Southern Cross Health Society recently released the 2023 Workplace Wellness Report in partnership with BusinessNZ. The report found that one in five New Zealand businesses have noticed the occurrence of “quiet quitting” among the members of their organisations.
With the report serving as a comprehensive study of workplace wellbeing in New Zealand, the sixth edition introduced the phenomenon of “quiet quitting” for the first time as businesses who participated in the study were asked about it.
Quiet quitting was defined as the action undertaken by employees who do not accomplish tasks that were beyond the responsibilities of the role assigned to them and were considered to be generally less invested in their work.
“The concept of quiet quitting has likely been around for some time, even if it wasn’t known by this specific term,” said Nick Astwick, CEO of Southern Cross Health Society.
The majority of the organisations that were surveyed for the study did not notice it taking place in their workplaces while some admitted that they were not sure if it was occurring at all.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has seen work dynamics evolve, which may be contributing to the presence of this quiet quitting,” Astwick said.
Astwick said that since it was the first time such a concept was introduced in the Workplace Wellness Report, it was difficult to see the number of people within the New Zealand workforce that had been quiet quitting before 2022.
More than half of the organisations surveyed offered remote work ranging from one to two days per week as it is now a standard feature of the working environment whenever possible. However, there were still employees who were feeling much more isolated and there was a noticeable reduction in collaborative activities.
“The rise of working from home and remote working and an emphasis on staff wellbeing and job satisfaction could be influencing employees’ motivations when they’re at work,” said Astwick.
The report also showed that 22% of businesses had confirmed that they noticed quiet quitting taking place in their companies. Astwick asserted the importance of employers cultivating a supportive workplace culture for their employees.
“Employees are an organisation’s most valuable asset, so it’s really important to foster their wellbeing, engagement and growth,” Astwick said.
Other findings of the report showed that the absence rate was recorded to be 5.5 days per employee, which amounted to almost 10 million working days. The annual costs of absences reached $1,235, directly amounting to $2.86 billion.
The data shown in the report was gathered from 137 organisations in private and public sectors. These organisations employed a total of 135,742 employees where 114,104 were permanent staff. The sample for the 2023 dataset represented 6.57% of all the employees in New Zealand.
