With quiet quitting on the rise because of social media visibility, businesses are looking for solutions. Fortunately, offshoring can help not only in business operations but also in employee satisfaction.
Businesses invest in employees with full expectations that they can perform the functions they are hired for, lending their skills and ability to a company that needs it to keep operations flowing. In exchange, the company adheres to the agreed-upon salary and compensation. That is the main foundation of the relationship between businesses and employees. However, the Covid-19 pandemic changed things.
People are starting to realize just how short life can be and dedicating most of it to career development seems like an unnecessary waste of borrowed time on Earth. On average, a person spends one-third of their life at work. When you factor in basic survival activities like sleeping, eating, and exercising, the time people have to themselves gets cut short.
Priorities changed during the pandemic, and most of those adjustments revolve around how people work, where they work, and how much time they spend on work. Thus, the “quiet quit” movement was born. What does it mean to quiet quit? It is an employee-level movement attracting attention and creating a cause of concern for every business owner, C-Level executive, and team manager, like how fire truck sirens increasingly get noisier as they rush to your fire-stricken street.
Where did Quiet Quitting Originate?
Quiet quitting your job is the latest buzzword in a seemingly continuously evolving saga that started with the pandemic-driven phenomenon, “The Great Resignation.” However, it became clear at once that the mass resignations were a protest against many companies looking to get things back to pre-pandemic ways instead of moving forward. Remote work setups, considered alternatives to traditional work arrangements amid the strict social distancing protocols, proved effective.
Remote work setups opened employees’ eyes to a lot of things, including the following realizations:
- That remote work setup is possible.
- That remote work setup is more convenient.
- And that remote work setup offers a much better work-life balance.
Remote work’s sweet taste made employees wonder why it took a global crisis for businesses to adjust their operations to one that favors them. As a result, the whole dynamic of an employee-centric company changed in the eyes of the workers. Do businesses really care about them when they get forced to go through the hassles of commuting or must pay for expensive gas when driving to work? In remote work, all they really must do is get up and open their work equipment to get started. This example is only one of the many ways remote work setups provide convenience. And thus, the mass attempt to find organizations willing to provide what employees demanded signaled the start of the Great Resignation.
However, resignations are not meant to last long. After all, people need income to survive and thrive in life, and they cannot do that without a job. As a result, the Great Resignation morphed into the Great Talent Migration.
People prioritize their well-being and preferences when looking for a job, even if it means moving to a new company after years of loyalty. Others might even move to a completely different industry, especially if it means a more convenient life. Some could work on themselves long enough to take on the entrepreneurial path. Movement is everywhere, as it has always been ever since. The Great Resignation might have contributed to increasing its numbers within the past two years, but it shouldn’t be surprising.
Businesses can and should adjust to the demands of what they consider their most valuable asset, especially when trying to reduce turnover rates. It might mean dedicating resources and funds to employee engagement, income appraisals, compensation, career development and training programs, and many more. When employees feel like they are in a comfortable situation, they are more likely to exert more effort or go beyond their work. However, is it really necessary?
The Republic of China, known for being one of the most labor-intensive countries in the world, is an outsourcing giant that caters to many corporations and organizations worldwide. It is an attractive destination simply because the labor is cheap and the workers have a strong work ethic, creating a culture centered around hard work and diligence. However, Chinese workers started to break the illusion behind their point of pride, revealing they had to suffer long and grueling hours of non-stop work because of the belief that life is all about work. The brutal “996” work culture was exposed, where people had to work from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm (or 12 hours) six days a week. This unpleasant situation has been going on for decades, and in recent times, Chinese workers are starting a movement to voice their displeasure with it by “lying flat.”
The Lying Flat philosophy or tang ping (躺平) involves workers reassessing their lives and trying their best to avoid the stress and pressure of a work-centric life. It is most common in the technology sector, where competition is fierce in China. Not being able to have a social life, constantly being tired, and having to accept menial pay and benefits led to workers deciding to lie down and rest. The philosophy then spreads worldwide, leading to multiple variations of employees taking control of their lives and removing work from their top priorities. No more getting exploited, no more unnecessary overtime, just do your work and log out as soon as the shift is over. There, people that question what is quiet quitting begin to understand.
How Does Quiet Quitting Affect Small Businesses?
There remains a straightforward solution to prevent workers from quiet quitting work or even resigning. Making your organization attractive to employees should be a priority.
What exactly do businesses need to provide to achieve that? Here are a few examples:
The additions mentioned above can help businesses create an attractive destination for employees. Unfortunately, all those things require dedicated resources, adding up to the costs that would otherwise be used to further business growth. As a result, those that can prevent employees from quietly quitting the job are those with funding flexible enough to prioritize creating a company culture that consists of most of the examples mentioned above. That usually belongs to large and stable corporations, but what about small businesses?
