What is revenge quitting?
Revenge quitting is a term used to describe the experience of leaving a job, often without notice, as a response to poor working conditions or a toxic work environment. Some revenge quitters have gone viral online; such as the employee who hired a marching band to announce to management that he was leaving in 2011.
Whilst we might not have called this revenge quitting in 2011, revenge quitting has become synonymous with employees quitting often spontaneously, reactively, or occasionally with a certain amount of spectacle. Those who revenge quit may talk about their experience on their social media (even if they don’t film themselves quitting in the moment). These public stories can be devastating for businesses, particularly for those attempting to hire new staff.
What increases the likelihood of revenge quitting?
Those who revenge quit are doing so for a number of reasons. These could include:
- A hostile work environment
- Unfriendly or toxic work culture
- Poor management
- Excessive stress
- Unreasonable expectations
- Micromanaging
- Unrealistic workload
- Inadequate financial compensation
Ultimately, those who revenge quit have reached a breaking point. Employees that revenge quit often cite feeling taken advantage of, exploited, manipulated, being ignored or even abused in their workplaces.
When businesses are overloading their staff, berating or bullying them, employees are, predictably, going to lose their want to work for the organisation. Revenge quitting is a response to a pattern of behaviour by a colleague, management, or the wider workplace as a whole, where an employee feels that they have been continually and consistently mistreated. Crucially, staff who revenge quit also feel that their experience will not get any better in the future.
What’s in a name?
Whilst the term revenge quitting may be new, it’s worth remembering that this is not a new phenomenon. Employees that have felt unappreciated have always left jobs and moved onto new opportunities.
However, whilst we might have used different language to describe this situation previously, the popularisation of the term revenge quitting does highlight something about those doing it. These are typically younger workers, who are also much more likely to change jobs and roles at a higher rate than older employees. The reasons they might change roles could differ; a career change, moving to a higher paid role, or a life change could result in an employee moving on. However, younger employees are less likely to stay in roles where the environment, culture or management isn’t right.
What can businesses do to avoid revenge quitting?
The most important thing that businesses can do to avoid revenge quitting is to make the happiness of their employees a priority. Revenge quitting is a result of treating your staff as disposable. To avoid it, you need to create a workplace and a work culture where people feel comfortable and safe. One of the ways you can do this is by ensuring that you’re actively creating spaces where your employees can offer you feedback, without fear of retaliation.
Your business also needs to be responsive when problems are raised by employees. Dismissing, minimising or ignoring issues from your staff is likely to lead to resentment, or a belief that management is unlikely to listen when things have gone wrong. Businesses can avoid this by having clear processes and policies that are reliably enacted when a member of staff raises a complaint.
Make sure that your staff are supported, listened to and treated well, and you're less likely to see someone filming handing their notice in, with a marching band in tow.
