Quiet Quitting – Implications for Asian Businesses

Abstract

Quiet quitting has emerged as an area of concern for businesses and societies in the wake of the ‘Great Resignation’ following COVID-19. While there is an emerging body of work surrounding the motivations of quiet quitting as a rejection of being enslaved to one’s work, little is known as to the implications of this phenomenon on Asian businesses. This viewpoint provides an overview of the literature to date and explores the steps Asian businesses should take to address potential quiet quitting proclivities among the existing and future workforce. In particular, businesses need to consider how COVID-19 has changed the landscape of work and generated psychological stresses among employees working from home, who have had to deal with their professional and private lives concurrently (Liu 2023). To combat quiet quitting in this new era, it is imperative to rethink work cultures, with an emphasis on facilitating greater autonomy in how work is performed (where applicable) and accordingly re-evaluating employment contracts.