The Changed Perception of Productivity in the Quiet Quitting Era

Photo by Andreas Klassen on Unsplash

The talk of which generation is the most productive and what real productivity is gaining more and more attention due to the growing popularity of the quiet quitting trend. Your great performance at work isn’t the only factor that makes you productive. Productivity is perception. So it’s vital that managers perceive you as a high performer.

With quiet quitting on the rise, many employees started focusing on employee productivity again, wondering whether they are truly committed to their work or they stick to the bare minimum needed to keep a job. At the same time, employees working remotely may fear that their greet job may go unnoticed.

How Coworkers React to Quiet Quitting

You may think that quiet quitting and refusing to go above the bare minimum annoys just managers. But you’d be wrong. According to the LLC study that this behavior bothers your coworkers too.

• 62% of participants find the entire quiet quitting trend annoying and harmful.
• 58% state that they’ve identified quiet quitters in their workplace.
• 42% find laziness and poor work ethic the most annoying trait after complaining.

These statistics show that something that started as a silent protest against overworking has become an excuse for many to stop doing their jobs. The fact is that quiet quitters burden their coworkers, pressuring them to work more to keep productivity levels from plunging.
57% of surveyed employees said they had to take on additional workload because of their quiet quitting colleagues. This shows that quiet quitting may affect not only productivity but also interpersonal relationships causing unnecessary conflicts and discrimination.

For all these reasons, employee performance is under scrutiny again. More and more business owners decide to rely on software for employee monitoring to get a better understanding of the way their employees spend their work hours. This advanced app can help managers identify quiet quitters and overachievers and act accordingly.

Here are some strategies that you can use to showcase your outstanding performance without bragging excessively.

Be Exceptional at Work

Instead of using a mouse jiggler, or trying to trick a cloud-based monitoring software while you’re on an endless coffee break, try to commit that time to work on your tasks and projects. You can pretend to be busy and productive, but this tactic won’t get you far. Your supervisors will see through your staged show sooner or later. So instead of thinking of new ways to fake productivity, use this time to actually do your work. There are three benefits of increased engagement in work:

• Increased self-esteem. You’ll feel better about yourself when you see the results of your work.
• You’ll learn more and grow professionally by focusing on your tasks.
• You may feel more connected to your colleagues when working on various projects and showing a willingness to collaborate.

Take Initiative

If you want to emphasize your work results and performance get involved in projects critical for your company, sharing various ideas and being proactive in problem-solving sessions. Also, don’t shy away from daily tasks that may not be so creative or interesting, but still contribute to reaching set goals.

The bottom line is to approach meaningful projects and routine tasks with the same enthusiasm, efficiency, and responsibility. This approach will show your managers that they can trust you with different projects, knowing that you’ll deliver exceptional results.

Be Open to Collaboration

If you want to showcase your performance, build meaningful relationships with other team members. Be there when they need you, follow through, and get things done when others are counting on you. Your colleagues will appreciate this willingness to help and be happy to return the favor at any time.

The more you nourish your relationships at work, the more respect, and credibility, you’ll get. You can always rely on your colleagues when you need honest feedback or advice. In this way, you can grow professionally and personally and feel more confident and fulfilled at work.

Track Your Performance

Let’s address the fear of invisibility most employees have when working remotely. The fact that your boss can’t see you at work prompted many business owners to seek the help of team monitoring tools. Research shows that 80% of American private sectors already implement employee tracking and that 70% of large businesses plan to incorporate software for employee monitoring in their workflow in the next three years.

Even though employee surveillance may sound threatening and invasive, when done responsibly and transparently it can offer employees accurate and undeniable proof of work. You can access your work tracking data and see how productive you are while working on different tasks and projects. Use these reports to convince your manager that your high performance deserves a reward.

Final Words

The perception of productivity has definitely changed over the years demanding a change in how employees’ results are measured. When identifying top performers, the focus should be on the quality of the work delivered, rather than on quantity.

This said when you want the bosses to recognize your hard work, don’t reach out for fake productivity practices because they can backfire on you causing countereffects. Try to be more proactive, efficient, and collaborative instead and the long-awaited recognition will come.