- Shark Tank judge Daymond John understands that loud quitting, a trend often led by Gen Zers and millennials, is born out of toxic workplaces.
Everyone has—at least once—dreamed of leaving it all out on the table and exiting their toxic job in a blaze of flames à la Jerry Maguire or Bridget Jones. A quick phone call with friends or family often holds us back from acting on said visions, but Shark Tank judge Daymond John thinks it’s a natural and at times needed response to a bad boss.
“I think it’s great when there’s a toxic boss [or] toxic environment,” John, also the CEO and founder of FUBU, said of the phenomenon in a short interview posted on TikTok.
Loud quitting is when a worker leaves a job publicly and shares the details of the exit, often on social media.
Of course, there’s a potential downside to said behavior. If it’s a repeat habit, vocally quitting might hurt an individual’s reputation more than a company’s.
“If you do it too much, and you get too much attention over it, and it’s not a bad place to work, I think you [can] hurt yourself in the future,” John said. “If you say the wrong things you may get sued for slander; there’s also loud replies.”
But generally speaking, he thinks an employee loudly quitting is a warning sign to an employer that something is not right in the workplace.
“You see a bunch of people loud quitting, you better pay attention to what’s going on with your staff and your team, because you awoke so much emotion that these people have collectively started saying ‘I don’t care what happens to me, [and] out publicly, this place sucks,'” John said, adding that he thinks “that’s absolutely amazing.”
Gen Z and millennials are most likely to loud quit
Gen Zers and millennials have gained a reputation for letting it all out when they leave a job. Some have even turned to TikTok and other social media platforms to post stories of why and how they quit—even filming themselves sending resignation letters live.
In part, they’re likely responding to previous generations getting burned by their employer during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 recession, and figuring that there’s no need to protect a company that won’t protect them. “What they have seen, if nothing else, is organizations will cut back, take steps in order to keep their profitability in a heartbeat,” Marcie Merriman, EY Americas’ cultural insights and customer strategy leader, told Coins2Day in 2023. “They’ve seen it happen to their parents, they’ve seen it happen to millennials, and in the last few years, many of them have experienced it themselves.”
Much like how young workers are shirking the taboo around talking about money in favor of discussions around salary transparency—this trend is said to help bolster community.
“I had no idea so many people would see, relate and share their own stories—or their fear of leaving their current workplace, or their strong desire to do what I did,” Christina Zumbo, who went viral in 2022 after posting her sending in her resignation notice and discussing how her job impacted her mental health, told the BBC.
Toxic workplaces foster quiet and loud quitting
In the United States, employee engagement sunk to a new decade low, according to Gallup. Less than a third (31%) of employees report being engaged, and 17% are actively disengaged—levels not seen since 2014.
A lack of clear expectations and less of a feeling that someone cares about them and encourages them at work likely feed into this malaise, per Gallup. This high disengagement can sometimes result in what has been labeled “quiet quitting,” or a turning away from hustle culture in favor of simply skating by and putting in no more than the required effort to get by. Facing a difficult job market, many employees (including bosses) have entered what Gallup called the Great Detachment.
Sometimes, though, workers are being pushed past quiet quitting. A rise of undertrained managers since the pandemic has led even more employees to the brink. After all, the job of midlevel manager has become all the more important and stressful during this era of recurring return-to-office pushes. Nevertheless, it’s enough to shed talent.
About 69% of workers would leave their job if they have a bad manager, according to LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence survey conducted this past summer. Young employees are more likely to quit because of a bad boss, they found. Perhaps workers are simply so fed up that they’re willing to take leave as loudly as possible.