From Chapter 5

What Challenges and Opportunities Do We Prioritize?

Many employees, faced with the challenges of navigating a rapidly changing work environment and an uncertain future, found themselves silently reprioritizing and disengaging from their roles. The desire for greater flexibility, a reevaluation of career priorities, and a quest for work that aligns more closely with personal values have all contributed to the phenomenon popularized as quiet quitting. Or as business scholar Jim Detert appropriately labels it calibrated contributing. While not as overt as quitting signifies, calibrated contributing entails employees assessing what they receive from their work (e.g., compensation, respect, control) versus what they are investing into the work. Essentially, if an employee feels they are giving more than they are getting, they decide to recalibrate their efforts enacting their views of balance and fairness. This has created a profound transformation in the employment landscape.

One of the most common themes we heard from the stories in our research was how people felt busy, many overwhelmed, yet at the same time felt like their talents, knowledge, and skills were not being utilized. Recently, the phenomenon of being overworked yet underutilized has garnered significant attention in research and professional discourse. This occurs when individuals, despite putting in excessive effort and time at their job, find themselves underutilizing their capabilities and skills, so there is a disconnect between effort and impact. Take executive Elizabeth who has twenty plus years of advertising experience, yet she was busy educating other executives about the marketing funnel, representing the 16% minorities on the leadership team serving on the organization’s DEI council, and experiencing contra-power harassment as one of only three senior women in the organization. Psychologist Katherine Benson first defined contra-power harassment in 1984 explaining that the harasser possesses less formal power (e.g., direct report) than the one being harassed (e.g., supervisor). Contra-power harassment can be exhibited through demands, constant questioning of authority, verbal bullying, eye rolling, publicly arguing, and constantly interrupting. Laura, a college professor, relives the constant student demands and questions.