Are you so angry with your job that you’ve gone into “quiet quit” mode? Have you already slammed the door and strengthened the ranks of the “big quit”? Unless you’re still on the job languishing in “resenteeism”… If these phrases and their English neologisms make you dizzy, that’s normal. For several years, new concepts linked to the world of work have been appearing on social networks, being the subject of memes, debates between HR specialists and analytical articles in the management sections of the world press. Most often coming from Anglo-Saxon countries, do these so-called new trends in the professional world correspond to any reality in France?
Let’s start with the “big quit” or “great resignation”, the massive resignation that occurred in the United States at the end of the Covid-19 health crisis. If on the French side, a similar trend was observed between the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, Dares concluded that the level of resignations was “high without being unprecedented or unexpected given the economic context”. The statistics department of the Ministry of Labor then sees this as a reflection of “the dynamism of the labor market, and a situation in which bargaining power is changing in favor of employees”.
A corollary of the “big quit”, “quiet quitting” – silent resignation – began to make noise at the beginning of 2022, spreading like wildfire among Internet users. Behind this term, employees who, “lacking enthusiasm” at work, make “the minimum possible effort to last until the end of their day”, explained the same year the magazine Forbesthereby establishing “a new norm” in the world of work.
Questions about the meaning of work
But is this disengagement even measurable? Not really. Investigation of Dares published last October simply indicated that 36% of workers in 2022 had at least one reason for dissatisfaction with their job. In another publication dating from March 2023, the same organization noted that 37% of employees (in 2019) did not feel able to continue in their work until retirement, due to their physical or mental health. “We are seeing more and more people questioning the value of investing body and soul in work and its place in their lives,” analyzes Frédéric Faure, associate researcher at the university. of Rennes II. Nothing really new yet. “This is a phenomenon that has already been observed in the past, particularly in the wake of May 1968: at the time, people said that we did not want to lose our life earning it,” underlines the occupational psychologist.
For researchers Coralie Perez and Thomas Coutrot, authors of Restoring meaning at work – A revolutionary aspiration (2023), “the pandemic, which brought to the forefront of public debate the subject of the social utility of professions (activities” essential”), has certainly reinforced the questioning, which has been brewing for several years, on the meaning of work.” Which is based, according to them, on three pillars: social utility (“my work is useful to others”), ethical consistency (“I feel pride in a job well done”) and capacity for development (“I can develop my skills “). However, for Frédéric Faure, these pillars are today particularly “weakened” by various developments such as “outsourcing, which penalizes the development capacity of employees”.
However, it would be wrong to see this disengagement as a liberating movement. It would reflect more of a desire to “protect oneself”, according to Frédéric Faure: “It’s a stopgap: we would like to be able to invest more, but we know that there will not necessarily be a return, so we fear to suffer more.”
And contrary to popular belief, the new generation is not the only one affected by the temptation to disengage. A report from the think tank Terra Nova and Apec published in February concludes that “the majority of young people are ready (and more significantly than their elders) to carry out tasks which go beyond simple compliance with the obligations provided for in their employment contract. work”. “They formulate the same expectations towards work as the older ones: remuneration, interest in the missions, and life balance,” points out the report.
What about “resenteeism”? This concept, invented last year by the American company RotaCloud, refers to staying in one’s job even though one is unhappy there. On For RotaCloud, “resenteeism” goes further, since employees who suffer from it not only take a step back, but also maintain resentment towards their company and make it known. Here again, there is nothing to measure this.
And what about “quiet firing”, indicating an incitement to resignation through mistreatment? A concept which has “no scientific basis”, according to Christophe Nguyen. This work psychologist, however, considers it “positive” that people dare to denounce abusive situations.
Terms that reveal the new expectations of employees
You may also have heard of “quiet hiring”, which refers to an internal promotion without the means (salary increase, training) accompanying this increase in power having necessarily been deployed. “Pay the same for more work”, sums up Career Kueen, career coach, on his TikTok account with more than 650,000 subscribers. Under the video, in comments, hundreds of people share their personal experience on the subject.
For the psychologist Frédéric Faure, here again, the thing is not new, but reflects this “tendency to say that technical skills are supposed to be acquired easily, everyone is interchangeable in the company.” If Terra Nova and Apec note in their joint report that young people demonstrate “a recurring desire for training and professional development”, it remains to adequately support this progression: “work overload is a reality, there is an intensification which leads to an increase in exhaustion at work”, underlines Christophe Nguyen.
We could also have talked to you about “rage applying” (the act of venting one’s frustration against one’s current employer by compulsively applying for several offers) or “conscious quitting” (leaving one’s job because the company does not respect its values, for example social and environmental)… Whether or not they characterize the new fashions of the world of work, these terms and the buzz that surrounds them have at least one merit, according to Christophe Nguyen: “Revealing the new expectations of employees vis- about their jobs and the importance they attach to the issue of well-being and psychological health at work.”
.