Late-night email notifications, work messages on weekends, and the habit of completing tasks during break time have now become part of many workers’ routines. Without realizing it, these habits form a phenomenon known as quiet overworking.
FEB UGM Management Lecturer, Anggraeni Pranandari, S.E., M.Sc., explained that quiet overworking is a phenomenon in which employees quietly work beyond their job expectations, often informally, without direct instructions or additional compensation.
“It can take many forms, such as replying to emails outside working hours, completing tasks during break time, or constantly staying active at work without additional compensation or formal recognition from the company,” explained the lecturer, who is familiarly called Dini.
She described this practice as the opposite of quiet quitting. While quiet quitting refers to employees working strictly within their job descriptions without extra effort, quiet overworking reflects the opposite. In practice, employees give additional time, energy, and attention beyond formal job demands. For example, replying to work emails at night, working during break time, and always feeling “ready” when contacted about work matters.
In her previous research, Dini found that technology plays a double-edged sword role. On the one hand, technology improves work efficiency and productivity. On the other hand, technology keeps workers constantly connected to their jobs, blurring the boundaries between professional and personal life.
“When technology keeps us constantly connected to work, we absorb work matters into our personal time without realising it,” she said on Thursday (Feb 12, 2026) at FEB UGM.
In the short term, quiet overworking may appear beneficial. However, in the long term, this practice risks causing fatigue, burnout, and increased turnover intention.
Dini noted that quiet overworking is closely related to Indonesia’s labor market structure. According to the February 2025 Indonesian Labor Market Indicators released by Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the open unemployment rate has decreased, while the number of employed people has increased. However, behind this trend, most workers remain in the informal sector, working in vulnerable conditions, without strong labor protections, certainty of working hours, or clear career paths.
This condition also creates job insecurity for white-collar workers, especially among younger generations, as having a job today does not necessarily guarantee job security tomorrow. When the labor force continues to grow while the quality of formal jobs remains unbalanced, workers’ bargaining positions become weaker. In highly competitive labor-market conditions, employees demonstrate dedication by taking on additional informal work to cope with job uncertainty.
“Quiet overworking becomes a rational response in a labor market that does not provide a sense of security,” she explained.
According to her, this phenomenon also relates to the relationship between employees, companies, and the government. When labor protections and working-hour boundaries are unclear, work cultures that normalize overwork can easily develop.
In addition to labor market factors, quiet overworking is also influenced by unwritten but strongly binding workplace cultures. Narratives such as the importance of always being ready to work or the assumption that employees who work longer are more committed make quiet overworking seem normal and even moral.
“Quiet overworking does not appear simply because someone is ambitious, but because the system makes silence the most rational choice,” Dini added.
Performance evaluation systems that focus on output without considering working hours, as well as implicit work contracts, can encourage employees to work beyond formal limits without recognition or compensation.
The normalization of quiet overworking has the potential to affect human resource quality and organizational competitiveness in the long term. Work fatigue can reduce critical thinking ability, creativity, and opportunities to improve competence.
“Innovative organizations rely on employees who still have the energy to think, not those who are the most exhausted,” she explained.
Unsustainable work cultures can trigger talent drain and erode an organization’s reputation in the labor market. High-performing employees tend to seek healthier work environments, while organizations face increased recruitment costs and the risk of declining applicant quality.
Dini emphasized the importance of improving human resource governance, including redesigning performance evaluation systems to be more explicit, setting clear working-hour boundaries, and managing workloads realistically.
“Quiet overworking does not only happen because employees are willing to overwork, but because the system makes silence seem the safest option. Change the system, and behavior will follow,” she concluded.
Reporter: Dwi Zhafirah Meiliani
Editor: Kurnia Ekaptiningrum
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