Quiet quitting among employees: a proposed cut-off score for the “Quiet Quitting” Scale

OBJECTIVE To identify an appropriate cut-off point for the “Quiet Quitting” Scale (QQS) to discriminate quiet quitters from those with a low level of quiet quitting. METHOD We conducted a cross-sectional in Greece during June 2023. We recruited adult employees from every job sector. Thus, we obtained a convenience sample. We used the Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis to calculate the best cut-off point for the QQS. In that case, we used “Job Satisfaction Survey” (JSS), “Copenhagen Burnout Inventory” (CBI), “Single Item Burnout” (SIB) measure, and turnover intention score as external criterions. For each criterion, we created a dichotomous variable using medians or suggested values from the literature as cut-off points. RESULTS We found a significant predictive power of QQS for job satisfaction assessed by JSS, and for job burnout assessed by CBI and SIB measure. We found that the best cut-off point for the QQS was 2.06. In that case, we found the highest values for Youden’s index (0.34) and AUC (0.73). The 95% confidence interval for the AUC ranged from 0.70 to 0.76. Sensitivity and specificity of QQS were 0.68 and 0.66 respectively (p<0.001). Therefore, we considered employees with QQS score ≥2.06 as quiet quitters, and those with QQS score <2.06 as non quiet quitters. CONCLUSIONS The best cut-off point for the QQS was 2.06. Employees with QQS score ≥2.06 as quiet quitters can be described as quiet quitters. Further research should be conducted to validate our results.