What Causes Quiet Quitting?

The term ‘quiet quitting’ has been buzzing throughout the global workforce recently, though it is hardly a new development. As more and more employees discover their worth and refuse to settle for toxic work environments and company culture, quiet quitting or silent quitting has affected many businesses.

If you’ve noticed the quiet quitting trend has impacted your company, it is important to find the right solutions that improve your work culture and help employees feel heard. The Norfus Firm specializes in workplace engagement and retention issues and can assist. In this informative blog post, we provide more insight into why workers are quietly quitting and how you can combat quiet quitting.

What Does It Mean to Quiet Quit?

Quiet quitting is part of the “Great Resignation,” a movement where employees aren’t exactly quitting their jobs per se, but they are no longer putting in the effort. Quiet quitters are setting boundaries rather than going above and beyond to get little to nothing in return. Essentially, silent quitting or quiet quitting refers to disengagement in motivation, enthusiasm, and commitment to the job while physically remaining in the role.

When an employee quiet quits, they only give the bare minimum required rather than give in to the demands of hustle culture. Naturally, this employee disengagement can impact your operations in numerous ways. It can hinder productivity as well as cause other employees to become potential quiet quitters.

Signs of Quiet Quitting

The key to avoiding these issues within your company is to address them rather than dismissing quiet quitting as a trend. HR teams must be invested in providing a positive work environment that creates job satisfaction. In order to fight this silent resignation, it is important to look for the signs that indicate a quiet quit is imminent.

Low Employee Engagement

You may notice that an employee who once went above and beyond is no longer doing so. With soft quitting, employees put in less effort and refrain from going the extra mile to avoid stress. You may notice an employee who used to work overtime and help other employees with their projects withdraw and only focus on their job.

Additionally, they may no longer speak up when they were once vocal. They may attend mandatory meetings, but they’ll skip non-mandatory meetings when they quietly quit.

Contributing the Bare Minimum

When employees quiet quit, particularly young employees, they only stick to the basics of their job description. When an employee is a self-starter, they contribute ideas and set goals to strategize for the future. Quiet quitters only do the minimum required of their job duties.

They will only work hours they are required from the starting time to ending time each day rather than put in long hours to finish a project. While no employee should be made to work more hours than usual every day, the difference with quiet quitting is that they lose their passion and stop caring about deadlines.

Not Being Involved with the Team

Along with a lack of putting in extra effort, many employees that quiet quit stop contributing to the team. A quiet quitter only participates in what is mandated and generally avoids other interactions.

Why Are Employees Quiet Quitting?

In order to know why employees quietly quit, you need to get to the root causes of quiet quitting. What leads to quiet quitting for one employee may be different for another. Preventing quiet quitting can only happen when you identify the common quiet quitting reasons that spark this behavior.

Lack of Recognition

One of the biggest reasons employees become quiet quitters is a lack of recognition for their efforts. When employees feel that they are not being acknowledged for the work they put in, they may be responding to what they perceive as quiet firing.

Since quiet firing is something many companies do either intentionally or unintentionally by not offering raises or increasing workload without increasing pay, employees respond to feeling disrespected by not caring about the job.

Low Pay

Many employees that are quiet quitting are doing so because their pay does not match the effort they put into the job. Quiet quitters realize that putting in more productivity isn’t reflected in their salaries or bonuses. When employees aren’t paid accordingly, it can hamper employee engagement.

Lack of Healthy Work Life Balance

Poor work life balance is another reason for quiet quitting. When a job is all-consuming, it eats away at the time each person needs to replenish and enjoy themselves outside of working hours. A better work life balance is needed for overall health and well-being.

Workload Overload

When employees are constantly overworked, it can cause them to burnout quickly. It’s easy for them to lose enthusiasm about specific projects, clients, or even the entire organization when they are overburdened in this way.

Job Burnout and Toll on Mental Health

The need for more balance is also seen in employee burnout and the toll it takes on mental health. When these needs aren’t being met, the work environment suffers for everyone.

