Scroll on TikTok or Instagram Reels long enough and you’ll probably see a disgruntled worker at the office calling out their toxic boss or putting their HR team on blast, making sure everyone hears their discontent on their way out of a job.
If you ask Fubu founder and “Shark Tank” investor Daymond John, this kind of “loud quitting” is a useful way to make your voice heard — under the right circumstances.
“I think it’s great when there’s a toxic boss [or] toxic environment,” John said in a TikTok video posted earlier this month. “You see a bunch of people loud quitting, you better pay attention to what’s going on with your staff, because you [evoke] so much emotion that these people have collectively started saying ‘I don’t care what happens to me … This place sucks.’ And I think that’s absolutely amazing.”
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Loud quitting goes beyond its most obvious definition: The term also encompasses actively disengaging from work, showing a negative attitude, disregarding deadlines and neglecting your job responsibilities. It’s meant to represent the opposite of “quiet quitting,” wherein workers eschew extra work or going above and beyond their nominal job responsibilities.
The loud quitting trend, which has gained steam on social media over the past couple years, should be a wake-up call for bosses and organizations of all kinds, John said. Low employee engagement is costly, and vocal complaints from workers tend to signal areas of improvement that leaders should take seriously, he added.
Low engagement costs the global economy $8.9 trillion, or 9% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace report. Almost one in five employees across the world have work habits that could qualify as loud quitting, according to a 2023 Gallup report.
Perhaps predictably, loud quitters can suffer consequences too. If a future prospective employer or hiring manager sees your dramatic exit on social media, they may not hire you. You also risk getting unwanted backlash, including “loud replies” from strangers and ex-colleagues alike, John warned.
So before you make public accusations about your boss or organization — current or former — think about how your message will come across to strangers on the internet who might see you as a toxic employee.
“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 hurt yourself in the process,” said John.
Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” which features Daymond John as a panelist.
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