Why Gen-Z is refusing to go 'above and beyond' without a matching paycheck

The rise of 'slow quitting', 'wage theft' and more

By Sam Jabri-Pickett

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Published: Thu 12 Sep 2024, 9:06 PM

Nothing says Gen-Z more than the new and exciting trend of wage theft.

Seriously though, it’s not wage theft. Just doing what I was hired to do and not going ‘above and beyond’ at the workplace simply isn’t going to happen. If I’m not getting above and beyond pay, why should I give above and beyond effort? That’s why slow quitting and quiet quitting are nonsense, right off the bat. They’re just words to make us think working from home isn’t superior — it is — and why it’s necessary to maintain a strong work-life balance.

Given the opportunity, an employer will mandate you return to the office often just because their empty real estate is costing them money.

Let’s wind back the clock to the height of the pandemic. It’s early 2021, and the Great Resignation is sweeping the West. Also called the Big Quit and the Great Reshuffle, a shift towards favouring life over work allows workers everywhere, though primarily those who worked from home, to take back control of their lives. Work lost value, both due to the worldwide stagnation of wages despite high profits for the vast majority of corporate entities, and because workers realised there is so much more to life than work.

People were more efficient working from home, more productive when given the freedom to work how they like, when they like. If the work gets done, what’s the difference?

I would encourage everyone, Gen-Z or not, to adopt one or more of these working models, to maintain that work-life balance.

Slow

Slow, as opposed to fast. What started as backlash against fast food, progressed into a movement that advocates a reduction in the pace of modern life. Essentially, don’t focus so much on work and new experiences, and just try to be in the moment and foster strong emotional connections with your loved ones.

The inherent issue of slow is the cost — most cannot afford to work less, and many still want to have new experiences, and will gladly work hard to make the money to pay for those experiences. The elitism brings us back to Gen-Z, as there is a growing disdain for Gen-Z specific culture and movements therein, as if ‘we’ are the elites allergic to hard work.

Slow quitting

Different from quiet quitting in that it marries it to the slow movement. Working only those tasks within the job’s description which, again, is corporate language used to make it seem like they don’t want to be as involved at work, putting in overtime and long hours, at the expense of their work-life balance.

Previous generations have too many stories of parents who missed recitals and games because of overtime, and we aren’t willing to do to any of our kids what was done to some of us. So, the idea that I have somehow ‘quit’ my job by only doing what I was hired to do? Nonsense.

Tang Ping

‘Lying flat’ is lesser-known Chinese slang that emerged in 2021 out of various memes and social media trends. Intended as a passive-aggressive resistance movement in China, it has grown into a truly nascent counterculture that, in my view, is the Chinese equivalent of the Great Resignation.

The phrase ‘to lie flat’ originates with those that lower their professional commitment and economic ambitions.

Tang Ping is largely seen as a backlash to the 996 working hour system, an illegal Chinese work schedule that requires employees work from 9am to 9pm, six days per week, i.e. 72 hours per week, 12 hours per day.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com