Poor Communication

When management does not properly communicate with employees, it can allow resentment to fester. Misunderstanding, frustration, and feelings of neglect can often fuel quiet quitting, especially if there are toxic management practices that are being ignored.

Lack of Autonomy and Conflicts

Employees that feel like they’re constantly controlled and not free to make decisions grow more resentful by the day. It becomes even worse when they are embroiled in conflict with managers or fellow coworkers, leading to a toxic working environment. Instead of walking out, they’ll simply just show up and do only what is required until they find another opportunity.

No Opportunities to Advance

Growth opportunities and career paths should be outlined by management teams to give an incentive for employees to stay with the company. Quiet quitting happens when employees have no chance to advance. They will bide their time while they seek opportunities elsewhere.

Personal Issues

In some cases, quiet quitters may not have an issue with the company or how it is run. They may be overburdened with personal problems and have little energy to devote to excelling in their careers.

Divorce, chronic illnesses, loss of a loved one, and other personal woes may take their toll on an employee at any time. They will keep showing up on time and clocking out on time every day to bring home a paycheck while concealing their internal battles.

How Quiet Quitting Impacts Your Business

When quiet quitting happens, it can affect many areas of your business. The most noticeable impacts will be felt in productivity. Many quiet quitters will simply cease to do more than what is required. This creates a chain reaction when the work then falls on other employees, who may soon become disenchanted with their jobs by being stuck with the excess.

Employees engaged in this tactic are simply maintaining their job security until something better comes along. You will need to dig deeper to prevent quiet quitting in your workplace and revamp organizational culture to improve the employee experience.

Quiet quitters continue to show up for work to collect their pay or keep their health insurance benefits. The only solution is to make a change that makes things better or you may wind up losing more than half your team.

Strategies to Prevent Quiet Quitting

Proactive measures should be put into place to keep employees from quiet quitting. Here are a few strategies you can employ to help curb this workplace issue:

Recognize and Reward Employees

Since many employees engage in this behavior because they do not feel acknowledged, concrete ways of recognition can help spark their interest. Consider awarding raises or bonuses, or even offering words of praise to motivate employees to reach new levels of achievement.

Provide Development Opportunities

Some employees may have felt so stuck for an extended period that their future feels dim. Your employees may feel more motivated if you provide opportunities to learn and grow in their careers.

Make It Possible for Them to Balance Work and Life

Everyone needs to take care of themselves and have the freedom to enjoy life outside of work. When employees feel that work is all they get to do, they may feel despondent and resentful. Employee assistance programs can help them meet their needs and feel like they are being heard.

Get Employee Feedback

You should listen to what all employees have to say. Their feedback is powerful and valuable, allowing you to understand their concerns. When employees do not feel like anyone is listening to them, it makes them mentally check out of their role in the company. Even the best companies always have room for improvement, and they get there by listening to the people responsible for making things run.

Define Roles Clearly

As you can see, employees silently quit when they are saddled with excess work with no recognition. While most employees likely won’t balk if a teammate is sick and they must step up to help, they will slowly fade out when they are taking on tasks that aren’t part of their job without being paid extra.

Define every job position and the responsibilities of each worker. When employees must constantly take on excess work that hinders their balance of work and life, make sure they are compensated and acknowledged for it.

Improve Management and Leadership Training

Sometimes, it’s not the company that has led to the quiet quitting of an employee. Managers and leaders must be kept in check to prevent micromanaging and allow every employee the chance to flourish. Regularly check in with department heads and their employees to ensure best practices are achieved.

Seek Assistance from Organizational Consultants

In order to address these issues, you may benefit from an outside perspective that thoroughly digs deep into why your employees may be quiet quitting. A people-focused approach is required to fully examine the needs of everyone in your company and ensure that the policies are inclusive and provide incentives for growth.

