A new trend for 2023?

Alongside WIBF’s 2023 programme stepping up across the board, we are keen to revisit a conversation that took place towards the end of 2022 related to our Accelerating Change Together (ACT) research programme. Here, on 28th November, we launched the third and latest report aimed at providing practical support to progress diversity, equity and inclusion in the UK financial services industry, entitled 100 Diverse Voices: The Future of Work. We then followed up with an article on its initial response by Dr Grace Lordan, Founding Director of the London School of Economics’ The Inclusion Initiative and a co-author of the report.

And it’s a discussion that we believe is worth revisiting given Collins Dictionary’s word of the year for 2022 was permacrisis, where UK economic sentiment and our mental resilience was continually buffeted by negative events. The pessimism this prompted was cited as a key reason for a lot of women in financial services (amongst others) either leaving the sector – participating, for example, in the “Great Retirement” – or becoming “quiet quitters”, where employees would only carry out the duties formally required of their role within their defined working hours. These two employment themes are both referenced in our 100 Diverse Voices report.

However, as the cumulative effects of the increasing cost of living began to bite, some of the newly retired returned to work given financial markets were also depressed. They’d realised the savings and investments they’d set aside would be insufficient to last the decades they expected to live (and want to enjoy) during retirement. Now a second reversal to the 2022 trends is being discussed.

First published in The Washington Post, the term “quiet thriving” represents a U-turn to “quiet quitting”, whereby employees focus on the positive aspects of their jobs and seek to reframe their approach to work life to play to their strengths. And, while time is needed to assess whether this is a trend to watch (and write about again) or another bit of jargon to ignore, we can at least think of quiet thriving as an opportunity to find ways to ensure the parts of your job you really don’t relish do not weigh heavily enough to prompt ill-being, especially given this is one of the two main conclusions of our 100 Diverse Voices report.

Do you think quiet thriving is something you could take up? Tag us on LinkedIn or Twitter with your thoughts.