Job Hugging Is the New Quiet Quitting

The American workplace is in the middle of another cultural reset. After years of headlines about quiet quitting and the Great Resignation, a new phenomenon is emerging: job hugging.

Rather than jumping ship for new opportunities, many employees are choosing to hold tight to their current roles even if they feel frustrated, undervalued or stuck.

Why? This shift is rooted in uncertainty.

Economic turbulence, mass layoffs and declining trust in institutions have made many workers reluctant to take risks. Even as unemployment numbers hold steady, many employees are deciding that clinging to their current job is safer than venturing into unknown territory.

Related: ‘Holding on for Dear Life’: What’s Behind the ‘Job Hugging’ Trend That’s Stagnating Your Career

The cost of fear

A fear-based workplace is not just bad for morale; it’s bad for business. Fear stifles creativity, discourages risk-taking and smothers innovation. Instead of thriving, organizations risk stagnation and obsolescence.

I’ve seen employees blindsided by sudden layoffs — one week they believe they’re performing well, the next they’re handed a notice. Such a lack of transparency fuels anxiety and drives workers deeper into self-protection mode. The result is a vicious cycle: anxious employees disengage, leaders interpret that as poor performance, and both sides lose.

Trust: The missing ingredient

At its core, job hugging isn’t about laziness or lack of ambition — it’s about lack of trust.

Employers would do well to take a proactive role in rebuilding trust between employees and the organization. That means:

• Transparency: Communicate clearly and openly about business health, expectations and performance feedback.

• Consistency: Apply policies fairly and predictably across the organization.

• Humanity: Treat employees as partners, not just as a headcount or expendable resources.

When trust grows, fear naturally recedes, and employees begin to re-engage more productively with the organization’s goals.

Building resilience and presence

At the same time, employees would also do well to learn to build inner resilience. Breathwork and meditation, tools we’ve adapted for corporate settings at the TLEX Institute, help workers regulate stress, become more present, reframe challenges and stay grounded when the future feels uncertain.

Resilience helps employees better respond rather than react to challenges, as well as adapt to rather than retreat from challenges.

When both sides commit to building trust and resilience, workplaces become less about fear and more about collaboration and innovation.

Related: How to Build and Maintain a Truly Resilient Company Culture

The power of connection

While hybrid work is here to stay, physical workplaces still play a critical role. Offices provide spaces for relationship-building, mentorship and the kind of spontaneous collaboration that sparks big ideas. Innovation infrastructure, or spaces, rituals and norms that support experimentation, is critical. When people show up with a non-attachment style approach powered by free-flowing thinking, and if the culture rewards making new attempts (and failing safely), creativity grows.

If showing up to the office feels unbearable, it may be less about the format and more about whether the job itself aligns with one’s values and purpose, especially since we spend most of our waking hours working.

Preparing for the next disruption

Artificial intelligence is already reshaping the nature of work — transforming or eliminating some roles altogether. This makes trust, communication, innovation mindset and connection more urgent and relevant than ever. Organizations that invest in transparency and human values will be better positioned to adapt to this wave of change instead of drowning in it, all while developing resilient, trustworthy employees.

In our work with Fortune 500 companies, we use what we call the “Mind Matters” approach to support organizations and employees who need to harness the surge of disruption. Our methods integrate scientifically studied techniques that address complex change issues around focus, resilience and self-awareness to teach participants to develop and harness their mind by establishing connections and healthy commitment (not hugging!).

Our goal is to foster environments in which employees can experiment with new tools, pilot alternative workflows or propose “moonshot” projects. We often get surprised by what emerges. These hybrids (wellness + innovation + trust) yield outcomes stronger than any single “brace for change” intervention.

Related: 9 Ways Your Company Can Encourage Innovation

Waving and lowering the red flag of job hugging

Job hugging may seem like a harmless coping strategy, but it’s also a signal flare. It tells leaders their workforce feels unsafe, unheard and unsure of the future. This “frozen workforce” dynamic should worry leaders. It erodes the very conditions innovation depends on: openness, trust and creative risk-taking.

The challenge for leaders is clear: Meet this moment with clarity, care and courage.

Leaders who notice employees “holding on” rather than “leaning in” should treat it the way doctors treat a warning symptom: as a prompt for deeper diagnosis and urgent intervention.

By recognizing job hugging as a red flag rather than dismissing it as harmless conservatism, leaders can re-engage their workforce through transparency, trust-building and meaningful development opportunities. And in doing so, they not only break the cycle of fear but also unlock the innovation their organizations need to thrive in uncertain times.

The American workplace is in the middle of another cultural reset. After years of headlines about quiet quitting and the Great Resignation, a new phenomenon is emerging: job hugging.

Rather than jumping ship for new opportunities, many employees are choosing to hold tight to their current roles even if they feel frustrated, undervalued or stuck.

Why? This shift is rooted in uncertainty.