It is important to remember that every organization is different, and solutions will be unique for each one. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to take and while these tips can help you get started, you’ll want to bring in experts who can fully assess the situation. Doing so will help create the human connections needed to make all employees feel like an asset. It will also help provide safe spaces where employees can trust in the company and be driven to success through progress.

The Norfus Firm solves people’s problems, including quiet quitting, through outsourced HR, executive search, talent planning, and DEI strategies. We are the ally you need in these challenging times to help you elevate your employees and your organization seamlessly. When you are ready to identify why your employees are quiet quitting, contact us to get started.

In many organizations, bias, favoritism, and discrimination are often addressed only after they become formal complaints, once someone files an HR report, contacts legal, or signals a red flag that leadership can no longer ignore. But by then, the damage has often already been done.

Disengagement. Attrition. A TikTok rant that goes viral.

These issues rarely arise in a vacuum. Instead, they’re the result of patterns—subtle, systemic inequities that manifest long before anyone says the word “investigation.”

So here’s the question forward-thinking employers should ask: Can you spot the pattern before it becomes a complaint?

This post explores how unchecked bias and favoritism show up in everyday team dynamics, why early detection matters, and how leaders can interrupt these behaviors before they escalate into reputational, legal, or cultural risks. It builds on the insights shared in Beyond the Complaint: A Culture-First Approach to Workplace Investigations and offers practical steps for moving from reactive investigation to proactive prevention.

The Quiet Cost of Invisible Patterns

Bias doesn’t always scream discrimination. More often, it whispers.

It’s the high-performing employee who keeps getting passed over for leadership projects.

The parent whose flexible work schedule becomes a silent strike against them during performance reviews.

The LGBTQ+ team member who’s consistently excluded from informal networking lunches.

Each moment, on its own, may seem explainable—or worse, insignificant. But together, they form a mosaic of exclusion. Over time, those affected stop speaking up. Or they leave. Or they post about it on social media.

And the organization is left wondering, Why didn’t we see this coming?

Download “Beyond the Complaint” and learn more about how to develop a culture-first approach to workplace investigations.

Bias vs. Favoritism vs. Discrimination: What’s the Difference?

Understanding the distinctions between these concepts is key to spotting them early:

Bias is often unconscious. It’s a cognitive shortcut that affects how we interpret behavior, assign competence, or evaluate performance. Everyone has biases—but unchecked, they shape inequitable outcomes.

Favoritism is about unequal treatment. It may not be tied to a protected class, but it still erodes morale and trust. Favoritism creates in-groups and out-groups, often based on personal relationships rather than performance.

Discrimination involves adverse action based on a legally protected characteristic (like race, gender, age, disability, or religion). It’s illegal—and often easier to prove when there’s a documented pattern.

The problem? All three of these can show up long before legal thresholds are crossed.

The Investigations That Never Got Filed

At The Norfus Firm, we’ve led internal investigations across countless industries and a recurring insight is this: Most of the issues that end up in formal investigations started months (or years) earlier, in small patterns that no one interrupted.

Here are just a few real-world examples:

A marketing team where white women consistently received feedback on “executive presence,” while their Black colleagues were told to work on “tone.”
An engineering department where all the stretch assignments and promotions went to team members who regularly attended after-hours social events—events that parents, caregivers, or introverts often skipped.
A company where LGBTQ+ staff were informally advised not to “be too political,” creating a culture of silence and suppression.

None of these examples began with a complaint. But in each case, they led to one.

Why Managers Are the First Line of Defense

Managers have the most day-to-day visibility into employee experience but without proper training, they can unknowingly reinforce harmful patterns. That’s why leadership development must go beyond skills and span into equity-based accountability.

Here’s how bias and favoritism typically manifest at the managerial level:

Unequal Access to Stretch Assignments

Managers often give high-visibility work to employees they “trust”—which can quickly become a proxy for sameness, comfort, or likability. This creates a self-fulfilling cycle: certain team members get opportunities, grow faster, and are seen as more valuable… while others stagnate, regardless of their potential.

