A1 Level – Elementary
1. What does “working hard” mean?
2. Do you like your job?
3. What is a common work boundary?
4. Do you answer work emails at night?
5. What is the opposite of working hard?
6. Do you think about work when you are at home?
7. What makes a good manager?
8. Do you think quiet quitting is good?
9. What is the difference between working and resting?
10. What makes an employee unhappy?
11. Do you work extra hours for free?
12. What makes a job stressful?
13. What is a common hobby outside of work?
14. Do you feel tired after work?
15. What is the meaning of “burnout”?
A2 Level – Pre-Intermediate
1. What are the key differences between quiet quitting and simply setting healthy work boundaries?
2. Describe one task at work that you believe falls outside of your official job description.
3. What are the pros and cons for a company when many employees start quiet quitting?
4. What role does fair compensation and salary play in preventing employee disengagement?
5. Have you ever felt pressure to work extra hours without receiving any extra pay?
6. What specific rules or policies can a company put in place to ensure a better work-life balance?
7. What is the difference between an engaged employee and a detached employee?
8. What are common signs that a person is suffering from severe job burnout?
9. How does technology (e.g., instant messaging) make it harder to disconnect from work?
10. What are the biggest challenges of managing employees who quiet quit in a fully remote setting?
11. What is the importance of having clear and detailed job descriptions?
12. Do you think quiet quitting is a justified response to corporate overwork culture?
13. What are the challenges of measuring a remote employee’s effort versus their output?
14. What are the best ways for an employee to communicate new boundaries to their manager?
15. What is the difference between being a responsible worker and being an over-worker?
B1 Level – Intermediate
1. Discuss the difficulty of defining the exact boundary between a normal workload and an exploitative one.
2. How can companies foster a culture where employees feel safe to voice concerns about their workload?
3. What are the ethical issues surrounding the lack of paid overtime for many salaried, high-responsibility jobs?
4. Do you agree that the concept of quiet quitting is more about rejecting “hustle culture” than avoiding work?
5. Describe a time when setting a clear boundary (e.g., refusing a late meeting) protected your personal time.
6. To what extent should job satisfaction be tied to external factors (e.g., office perks) versus internal meaning (e.g., purpose)?
7. What role does organizational transparency (e.g., on pay and promotion) play in maintaining employee morale?
8. How do cultural norms about loyalty and sacrifice affect an employee’s decision to quiet quit?
9. Discuss the psychological phenomenon of “resentment” that builds when employees feel their efforts are unrewarded.
10. What are the challenges of reversing a widespread trend of quiet quitting once it takes hold in a company?
11. How does the concept of “psychological safety” relate to an employee’s willingness to perform beyond the minimum required?
12. Should mandatory paid mental health days be legally required to prevent mass burnout?
13. What is the difference between genuine disengagement and strategically allocating time to personal growth?
14. Discuss the concept of the “Great Resignation” and how it relates to quiet quitting.
15. What is the long-term impact of chronic, unrewarded overwork on a person’s physical and financial health?
B2 Level – Upper-Intermediate
1. How does economic pressure and high cost of living force some workers to *have* to perform more than their basic duties to survive?
2. What are the ethical arguments about companies firing employees who are performing their duties but are clearly disengaged?
3. Should governments establish legal protections for an employee’s “right to disconnect” from digital work communication after hours?
4. What are the psychological reasons why some high-achievers struggle to set boundaries and feel compelled to overwork?
5. How has the dominance of individual performance metrics (KPIs) created a system where employees only focus on measurable tasks?
6. Discuss the idea that quiet quitting is a sign that the social contract between employer and employee is fundamentally broken.
7. What is the role of employee stock options and profit-sharing in motivating workers to exceed minimum requirements?
8. How do our perceptions of career success become distorted by media portrayals of billionaire entrepreneurs and “hustle culture”?
