The Gurus Who Say They Can Make Quiet Quitting Disappear

His name is Dean Lindsay, though that’s not what he goes by on LinkedIn. “Quiet Quitting Keynote Speaker” is this search-savvy consultant’s new moniker, and he says it’s helping him get hired—at $10,000 to $15,000 a day—by companies sweating the latest buzzy term for employee disengagement.

Mr. Lindsay, who has been advising businesses about corporate culture for two decades, says quiet quitting is closely related to burnout, work-life balance, stress management and other phenomena that came before. His prescriptions are largely the same, too.

When he saw the viral TikTok phrase had quickly migrated from social media to the C-suite, compelling many bosses to think about how to stop workers from checking out, he didn’t hesitate to rebrand, swapping out his name on LinkedIn for something catchy and of-the-moment.

“I just jumped on it,” he says.

If you’re running a company now, chances are your inbox is full of messages from experts claiming they can goose morale, foster connection, boost buy-in and make various other jargon-studded dreams come true. The people who claim to know the most about quiet quitting are real go-getters, it turns out.

The extent of the problem these consultants aim to solve, and whether it’s new, is debatable. Many of them say that’s beside the point. Getting people to care more deeply about their jobs and colleagues may be a perpetual corporate mission, but it’s an important one, the argument goes. So what if it took a meme to intensify the sense of urgency?

Some, like Mr. Lindsay, run rousing workshops full of motivational mnemonics. (It’s all about the six P’s of progress, he says: pleasure, peace of mind, profit, prestige, pain avoidance and power.)

Less experienced consultants advertise youth as an advantage, saying they can get through to millennials and Gen Z.

Still others offer to set up employee-driven charitable campaigns, using company dollars, to make people feel better about where they work.

Rising Team, a Palo Alto, Calif., startup that sells camaraderie-building software designed to reduce quitting (quiet or otherwise), just closed a second venture-capital round, bringing total investments to $6 million.

For human-resources leaders, the pitches can seem endless.

Priti Patel, chief people officer at G2, a technology marketplace, says she gets daily emails about solving burnout and quiet quitting.

“I don’t even count anymore,” she says.

While some solicitations strike her as gimmicky, Ms. Patel says she doesn’t roll her eyes at all of them. She landed her current position last year after first working with the company as an independent “conscious leadership” coach, which she describes as helping managers deepen their emotional intelligence.

Her take on quiet quitting is that it’s simply the notion of having boundaries at work— hardly new. Nevertheless, establishing the boundaries is a real challenge for managers and direct reports alike, she says, and sometimes an outsider can help set expectations that work for everyone.

Karyn Twaronite, Ernst & Young’s global diversity, equity and inclusion officer, adds that HR consultants can lend valuable perspectives if they represent the views of young people or others who are missing or rare in the executive ranks. EY uses a mix of internal and external advisers, she says, and conducts quarterly “pulse” surveys, asking whether employees feel that they belong at the firm—which last month started splitting its consulting and auditing businesses—and are free to be themselves.

“These feel like softer things, but we know that they’re critical because if people don’t feel this way, then they could, in theory, quit,” she says. “If a consultant can help leaders listen to their employees or decipher the data, that’s really important.”

Data is a main selling point for Rising Team, the venture-funded startup that Facebook, Google and Yahoo veteran Jennifer Dulski launched in 2020. (She says her business idea predates the pandemic, but “the timing turned out to be perfect.”) Her young company starts by polling a client’s staff to measure the likelihood they’ll stay, and says in a few months it can deliver a meaningful increase in the share who plan to stick around.

Ms. Dulski, who teaches management at Stanford Graduate School of Business, aims to get co-workers to know and like each other—and without resorting to hackneyed exercises like trust falls. Rising Team’s “kits,” as she calls the software, lead groups of employees through virtual or in-person discussions every six weeks or so. A kit for a 10-person team costs $99 a month, and companies with many teams can get discounts for buying in bulk.

The idea is that workers who are invested in their colleagues are less likely to slack off or leave.

Money helps, too, though raises and bonuses aren’t the only ways to promote loyalty and engagement, says Tess Murphy, director of strategic partnerships at Kiva, a microfinance nonprofit. Her pitch to companies is that they can pump up employee enthusiasm by letting every worker direct a small sum—as little as $50—to a favourite cause.

Kiva has managed these corporate programs for eight years, but the tumult of the past two has prompted more workers to consider whether they and their employers are making a difference in the world, Ms. Murphy says. Businesses, in turn, are grasping for initiatives that can give their people a sense of purpose.

Ms. Murphy says companies wonder, “ ‘How do we get them connected and excited about the work that we’re doing?’ ”

Much of their consternation centres on young workers who fixate on what is, or isn’t, in their job descriptions and put in too few hours for some of their older colleagues’ tastes, she says.

