Behind the buzz: Quiet quitting and job hugging

The internet, bless its heart, thrives on a narrative that is specific, dramatic, and endlessly debatable. And for the past couple of years, “quiet quitting” has delivered exactly that. Scroll through TikTok, browse the business journals, and you’d be led to believe that employees everywhere are collectively abandoning ambition, choosing to coast while still cashing a paycheck. This narrative has been attached to ideas of generational rebellion, used to explain the widespread epidemic of disengagement, and positioned as a huge problem for leaders trying to grow revenue.

It is a sensational and satisfying story. But it is also a misleading one.

Not all work-related stories endure through media cycle after media cycle. In fact, few do. Quiet quitting, however, has. It could be that the story resonates because it touches on something almost everyone – leaders and employees alike – has felt. But the endurance of quiet quitting points to an ongoing relevance. Why?

Why the story of quiet quitting stuck

The persistence of quiet quitting in the cultural imagination has all the makings of a perfect workplace myth.

• It sensationalizes complexity. The phrase packages the messy realities of shifting employee expectations into something juicy and easy to digest. It reframes the recalibration of effort into an act of rebellion.
• It heightens leaders’ suspicions. By suggesting a silent withdrawal happening out of sight, it extends fears about something leaders cannot measure: whether employees are truly giving their best.
• It echoes broader cultural currents. In the wake of the pandemic, workers reevaluated the role jobs play in their lives. Quiet quitting became shorthand for a bigger cultural renegotiation around boundaries, wellbeing, and how people find meaning in their lives and relationships.

These dynamics also explain why new, trendy workplace buzzwords continue to emerge. The latest is “job hugging,” which describes the opposite instinct of quiet quitting: employees holding onto their jobs out of fear of economic uncertainty or aversion to change. Where quiet quitting frames staying at a company as an act of boundary-setting, “job hugging” frames it as an act of self-preservation. Both capture our attention because they speak to the reasons employees stay in their roles, wherever those reasons fall along the spectrum of fear-driven to value-driven.

As strong as these reasons are, resonance and relevance are not the same as reality. Just because a term captures attention (resonance) and aligns with cultural conversations (relevance) does not mean it reflects what is actually happening inside organizations (reality). To look beyond the hype and perceive what is really happening, we have to look at the data.

The alleged quiet quitting crisis collapses under data

The term quiet quitting itself is a bit of a head-scratcher, isn’t it? It implies a stealthy withdrawal of effort. Some organizations have even called the alleged phenomenon a “crisis,” suggesting that upwards of 50% of the US workforce fits this description. But we aren’t so sure about their conclusions. According to those organizations, quiet quitters are defined as those occupying the neutral zone of engagement: neither engaged nor disengaged.

The problem?

Those definitions miss a central feature of quiet quitting: the intention to stay while holding back effort. That’s confusing, because the whole premise of quiet quitting revolves around unmotivated employees being unwilling to leave their companies.

At Culture Amp, we looked at our global data set covering the last 12 months, which captures the employee experience of over 3.3 million employees worldwide.

We measured whether an employee was “quietly quitting” by looking at two specific variables:

1. Lack of motivation to go above and beyond
2. But still committed to staying at the organization

By that definition, our benchmarks show that less than 2% of employees fit the description. Yes, you read that right: less than 2%. That is a far cry from a crisis.

In contrast, 52% of employees are both committed and motivated, a combination that indicates most employees are giving their all and prepared to do so for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, 5% are neither motivated nor committed to stay, which is closer to what most leaders should really worry about: actual turnover.

Rethinking “quiet” and “active” quitting

We originally called the 5% who are neither motivated nor committed “loud quitters” to mirror the quiet quitting term. But Culture Amp customer surveys are either anonymous or confidential; employee identities are protected by reporting minimums. And while those 5% who are both unmotivated and unwilling to stay are outwardly signaling their intention to leave in some way, calling it “loud” misses the mark.

It’s more accurate to describe these employees as “active quitting” – in other words, employees who are actively preparing to leave the company in the short-term future. For the time being, we’re going to roll with that term. Our data shows that there are almost three times as many active quitters as there are so-called quiet quitters.

In smaller companies, we figured there may be a lower incidence of quiet quitting. We assumed covert exit signals would be harder to miss when there were fewer people around doing the work. We also imagined that in larger companies, we’d see more “quiet quitters” because disengaged employees could more easily get lost in the crowd and find more pockets to hide in.

