feeling on a weekly basis?’ it changes. It changes on a daily basis.”

So, moving away from annualized engagement to pulse surveys in the flow of work, to regular check-ins gives a better sense of overall engagement, how people are feeling, and how they're contributing, said Jackson.

“It gives you actionable insights to see that the flow is connected to the work that they're doing, to the realities that's going on outside of work, and to get more actionable insights that you can start to apply and combat disengagement.”

As a result, HR should operate with a “tremendous amount of empathy,” he said, because people are the most unpredictable part of the business, so “the tools don’t always work right.”

Formal check-ins and culture in hybrid environments

Coker encouraged leaders to adopt structured engagement practices, particularly in hybrid workplaces.

“If you manage a virtual team, you should be having conversations with everyone at least once a week… that’s the time commitment required,” she said, sharing her experience managing global teams.

She recommended both business and informal check-ins where people feel free to speak their mind: “Whatever you want to say — this isn't an HR-like conversation.”

Building a team culture that values transparency and connection, even remotely, helps pre-empt issues before they escalate, said Coker.

“By the time you start seeing it through their performance, and we're trying to performance manage it, it's already a mental health crisis.”

Beyond lip service: giving managers real tools

Leaders will want to schedule those check-ins regularly, to build both professional and personal connections, said Jackson.

“But it's a learned behaviour, and it's a muscle that leadership has to build,” he said.

“And as you look at succession planning, looking at what does good talent look like in the next iteration, these are the types of things I think would be a bit more common, because people understand what it's like to work in a disconnected culture. They know the tools that are needed. And so I think it's going to [require] a reskilling of leadership when it comes to this.”

In her final remarks, Coker urged HR leaders to prioritize emotional intelligence in management training.

“You're really designing tools to develop leadership, develop the right leadership skills... giving them emotional intelligence training,” she said. Creating space for compassion is key: “You should be able to say, ‘Hey, you're having a bad day. Do you want to take some time off?’”

She added that as HR teams juggle strategic initiatives—mergers, downsizing, transformation—they must not lose sight of frontline leadership support.

“Have we followed that from a manager perspective? What do we want to give them to make that change easier?”