9. What are the challenges of managing global, diverse teams where cultural norms about working hours conflict sharply?
10. Discuss the concept of “performative work”—appearing busy but not actually accomplishing high-value tasks.
11. What is the difference between a high-performing employee who sets boundaries and a quiet quitter who meets minimum requirements?
12. Should mandatory management training focus on recognizing and addressing the systemic causes of employee disengagement?
13. What is the impact of organizational politics and favoritism on an employee’s decision to emotionally withdraw from their job?
14. How does the history of labor movements (e.g., for the 40-hour work week) relate to the modern struggle for work-life balance?
15. Discuss the idea that quiet quitting is a necessary, non-confrontational form of resistance against exploitation.
C1 Level – Advanced
1. Analyze the socioeconomic factors that correlate with the trend of quiet quitting across different industries and wage levels.
2. To what degree should the legal system restrict the use of ambiguous contract language that encourages undefined work expectations?
3. Discuss the philosophical concept of “alienation of labor” and how quiet quitting represents a rejection of that process.
4. Evaluate the efficacy of corporate wellness programs in addressing the root causes of burnout and disengagement.
5. How does the strategic use of emotional language (e.g., “we’re a family”) function to extract uncompensated labor from employees?
6. Examine the legal challenges of defining a fair workload for knowledge workers whose tasks are inherently fluid and time-consuming.
7. What ethical guidelines should govern the use of AI tools to predict which employees are likely to quiet quit and intervene with them?
8. Discuss the concept of “the gig economy” and how it has formalized the separation between compensation and commitment.
9. How do different national policies on severance pay and unemployment benefits affect an employee’s willingness to quit or quiet quit?
10. Analyze the interplay between high student loan debt and the financial necessity for young people to tolerate exploitative work conditions.
11. What ethical challenges arise when new corporate culture initiatives (e.g., “mandatory fun”) are used to mask core issues of pay and workload?
12. Debate whether a system of strong union representation would eliminate the need for phenomena like quiet quitting.
13. How does the architecture of office design (e.g., lack of private space) contribute to a sense of exhaustion and detachment?
14. Discuss the concept of “psychological contract”—the unwritten expectations between an employee and employer—and its breakdown.
15. To what extent does the modern pursuit of personal “self-optimization” conflict with the ethical demands of a job?
C2 Level – Proficiency
1. How do you analyze the idea that quiet quitting is fundamentally a rational, economic response to a persistent negative incentive structure?
2. Formulate a critique of organizational discourse that frames “quiet quitting” as an individual moral failing rather than a systemic crisis of engagement.
3. Analyze the intersection of labor law, digital monitoring, and the difficulty of legally defining the “minimum acceptable effort” for knowledge workers.
4. Discuss the philosophical distinction between “personal responsibility” (to do one’s best) and “organizational obligation” (to compensate fairly).
5. Critically evaluate the effectiveness of corporate attempts to use cultural interventions (e.g., free food) to solve structural economic problems.
6. Propose a new, globally applicable standard for defining and measuring fair compensation that includes the value of emotional and mental labor.
7. Examine the psychological function of setting and enforcing work boundaries in maintaining individual identity and preventing total career absorption.
8. How does the semiotics of workplace attire (e.g., hyper-casual vs. formal) subtly communicate the expected level of employee commitment?
9. Discuss the ethical responsibilities of CEOs and leaders to address the underlying causes of quiet quitting (e.g., low pay, lack of respect).
10. Analyze the historical relationship between cycles of economic recession and the corresponding increase in demanded but uncompensated employee labor.
11. Articulate the inherent tension between the employer’s need for flexibility and the employee’s requirement for fixed, predictable boundaries.
12. Debate whether the future dominance of gig work will render the entire concept of “quiet quitting” obsolete by formalizing task-based pay.
13. Assess the long-term societal effects of widespread employee disengagement on national innovation and economic competitiveness.
14. Discuss the philosophical definition of ‘fairness’ when applied to the allocation of workload and compensation in a competitive market.
15. How might the principles of psychological contract maintenance be used to model processes of organizational trust-building and crisis management?