Prevention Tip: Require managers to track who receives key projects. Quarterly reviews can surface patterns in opportunity distribution.

Subjective Performance Feedback

Bias thrives in ambiguity. Phrases like “not a culture fit,” “too aggressive,” or “lacks leadership presence” are subjective and often steeped in racial, gender, or age-related bias.

Prevention Tip: Standardize performance criteria and require concrete examples in feedback. Train managers on coded language and how to spot it in their evaluations.

Disproportionate Disciplinary Action

Employees from underrepresented backgrounds often face harsher discipline for similar behavior. This may be rooted in confirmation bias—interpreting actions as more problematic depending on who commits them.

Prevention Tip: Conduct a quarterly equity audit of disciplinary actions and performance improvement plans. Look for patterns across race, gender, and department.

What the Data Can Tell You (If You’re Looking)

Our culture-first investigation approach always includes a data-forward lens. Why? Because patterns tell the truth, even when people don’t feel safe enough to.

Here are the top data points we advise clients to regularly review:

Exit interview trends – Are certain demographics leaving at higher rates? What themes emerge?
Engagement surveys – Do perceptions of fairness, inclusion, or trust vary by identity group?
Promotion rates – Who’s moving up? Who isn’t? Why?
Performance ratings – Are they evenly distributed across demographics, or clustered?

Pro Tip: Don’t just look at averages. Disaggregate your data to uncover disparities.

How to Move from Investigation to Prevention

The most effective way to reduce complaints isn’t just about better investigations, it’s about reducing the conditions that create them in the first place. This requires leadership development, policy alignment, and cultural fluency.

Start with Manager Training

Train managers not just on what not to do, but on how to lead inclusively and recognize early signs of inequity. This includes:

Understanding how bias shows up in everyday decisions
Recognizing the impact of microaggressions
Creating psychological safety in team meetings
Disrupting favoritism and cliques

Create Accountability Loops

It’s not enough to train. There must be systems to enforce equitable behavior.

Include equity measures in manager KPIs
Implement 360-degree reviews with inclusion metrics
Track patterns in raises, recognition, and retention

Invest in Internal Audits and Culture Assessments

The Norfus Firm often supports organizations with internal culture diagnostics—uncovering risks before they become complaints. This work helps organizations build trust, improve retention, and develop ethical, values-aligned leaders.

When to Investigate, and When to Intervene

Let’s be clear: not every instance of bias or favoritism requires a formal investigation. But here’s when it does:

There are multiple similar complaints across departments
The concerns involve a senior leader or power imbalance
There’s evidence of retaliation or discrimination based on protected characteristics
There’s a breakdown of trust or fear of speaking up

In these cases, a trauma-informed, culturally aware investigation can protect your people and your brand. And when handled well, it’s not just about resolution, it’s about insight.

The Norfus Firm Approach: Culture-First, Legally Sound

At The Norfus Firm, we believe investigations are more than procedural necessities—they’re inflection points.

That’s why our model blends legal rigor and defensibility, culturally fluent analysis, trauma-informed interviews, and strategic follow-up and leadership coaching. We help our clients shift from reacting to complaints to preventing them—through smarter systems, more inclusive leadership, and actionable cultural insights.

Because the truth is: Bias, favoritism, and discrimination don’t always show up in complaints. But they always show up in your culture.

Download the Full Guide: “Beyond the Complaint”

If you’re ready to strengthen your internal investigation processes, empower your leaders, and build a healthier workplace culture, don’t wait for the next complaint. Download our guide: Beyond the Complaint: A Culture-First Approach to Workplace Investigations here.

And if you’d like support conducting an investigation or building a preventative strategy, book a consultation with our team. Together, let’s move from silence to strategy and from risk to resilience. To do this:

Schedule a consultation with our team today.
Check out our podcast, What’s the DEIL? on Apple or YouTube
Follow Natalie Norfus on LinkedIn and Shanté Gordon on LinkedIn for more insights.

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