What is quiet quitting and how might it affect your library? On this show Annie Epperson, Professor of Teaching & Learning at the University of Northern Colorado Libraries, and Stephen Sweeney, Director for the Cardinal Stafford Library at the Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary, share what they have learned about quiet quitting. We are hearing a lot about this in the news as people grapple with work culture, life balance, pay, and equity. This conversation explores the quiet quitting phenomenon and what it might mean for all of us in libraries.
Transcript
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Adriane Herrick Juarez:
This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. You’re listening to Library Leadership Podcast, where we talk about libraries and leadership and speak with guests who share their ideas, innovations and strategic insights in the profession.
What is quiet quitting, and how might it affect your library? On this show, Annie Epperson, Professor of Teaching & Learning at the University of Northern Colorado Libraries, and Stephen Sweeney, Director for the Cardinal Stafford Library at the Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary, share what they have learned about quiet quitting. We are hearing a lot about this in the news as people grapple with work culture, life balance, pay, and equity. This conversation explores the quiet quitting phenomenon and what it might mean for all of us in libraries. Enjoy the show!
Annie and Stephen, welcome to the show.
Annie Epperson:
Thanks so much. It’s lovely to be here. Thanks for inviting us.
Stephen Sweeney:
Yeah, thank you very much.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #1: It’s lovely to have you here. Today we are talking about quiet quitting. When I first heard you talk about this topic at a conference, I didn’t know much about it. Will you please share for me and for our listeners what is quiet quitting? 01:37
Annie Epperson:
It means having boundaries. [laughter] Actually, it’s a fairly new term for a movement that’s been around for, well—since the previous century. We had labor unrest back in the 1920’s and 30’s, and at that point it was called working to your wage or acting your wage, which is kind of interesting. The term quiet quitting mostly was popularized by an author whose name I think, is Boldger who used that term in 2021 in an article talking about contemporary workers in the throes of our most recent pandemic in response to not only the extremities of work that many folks were expected to continue to meet during life threatening global pandemic, but also the rising costs and inflation that were really putting pressure on American workers. So that’s quiet quitting—cutting back your work to meet your wage, as it were. Some people say minimal work for minimum wage.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #2: What have employees and organizations experienced that make it important for us to be thinking and talking about quiet quitting? 03:02
Stephen Sweeney:
That’s a great question. I have three thoughts on this one. Will, or can, people work for the offered wage by the employer? Denver, for example, is a costly place to live and libraries generally aren’t high-salary employers. You’ll talk about this shortly, but I’d also point to the sense of vocational awe which was coined in 2018, and then where the thought is—the idealization that our work can lead to burnout under compensation and job creep.
Annie Epperson:
Steven mentioned that Denver is a costly place to live. Steven works for a church-based library Institute of Higher Education. I work for a state-supported Institute of Higher Education, and I live in a much more reasonably priced community. But even so, we still have trouble filling positions right now. This is two—three years after that initial blossoming of people walking off the job, demanding shorter work weeks, and raises to hopefully cope with inflation. We have so many open positions right now that it’s difficult for some of us to keep on keeping on, if I may.
Part of the challenge at my institution is, as a state supported institution, we are constrained by the state legislature—what we are allowed to offer as compensation to workers. In addition to being a more reasonably priced community in which to live, we are also a less desirable community in which to live. Sometimes it feels like the only way to bring workers in would be to offer them more money, and we simply don’t have the flexibility to do that when we’re hiring.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #3: Annie, it seems to me that awareness and discussion about quiet quitting occurred quite a bit during and shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic. Has anything changed since that time that has shifted the landscape surrounding this topic? 04:56
Annie Epperson:
I think your listeners won’t be surprised to be reminded that right now all kinds of labor unrest is in the news all the time. We’ve been hearing about Starbucks workers unionizing piecemeal across the country. Every time a shop unionizes, it seems like there’s a new little celebration, at least on social media—which is how I get a whole bunch of my news.