Appealing to executives who are confounded by their greenest employees, Adam Owens left a steady human-resources job and started his own consulting operation this year. He bills himself as an unconventional alternative to competitors with Ivy League M.B.A.s and decades of experience. If you’re a Boomer or Gen Xer trying to figure out Gen Zers, he says, hire someone like him, a former philosophy major who dropped out of college in the aughts and built a career without the typical credentials.

Many young workers aren’t unmotivated, he adds, but they don’t necessarily measure success like their predecessors or do what they’re supposed to do in the eyes of others. He aims to help bosses understand what these employees really care about.

“Millennials are uniquely positioned to deal with this challenge,” Mr. Owens says. “We function as a bridge between the other generations.”

Many people considering an electric vehicle are turned off by their prices or the paucity of public charging stations. But the biggest roadblock often is “range anxiety”—the fear of getting stuck on a desolate road with a dead battery.

All EVs carry window stickers stating how far they should go on a full charge. Yet these range estimates—overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency and touted in carmakers’ ads—can be wrong in either direction: either overstating or understating the distance that can be driven, sometimes by 25% or more.

How can that be? Below are questions and answers about how driving ranges are calculated, what factors affect the range, and things EV owners can do to go farther on a charge.

How far will an electric vehicle go on a full battery?

The distance, according to EPA testing, ranges from 516 miles for the 2023 Lucid Air Grand Touring with 19-inch wheels to 100 miles for the 2023 Mazda MX-30.

Most EVs are in the 200-to-300-mile range. While that is less than the distance that many gasoline-engine cars can go on a full tank, it makes them suitable for most people’s daily driving and medium-size trips. Yet it can complicate longer journeys, especially since public chargers can be far apart, occupied or out of service. Plus, it takes many times longer to charge an EV than to fill a tank with gas.

How accurate are the EPA range estimates?

Testing by Car and Driver magazine found that few vehicles go as far as the EPA stickers say. On average, the distance was 12.5% shorter, according to the peer-reviewed study distributed by SAE International, formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers.

In some cases, the estimates were further off: The driving range of Teslas fell below their EPA estimate by 26% on average, the greatest shortfall of any EV brand the magazine tested. Separately, federal prosecutors have sought information about the driving range of Teslas, The Wall Street Journal reported. Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The study also said Ford’s F-150 Lightning pickup truck went 230 miles compared with the EPA’s 300-mile estimate, while the Chevrolet Bolt EV went 220 miles versus the EPA’s 259.

A GM spokesman said that “actual range may vary based on several factors, including things like temperature, terrain/road type, battery age, loading, use and maintenance.” Ford said in a statement that “the EPA [figure] is a standard. Real-world range is affected by many factors, including driving style, weather, temperature and if the battery has been preconditioned.”

Meanwhile, testing by the car-shopping site Edmunds found that most vehicles beat their EPA estimates. It said the Ford Lightning went 332 miles on a charge, while the Chevy Bolt went 265 miles.

That is confusing. How can the test results vary so much?

Driving range depends largely on the mixture of highway and city roads used for testing. Unlike gasoline-powered cars, EVs are more efficient in stop-and-go driving because slowing down recharges their batteries through a process called regenerative braking. Conversely, traveling at a high speed can eat up a battery’s power faster, while many gas-engine cars meet or exceed their EPA highway miles-per-gallon figure.

What types of driving situations do the various tests use?

Car and Driver uses only highway driving to see how far an EV will go at a steady 75 mph before running out of juice. Edmunds uses a mix of 60% city driving and 40% highway. The EPA test, performed on a treadmill, simulates a mixture of 55% highway driving and 45% city streets.

What’s the reasoning behind the different testing methods?

Edmunds believes the high proportion of city driving it uses is more representative of typical EV owners, says Jonathan Elfalan, Edmunds’s director of vehicle testing. “Most of the driving [in an EV] isn’t going to be road-tripping but driving around town,” he says.

Car and Driver, conversely, says its all-highway testing is deliberately more taxing than the EPA method. High-speed interstate driving “really isn’t covered by the EPA’s methodology,” says Dave VanderWerp, the magazine’s testing director. “Even for people driving modest highway commutes, we think they’d want to know that their car could get 20%-30% less range than stated on the window sticker.”

What does the EPA say about the accuracy of its range figures?

The agency declined to make a representative available to comment, but said in a statement: “Just like there are variations in EPA’s fuel-economy label [for gas-engine cars] and people’s actual experience on the road for a given make and model of cars/SUVs, BEV [battery electric vehicle] range can exceed or fall short of the label value.”

What should an EV shopper do with these contradictory range estimates?

Pick the one based on the testing method that you think matches how you generally will drive, highway versus city. When shopping for a car, be sure to compare apples to apples—don’t, for instance, compare the EPA range estimate for one vehicle with the Edmunds one for another. And view all these figures with skepticism. The estimates are just that.

