Quiet quitting: how to set limits at work without harming career or mental health

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The search for healthy boundaries at work has been called quiet quitting, an English term that means silent resignation. Contrary to what the name suggests, workers who champion the trend don’t want to be fired, but want a balance between their personal and professional lives.

So that the imposition of limits does not jeopardize the job or the worker’s own mental health, experts recommend care with the way of communicating them and relating to the organization.

Leonardo Berto, manager of the operation of the human resources consulting company Robert Half in ABC and Baixada Santista, explains that the worker must consider the environment, the moment and the structure of the company to verify the best way to establish borders.

“Sometimes [o problema] it’s not even the fact that I want to have a limit, but the way I communicate it, and the detachment or commitment that I will show in everyday relationships”, he explains.

Understanding the organizational culture, including demands, needs and ways of measuring results in the company can help to know when and how to act to maintain balance, as well as at what times and in what ways there may be more barriers.

While limits can be beneficial and fight illness, too much can translate into loss of meaning and engagement with activities.

Sergio Guimarães, a psychologist and university professor in the area of ​​mental health at work, says it is important to maintain a healthy level of engagement with the job, without failing to see some meaning in it.

“Since the subject is there purely to comply with protocol, he loses meaning of his work functions and is there only to comply with a schedule, this can have a horizon of illness.”

Guimarães says that this can lead to robotic performance, without subjective involvement and without bonds of trust and cooperation, increasing the risk of developing pathological processes such as Burnout syndrome.

The psychologist also highlights that the idea of ​​quiet quitting cannot be generalized, as not everyone is able to adopt it. “Without a doubt, in professional categories of more precarious work it is always more difficult to set limits. So this issue of quiet quitting is also a little compromised.”

Term is criticized by followers of the trend

Project manager Bianca Rati says that there are those who associate quiet quitting with apathy or a soft body, which is not in line with reality. She reports that she tries to prioritize her physical and mental health, taking time for herself, but that doesn’t mean not dedicating herself to roles.

“I do my best at work, I look for solutions, I bring ideas, I study and I try to create a good environment for everyone.”

For her, quiet quitting is about setting limits at work, and in that sense the project manager considers herself adept at the trend. “It’s not necessarily not working overtime, but it’s demanding that you be fairly compensated for it, or that it’s not something so often that you don’t have a personal life anymore.”

“When I understood that my value as a person is not solely and exclusively associated with my performance at work and I started to dedicate quality time to other areas of life, I became a happier human being, a more empathetic manager and also an employee better”, he concludes.

Traditional companies adapt more easily

The quiet quitting comes amid a record number of layoffs and a rise in burnout rates, which has been linked to the effects of the pandemic. For some, remote work has blurred the lines between home and work; for others, it worsened working conditions.

But Berto says that, despite being a recent term, the search for boundaries between work and personal life was already frequent in companies. Traditional places with well-defined processes are easier to adapt, and some even want professionals with this profile, such as in the tax and customer service areas, according to the expert.

But there are places with greater difficulty in meeting this demand. “If I’m in a startup that is tripling in size every month, it’s natural that these barriers may experience some difficulty in being respected, because demand is growing every day and we can’t necessarily hire people at the same speed,” says Berto.

The specialist says that having different profiles and ways of working should be increasingly common within organizations.

“What we see is more a trend where the employee is bringing a need and companies are looking to adapt, although in the market these adaptations are not so simple.”

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