But, we see this in response to the wage gap, increasing profits on the part of corporations. I just look at what’s going on with Hollywood, with the striking writers and now SAG-AFTRA members in response to a number of different, sort of, threats to their livelihoods including AI, which is an interesting thing to think about for creatives, for sure.
We see even United Auto Workers, who are well unionized historically, but with concessions in recent years that I think all is in response to the greater disparity between what in the corporate world is called the C-suite, right? The higher-ups making so much more money in comparison to the on the ground worker’s wages? We don’t necessarily see that disparity in libraries because we’re not really part of the corporate landscape for the most part. But I think it might be catching [laughter].
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #4: Steven, how does quiet quitting present itself in the workplace, and what are the employee perspectives on this versus the organizational perspectives? 06:37
Stephen Sweeney:
I’ve come at this from a library perspective, of course, and that of course is the theme of the podcast here. I think that quiet quitting may manifest differently by library type. I work in an academic environment, but I also recognize how different mine is from many other academic workplaces. The great resignation, as it was talked about around the beginning of Covid, was an opportunity to improve and not indict the world of work.
There’s also a sense of quiet quitting as a sort of contractual awareness for the employee. For example, Do you know what is required of you during your workday? School librarians with their contracts may have an advantage if they read it. But for the employer, it’s important to be mindful of three factors. An employer can constrain an employee in such a way that they are nervous or fearful of advocating for their safety or freedoms.
The next factor to be conscious of is how do you continue to motivate staff? If you’re in a position where you have no control over compensation decisions, or budget oversight—because there are many supervisors who find themselves in that kind of space, then according to a 2021 Gallup poll, as many as 50% of workers fit into the categories that they identified as either merely engaged, or actively disengaged with their work. So, those are some of the awarenesses that I have around quiet quitting and what that looks like both from employee and employer perspectives.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #5: In your explorations, what methods or recommendations have you found for mitigating quiet quitting? 08:22
Annie Epperson:
Well, I’ll come back to the concept of vocational awe for a moment. So often we librarians are wholeheartedly dedicated to the work of libraries, for one reason or another, that brought us to librarianship to begin with. For me personally, I am dedicated to helping university students, both undergrads and graduate students, not only to achieve their academic goals, but also to be informed, participatory, participating citizens.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I helped to coordinate campus efforts for National Voter Registration Day. That work has a direct impact, in my view, with the notion that libraries are a vital part of the American experiment. Informed voters are fundamental to the nation. Right? So for me, I’ll go above and beyond for that. Absolutely. For sure. The challenge is to find a balance between that instinct to give our all and more, versus self-care.
When a library is so thinly staffed that keeping desks open is no longer feasible, who should pick up the slack? How does leadership best advocate to those in power, or with power in my case, a university president or even our legislature—for workers, when employment laws and policies are mired in bureaucracy, and of course politics? That’s a great challenge there.
Stephen Sweeney:
From where I sit, at the beginning of the year with our rector-president at the seminary, he made it clear that he considers our roles as non-ordained leaders for both faculty and staff in the seminary—is a vocation. So, there’s not a sense of vocational awe. This is a vocation. To be able to consider our work against a theological backdrop and what that means for eternity, for me, is possibly the most compelling argument.
To be a little bit more realistic though, a few thoughts—I think supervisors need to make conscious decisions to create thrive-able, and sustainable environments. I think that every level of leadership in the library needs to prioritize health—both physical and mental, and the safety of all individuals.
It’s pretty important as well to really do some strategic thinking about budget pay, equity policies, etc. I think that falls across library types, whether it’s advocating to higher education administration, or legislatures, or boards. But most importantly, and I think we’ve talked about this a little bit already, is self-care and a good work-life balance is just crucial.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #6: Is there anything else you’d like to share? 10:58
Annie Epperson:
When Stephen and I were preparing for this session, we thought of the things that our colleagues who co-presented with us in March had raised, and I’d like to give a shout-out to Miranda Wisor and Emily Masters. They were wonderful colleagues to partner with us on this presentation.