Since range is so important to many EV buyers, why don’t carmakers simply add more batteries to provide greater driving distance?

Batteries are heavy and are the most expensive component in an EV, making up some 30% of the overall vehicle cost. Adding more could cut into a vehicle’s profit margin while the added weight means yet more battery power would be used to move the car.

But battery costs have declined over the past 10 years and are expected to continue to fall, while new battery technologies likely will increase their storage capacity. Already, some of the newest EV models can store more power at similar sticker prices to older ones.

What can an EV owner do to increase driving range?

The easiest thing is to slow down. High speeds eat up battery life faster. Traveling at 80 miles an hour instead of 65 can cut the driving range by 17%, according to testing by Geotab, a Canadian transportation-data company. And though a primal appeal of EVs is their zippy takeoff, hard acceleration depletes a battery much quicker than gentle acceleration.

Does cold weather lower the driving range?

It does, and sometimes by a great amount. The batteries are used to heat the car’s interior—there is no engine creating heat as a byproduct as in a gasoline car. And many EVs also use electricity to heat the batteries themselves, since cold can deteriorate the chemical reaction that produces power.

Testing by Consumer Reports found that driving in 15- to-20-degrees Fahrenheit weather at 70 mph can reduce range by about 25% compared to similar-speed driving in 65 degrees.

A series of short cold-weather trips degraded the range even more. Consumer Reports drove two EVs 40 miles each in 20-degree air, then cooled them off before starting again on another 40-mile drive. The cold car interiors were warmed by the heater at the start of each of three such drives. The result: range dropped by about 50%.

Does air conditioning degrade range?

Testing by Consumer Reports and others has found that using the AC has a much lower impact on battery range than cold weather, though that effect seems to increase in heat above 85 degrees.

I don’t want to freeze or bake in my car to get more mileage. What can I do?

“Precondition” your EV before driving off, says Alex Knizek, manager of automotive testing and insights at Consumer Reports. In other words, chill or heat it while it is still plugged in to a charger at home or work rather than using battery power on the road to do so. In the winter, turn on the seat heaters, which many EVs have, so you be comfortable even if you keep the cabin temperature lower. In the summer, try to park in the shade.

What about the impact from driving in a mountainous area?

Going up hills takes more power, so yes, it drains the battery faster, though EVs have an advantage over gas vehicles in that braking on the downside of hills returns juice to the batteries with regenerative braking.

Are there other factors that can affect range?

Tires play a role. Beefy all-terrain tires can eat up more electricity than standard ones, as can larger-diameter ones. And underinflated tires create more rolling resistance, and so help drain the batteries.

Most EVs give the remaining driving range on a dashboard screen. Are these projections accurate?

The meters are supposed to take into account your speed, outside temperature and other factors to keep you apprised in real time of how much farther you can travel. But EV owners and car-magazine testers complain that these “distance to empty” gauges can suddenly drop precipitously if you go from urban driving to a high-speed highway, or enter mountainous territory.

So be careful about overly relying on these gauges and take advantage of opportunities to top off your battery during a multihour trip. These stops could be as short as 10 or 15 minutes during a bathroom or coffee break, if you can find a high-powered DC charger.

Before embarking on a long trip, what should an EV owner do?

Fully charge the car at home before departing. This sounds obvious but can be controversial, since many experts say that routinely charging past 80% of a battery’s capacity can shorten its life. But they also say that charging to 100% occasionally won’t do damage. Moreover, plan your charging stops in advance to ease the I-might-run-out panic.

So battery life is an issue with EVs, just as with smartphones?

Yes, an EV battery’s ability to fully charge will degrade with use and age, likely leading to shorter driving range. Living in a hot area also plays a role. The federal government requires an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty on EV batteries for serious failure, while some EV makers go further and cover degradation of charging capacity. Replacing a bad battery costs many thousands of dollars.

What tools are available to map out charging stations?

Your EV likely provides software on the navigation screen as well as a phone app that show charging stations. Google and Apple maps provide a similar service, as do apps and websites of charging-station networks.

But always have a backup stop in mind—you might arrive at a charging station and find that cars are lined up waiting or that some of the chargers are broken. Damaged or dysfunctional chargers have been a continuing issue for the industry.

Any more tips?

Be sure to carry a portable charger with you—as a last resort you could plug it into any 120-volt outlet to get a dribble of juice.

The Gurus Who Say They Can Make Quiet Quitting Disappear—for $15,000 a Day

Some have Ivy League degrees, others have no degrees, but these workplace consultants all say they’ve got an antidote to the viral trend of employee disengagement

How far can an electric car really go on a full charge? What can you do to make it go farther? We answer these and other questions that EV buyers might ask.