It seems like every day, there is a new term for being in a work environment that just isn’t working. Last summer, 24-year-old engineer Zaid Khan inadvertently set off a firestorm with a short TikTok video about how he was “quitting the idea of going above and beyond” at work.
Thus the term “quiet quitting” was born and sparked both a cultural phenomenon that motivated many workers to rethink their approach to work-life balance as well as angered some executives dedicated to the “lean in” and “hustle” culture of an earlier era.
Another buzzy term to be born as a counterbalance to “quiet quitting” is “quiet hiring.” By the start of 2023, some HR professionals were reporting a rise in employers looking to gain new skills or expand the work they do without hiring a full-time employee — whether by over-relying on freelancers or spreading out new work among existing employees.
The New Office Word Is Resenteeism
While the phenomenon of cost-cutting by putting off new hires is hardly new, buzzwords such as these tend to take off because they hit a nerve among people feeling a certain way about their job. The latest term to be making the rounds is “resenteeism” — staying in a job that does not work but not doing anything to change it.
Coined by British staff software company RotaCloud, “resenteeism” is still very new but has already been catching on in some corners of the internet. Some use it to describe the state of slowly growing more and more frustrated with one’s work arrangement while others throw it around more broadly to mean any unaddressed work-related annoyance.
“Resenteeism: when you’re in the office because you’ve been told to be in the office, despite knowing you’d be getting more work done if you were working from home,” a former Microsoft (MSFT) – Get Free Report worker named Alun Jones wrote on Twitter in September.
Here’s How Both Employers And Employees Can Avoid Resenteeism
Resenteeism is also a play on words derived from the older term “presenteeism” — at its peak in popularity in the early aughts, the term refers to employees who show up to work while not feeling well in order to not lose a sick day or leave the impression that they are uncommitted but are actually unable to work at their full capacity.
The common thread between all these terms is a general state of employees who feel burnt-out in their job arrangement — a report done in November found that burnout was reported by 59% of American workers.
While resenteeism can be criticized as “being unhappy and not doing anything to fix it,” burnout in general is a major reason some employers lose workers and struggle to fill vacancies at a time when many industries are still dealing with a labor shortage.
According to the experts that contained the term, employers that recognize when employers are overworked and take steps to listen to their needs will be able to avoid much of it and keep up productivity for the long haul. Those who don’t will be perpetually shrugging their shoulders at why they’re losing employees and these new terms keeping popping up.
“Employees that feel undervalued, under-appreciated, and worried about their futures are never going to be happy in their jobs, and the rise in resenteeism, while worrying, isn’t unexpected,” RotaCloud’s Head Of People Pam Hinds told Glamour Magazine.