But when we examined the data by company size, we found that quiet quitters were in the minority across all company sizes compared to active quitters.

While we did see very minor increases in the largest and smallest company sizes we measured, they were just that: minor.

The same goes for remote workers. We hypothesized that we’d see a higher incidence of quiet quitting across employees who work remotely, as they are (in theory) harder to monitor and more physically disconnected from leaders and co-workers.

Yet, when we look at the data from 289 organizations that have a field for where employees work (i.e. remotely, in-office, or hybrid), the numbers don’t match the story.

The data shows that remote employees aren’t more likely to be quiet quitters than their office-based or hybrid colleagues. Similarly, the number of active quitters is pretty steady across work locations, too.

Why predicted turnover is the real phenomenon to watch

Our research team has been tracking motivation over the last couple of years, and it is true that we are seeing a downward trend in employee motivation globally.

Since 2021, we’ve seen a 4% point decline in employee motivation and a 1% point drop in just the last year. With more than 3.3 million employees represented in this dataset, that translates to 33,000 more employees shifting from motivated to unmotivated in the past year alone.

Dipping motivation is a genuine concern among leaders, as a company’s success hinges on its people bringing their best selves to work. However, we don’t believe this dip reflects or predicts a wave of quiet quitting, because motivation is declining right alongside commitment. So, the outcome likely isn’t silent withdrawal but, again, actual turnover.

Considering why employees stay

Unlike quiet quitting, "job hugging” focuses on employees' perception (and fear) of risk. Perhaps that fear stems from economic uncertainty, looming layoffs, or the lack of better or equivalent roles available externally.

It’s no surprise that job hugging has risen in today’s climate of instability, where holding on feels safer than taking a risk.

Moreover, this new term also serves as a healthy reminder that not all forms of staying indicate the same thing. At one end of the staying spectrum is job hugging, where employees hold onto their roles out of fear. At the other end is "job loving," the ideal state where employees stay because the relationship feels strong: they trust their leaders, feel valued, and see purpose in their work.

In the middle is quiet quitting. These employees are still committed, but they’re setting firmer boundaries, often because something feels imbalanced in what they’re giving and getting.

HR leaders intimately know that retention isn’t a win on its own. The reason employees stay matters because fear-based staying or boundary-based staying won’t deliver the same outcomes as fulfillment-based staying.

What can leaders do?

The question for leaders isn’t “How do I identify and root out quiet quitters or job huggers?” but “How do I grow my core group of highly motivated people leading and inspiring innovation?”.

This is where listening matters. Our research shows that when employees feel their leaders are steering the company with clarity and care, commitment jumps way up. Even when teams face challenges, confidence in leadership drives engagement and helps sustain stability.

Listening to employees, surfacing blind spots, and acting on what you learn is one of the most courageous things a leader can do. Listening is a leader’s key to the employee-employer relationship.

At Culture Amp, we partner with leaders to make this possible. We use their survey data to help them see where motivation and commitment are strong and where they can be cultivated further.

The deeper truth: Quiet quitting is about relationships

Quiet quitting persists as a cultural meme not because it is a statistical reality, but because it reflects a broader imbalance in the employee-employer relationship. When employees recalibrate the effort they’re willing to give to work, they’re signaling that this relationship matters to them.

While an employee’s motivation is an internal resource that employers can tap into, it can also be cultivated. And like with any relationship, reciprocity matters.

Employees don’t stop working hard because they’re lazy or rebellious. They stop because the relationship feels one-sided. They stop because they don’t know if they’re being heard. They stop because they aren’t clear on where to direct their effort for the biggest impact.

But there is good news. Employee-employer relationships can be strengthened.

So, where does this leave us?

Trust, belonging, communication, and collaboration are renewable resources. When they’re present, employees bring the energy because it feels worthwhile.

In partnership with Esther Perel, Culture Amp has explored how the quality of our relationships impacts the quality of our lives. This holds just as true at work. When leaders focus on trust and belonging, they may feel their fear of quiet quitting fade away. What emerges instead is a workforce motivated to contribute because they know the effort builds on an already strong foundation.

Leaders who listen and act with courage create conditions where employees want to go above and beyond and build what’s next for their organizations. And with the right insights, Culture Amp helps leaders grow the circle of inspired and motivated people who make that possible.

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