Among the things that Stephen and I talked about was discussing and being aware of contracts, and really being clear on those parameters. Stephen mentioned that a moment ago. The concept of wage theft. This is when an employer expects employees to work above and beyond, beyond their hours, perhaps without compensation, to work through lunch, to work on weekends, which is especially—if it’s written in contract, that that’s not part of the contract. Right? That is very clearly wage theft. As a person who’s on salary, I have quite a bit more fluidity associated with when my time should be dedicated to work.
Another thing we talked about, and I don’t know, Stephen, if you want to jump on to this one, is the intersectional considerations, right? We strive so hard in librarianship to diversify our workplaces so that we better reflect the populations that we’re serving. Not everyone can, quote unquote, afford to push back against unrealistic work expectations, right, Stephen?
Stephen Sweeney:
Right. Two of the big points that fall into the intersectional considerations—the first one is privilege. To start with a handful of questions, Are you straight, cis and white? Are you a native English speaker? Are you neurotypical? How are, or do those privileges affect the way you speak to your supervisor and vice versa?
I’m aware of the space and the body that I occupy, and that affords me a different level of access in many spaces than others. That’s really an important intersection to consider. I’d love it, Annie, if you have more to say there. But, my second consideration to think about is language. One of the things, especially as we work in the library space, we either can use a lot of metaphor and euphemism, technical jargon—all of that can be alienating or disenfranchising to neurodivergent people, and/or folks who have English as a second language. By asking for clear communication, you might pave the way for someone with less privilege than yourself to have that same conversation.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #7: Annie, I think you have something to add. 13:44
Annie Epperson:
Well, I suppose I tend to be a little bit more flippant about lots of things, and that definitely reflects my level of privilege, right? I am a fully tenured professor. I am a cishet, white woman. So in response to the question of who can afford to push back—tenured white people, that’s who [laughter].
I feel an obligation to keep this conversation going. As Stephen said, the more we—for example, require a clear communication and humane workplace policies for ourselves, we’re also asking for them on behalf of our colleagues who maybe don’t have that power of voice behind them, yeah.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #8: Annie and Stephen, do you have any favorite management or leadership books or resources, and why? 14:30
Annie Epperson:
One of the things that came up in our presentation, as I was preparing back last spring, is technology as an agent of the organization, and the notion that our workplaces surveil us in ways that are not necessarily malicious or insidious, but they are real. My campus uses Microsoft Outlook, and so my calendar, my teaching schedule, my email communications, all of those, of course, belong to the public domain because I’m a public employee. But Microsoft will very helpfully send me a summary of the week, and how effective I was, and how productive I was—I think about that from the perspective of a member of the faculty, right?
Faculty are notorious divas in our ivory towers. But I wonder—okay, so Microsoft can see that I spent 45% of my time on emails, but does Microsoft know what…of course it knows what the content of those emails are, but the fact that I was crafting responses to students research questions, or was I corresponding with colleagues about presentations, and publications, and that sort of thing? It just seems both a little bit creepy and kind of artificial, and something to keep in mind.
Again, the work that I’m tasked with doing is a little bit difficult to measure. If you’re a school librarian or a public librarian, how closely is your work surveilled and accounted for in ways that we’re unaware of, right? The technology is keeping track. I’m pretty sure my dean does not care how much time I spend on email, but those records are being kept—and that’s a thing to consider is that technology as an agent of the organization.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #9: Annie and Stephen, do you have any favorite management or leadership books or resources, and why? 16:25
Annie Epperson:
Well, obviously this podcast is vitally important. I’m so grateful to know you, and know of the podcast and be able to listen to it. I will say there are a couple of leadership opportunities that I’ve been fortunate to be able to take advantage of—The Mountain Plains Library Association has a wonderful leadership institute that I attended as a participant some years ago, and then I recently served as a mentor for MPLALI. Also, the Colorado Association of Libraries has a leadership institute that I’ve both participated in the inaugural year, and also have mentored folks going through CALLI. Those were wonderful, sort of practical learning opportunities.
Books. It’s hard for me to identify one book that really, again—I’m a super practical person, sometimes I think about Ask a Manager, right? That’s a useful—it’s not really about leadership, it’s about managing and managing yourself—but a useful resource.