Small businesses are already at a disadvantage when trying to keep employees. They spend nearly $3 million daily (or about $1.1 billion yearly) to replace workers quitting their jobs. Turnovers also affect productivity and business growth, creating disruptions in operational flow, work output, employee morale, and business reputation in talent markets. Pretty soon, quiet quit’s meaning begins to take the form of employees leaving for better opportunities without compromising themselves.
It is no secret that small businesses rely on a limited number of employees to perform tasks beyond their first job description. With quiet quitting becoming an alarming trend, small businesses are in even more challenging terrains when retaining and getting the most out of their employees. Unfortunately, lack of cash flow remains a problem, making it challenging to make the venture as attractive as those that can provide standard health insurance packages, bonuses, and career development programs. However, there is no reason for small businesses to let employee disengagement overwhelm them. One of the best solutions to prevent quiet quitting is seeking offshoring solutions.
How Does Offshoring Help Fix the Quiet Quitting Problem?
Curbing the quiet quitting mindset seems like a job for Human Resources, but a small business owner’s role is still relevant to the situation. After all, the entire business suffers when employees feel disengaged from their work and the company. Focusing on the five tactics of quiet quitting prevention is a good start, and most of them might get suggested by your HR team, but it is essential to remember the growth trajectory of the business too. As much as you want to create an attractive work culture to keep employees engaged, you might want to dedicate what limited resources you must core business matters. In that situation, it can be challenging to negate the costs of replacing a terminated or resigning employee, much more so when adding personnel to make up for those who quiet quit their jobs in your company. Fortunately, hiring people becomes less of a costly and time-consuming process with offshoring services.
Many confuse offshoring with outsourcing since both supply staffing solutions to help businesses save overhead costs on hiring talent. However, outsourcing’s standard service stops with creating a contract between clients and their outsourced employees. Offshoring involves moving business divisions to different countries for strategic purposes beyond getting people to perform jobs. Offshoring is more suitable for businesses looking to save up on overall costs for business operations, tap into a larger workforce and a global market, and get more favorable regulations in national governments providing extensive support for their business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. However, offshoring services can help small businesses cut the effects of quiet quitting through support services.
Many offshoring firms offer support services in their respective value propositions. Some of the most notable are:
- Facilities - to build fully branded office suites with the technology, software, and equipment to incorporate offshore teams into the business operations.
- IT Support - to create a private and secure network for business connectivity and communication between clients and offshore teams.
- Recruitment - to find the best local talent for a client’s offshore workers.
- Payroll - to assist clients in arranging income and compensation packages for offshore employees.
Those are only a few support services that an offshoring firm can provide. However, they can also include Human Resources, Compensation and Benefits, Client Services, and Learning and Development, all crucial to keeping your offshore teams engaged with their work.
Human resources can handle employee engagement efforts and work-life balance tactics to keep employees comfortable and secure in their respective jobs. Compensation and Benefits will be HR’s partners for employee engagement. Still, their primary purpose is to ensure that a client’s offshore team receives recognition and bonuses necessary to keep employees satisfied and performing well. Besides the usual tasks aside from Client Services, they can also serve as informants of clients about their offshore team’s productivity, morale, and satisfaction, helping create strategies to improve those aspects. Lastly, Learning and Development can help offshore teams make progress in team chemistry and career development.
Having these support services under one package is beneficial, especially for small businesses that can’t dedicate resources and funding to building in-house divisions. The quiet quitting movement can slowly disappear from your company when employees feel fulfilled.
We Listen: iSupport Worldwide's Approach to Quiet Quitting
Quiet quitting does not sound like it is about to die down any time soon. However, small businesses should never consider it a roadblock, especially with offshoring services. It is essential to find the right offshoring company to partner with when trying to prevent quiet quitting from disrupting business operations. Fortunately, iSupport Worldwide has everything covered.
iSupport Worldwide is a modern offshoring partner for small businesses worldwide. The organization stays up to date with the latest trends and developments happening around the world, which means it is ready to help clients continue thriving despite hardships. iSupport has been present during the Covid-19 pandemic, supplying solutions for existing clients amid the many changes happening in lockdowns. It has also been able to help businesses fight off the effects of the Great Resignation through expanding talent search globally. For quiet quitting, support services are ready and able to keep offshore teams engaged and active to help clients succeed. Recently, iSupport Worldwide received another accolade for its adaptability, leading to its inclusion in the prestigious Inc. 5000’s List of fastest-growing companies for the second year in a row.
If you want to know more about what iSupport Worldwide can do for you amid the quiet quitting movement, don’t hesitate to sign up here. If you’re going to get started as soon as you finish reading this article, you can book a call here at the soonest possible time.
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