A vast majority of office workers have reported being “quiet promoted” by an employer.
If you follow the latest work discourse on the internet, you may have found yourself getting lost in all the terms.
After last summer’s explosion of “quiet quitting,” the internet has seen everything from “resenteeism” and “productivity paranoia” to “rage applying” — the latter set off when one TikTok user reported having a bad day at work, applying to some new ones and getting “a job that gave me a $25,000 raise” in just a few days.
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On the employer side, there’s also been a rise in an old concept that human resources departments have recently started to describe as “quiet hiring” — managers who, when lacking the budget to take on a full-time employee, try to expand their skill range by either over-relying on freelancers or switching around the job duties of existing workers.
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Another term that is getting picked up more by employers rather than just workers is “quiet promoting” — first coined by people at the work review platform JobSage, the term is often used to describe bosses who give an “employee increasing responsibility without a pay increase or title change.”
“Oftentimes quiet promotions are unintentional, as an employee may naturally take on more responsibilities as they become more comfortable in their role or the company grows,” co-founder Kelli Mason recently told a workplace news outlet. “Other times, some may take advantage of their employees and, if they see employees will take on more and more work without complaint, they’ll continue to pile it on.”
Surveying 1,100 full-time workers across different industries, JobSage found that this was something that occurred to 78% of the workers based on their accounts. It was particularly common when another employee left the company and resulted in feelings of being “manipulated or taking advantage of” among 57% of those who stayed behind.
Some industries were also particularly prone to these types of “quiet promotions” — according to JobSage surveys, 89% of those working in art and design and hospitality reported being quietly promoted.
Jobs in food services, government and education also see topped out the top five of industries with particularly high rates of quiet promotions.
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All of these labels ultimately arise out of a sense of employee dissatisfaction and frustration — “quiet quitting,” in particular, set off a nerve of a generation that’s starting to reject the workplace “hustle culture” of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
But with unemployment currently at a low unseen since 1969, workers with many types of skills are often fielding multiple offers — employers are the ones who have to offer higher salaries and better benefit packages to win over both high-skilled and blue-collar workers from competitors.
A recent Washington Post report found that the leisure and hospitality industry is currently short more than 500,000 employees when compared to 2020 as many have been offered better-paying office work as secretaries and receptionists.
While a larger salary and better hours are a mainstay of what determines a worker’s likelihood to stay in a job, JobSage also said that many also underestimate the importance of recognition — the problem with “quiet promotion” is that it breeds resentment over having to do more without being recognized for it.
“It seems that the winning combination of a supportive manager is one that creates a trusting, celebratory environment,” JobSage wrote of its findings. “According to our results, the majority of employees would thrive under managers that trust them and recognize their accomplishments.”