Stephen Sweeney:
I would definitely chime in with a word of agreement to Annie’s first, this podcast. Yeah, thinking about it broadly, I also have had the privilege of attending the MPLA, Mountain Plains Library Association, and the Colorado Association of Libraries Leadership Institutes. Those are remarkable opportunities. The goal is definitely beyond the scope of a single book, because the opportunities for professional development as well as the readings are really, really good.
A couple of books that I would identify, though—the first one is governance rather than leadership. I think there’s a difference between leadership, management, administration and governance, but John Carver has created a model of governance called The Policy Governance, and the book is called Boards That Make a Difference. While it reads like a textbook—having lived the experience on a board for six years at the international level, was really fascinating and really freeing in terms of thinking about what does strategic thinking look like to an association, and how do we define where we’re going while leaving the staff free to accomplish the goals of the organization? It’s a pretty steep learning curve, I think I already said that, but it’s really a good one.
Then the other one that I’d name is The HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across. It’s a few years old at this point, but I think it’s really important to be conscious of self-advocacy. What does that look like on behalf of the library and what does that look like in terms of, “Managing your manager”, and understanding your audience and being aware of all of those things?
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
Question #10: Oh, it’s so nice to know that you’re both listeners of Library Leadership Podcast and that it is a good resource for you. I’m always grateful for the wisdom and ideas that our guests share with our library community, including both of you. So thank you for mentioning the show as well as the other fantastic resources. Steven and Annie, in closing, what do libraries mean to you personally? 19:18
Stephen Sweeney:
One of my favorite expressions about the library that I use pretty regularly is that the library comes at no additional cost. There is a real cost to libraries, but while there’s a real cost to libraries, in my mind, that expands to who the library is, and how it impacts people’s lives—connecting people to information and providing a collaborative space for the pursuit of education while providing a beautiful physical space to accomplish those goals is what libraries need to be.
Annie Epperson:
For me, I tend to think about libraries in two different ways. As an academic librarian, I see my workplace as the intellectual heart of the campus. We are, and I used to use this metaphor for the circulation desk, right? We move materials out and about, and they come back in, and people gain knowledge from those materials. Of course, now most things come electronically [laughter], so circulation desk’s role has shifted. But that opportunity to learn and create understanding of the world at the heart of campus is again fundamental to my role as an academic librarian.
I always feel like I’m a little bit of a marketing person doing PR work, promoting the library, when I’m out and about in the world and people see me and say, Don’t you work at UNC? And I proudly say, I’m a member of the library faculty. I also, though, serve on the Friends and Foundation board of my public library, and I’m a user of my public library. We recently opened a beautiful new branch, right downtown. I say we, as if I had anything to do with it, [laughter] but it’s a wonderful space, and it in many ways really embodies all the different ways in which people learn—makerspaces, and lasers, and woodcutters, and looms, and I don’t even know all the different kinds of machinery that they’re bringing in to help support nonacademic learning and pursuits, which I think are so very important, as well as the academic stuff that happens on my campus.
Certainly I’ve been a library user all my life. One of those children who carried home more books than she could manage, and who would sit and read in the car until it was too dark to continue while mom is inside the house fixing dinner. But they are fundamental centers of lifelong learning in whatever community you might be able to identify in the US.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
I appreciate those wonderful thoughts about libraries, and I appreciate you being here with me today to talk about quiet quitting. It’s a topic that we are hearing more about as time goes on. I know many of us in libraries are thinking both about this as workers and as workplaces. We all want balance and fairness in libraries as they mean so much to us and to our communities. Reflecting on this issue helps all of us grapple with this very timely topic and stay informed as we move forward, so thank you.
Annie Epperson:
Thanks, Adrian.
Stephen Sweeney:
Thanks, Adrian.
Adriane Herrick Juarez:
You’ve been listening to Library Leadership podcast. This is Adriane Herrick Juarez. For more episodes, tune in to Library Leadership Podcast.com, where you can now subscribe to get episodes delivered right into your email inbox. Our producer is Nathan Sinclair Vineyard. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.
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