Forget ‘quiet quitting’ your boss could be ‘quiet firing’ you

‘Quiet quitting’ is all the rage, but there are increasing concerns bosses are ‘quiet firing’ too which can lead to staff sacking themselves

We’ve all heard of “quiet quitting,” one of the buzzwords of last year, when employees do the bare minimum to keep their jobs.

But be warned, because there’s a new workplace word in town. And it’s not great if have you confidently embraced your quiet quitting 9-5 inner inertia.

Some bosses are suspected of “quiet firing”. And the trend seems to be on the up.

A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal suggested companies that wanted to shed staff were getting canny leading to some employees – to a certain extent – firing themselves.

In some cases bosses can be quiet firing without even knowing it.

Essentially, it’s actions short of firing which encourage the employee to quit anyway.

To be sure it’s not overtly underhand methods, like managers bullying a minion. Down that route lies an employment tribunal.

It may not even be personally directed at any one person. But a whole catalogue of methods have been categorised as quiet firing which has the effect of thinning the ranks without a company having to do all that expensive stuff like, you know, paying redundancy.

Quiet firing can lead staff to leave a company therefore letting their bosses off the hook.

“Quiet firing happens when managers fail to adequately provide clear expectations, feedback, support, career development, and recognition for an employee in a way that makes them feel ignored and pushes them out of an organisation,” Ben Wigert, director of research and strategy for workplace management at research firm Gallup, told website Insider.

A LinkedIn online poll, completed by 20,000 people late last year, found 48 per cent had witnessed a form of quiet firing. A further 35 per cent said they had faced it.

Gallup has summed up one method of quiet firing as deliberate employee “neglect” where staff are left hanging, to wither on the workplace vine.

“Slowly it pushes employees out of a job,” as they inch towards making the decision to leave.

“In a worst-case scenario, quiet firing happens when managers allow employees to have truly toxic or miserable experiences at work as a way to squeeze them out. It’s a form of gas lighting,” it stated.

This is definitely not “quiet firing”. This looks very loud.

There are several other ways quiet firing can happen.

A key one is pay. Many organisations go through lean times and employees are often told pay rises are tricky. That’s not quiet firing.

But if you haven’t got a pay raise for years, through even the non-lean times, that could be quiet firing.

Another would be a manager failing to praise - or even criticise - your work. At least if they want you to do better there’s a sense you and the role are important. No feedback can suggest you’re barely noticed.

Or a gradual freezing out of an employee from projects or a transfer of their responsibilities to someone else.

In these post pandemic times, an insistence on working from the office has also been cited as a quiet firing strategy.

“That would be one way to put pressure on employees to see if they really want to stay with the organisation,” said Mr Wigert

He added that some companies had required staff to come back more days per week than strictly necessary in the hope that would weed out a few WFH die hands.

Back to the office plans could weed out a few WFH die hards who then resign.

Facebook suspected of quiet firing

Then there’s more overt quiet firing in the form of an increased focus on performance across the board.

Recently it was revealed that Instagram and Facebook owner Meta gave thousands of its staff – around 10 per cent of its workforce – low performance review scores.

Insider reported that an edict had gone out to managers to place double the amount of people as low scoring compared to previous years.

Two low scoring reviews at Meta leads to a job threatening performance improvement plan.

Meta said there has been no change to its performance review process.

But nonetheless, being low graded can encourage some employees to voluntarily head for the exit.

“It’s a kind of quiet firing in the way they’re not saying that we’re asking you to leave or we’re firing you, but they’re raising the bar on performance in a way that shows them they either need to quickly improve or find a different position,” Mr Wigert said.

Facebook owner Meta has seemingly done some measures which could be seen as quiet firing. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP)

Lazy option

But there’s a big problem with companies that actively embrace the covert arts of quiet firing.

FCW Lawyers’ senior associate workplace relations Nina Hoang told NCA NewsWire last year that quiet firing “never works”.

“Instead of doing their jobs and letting employees know what they’re doing wrong, managers start to do underhand things, hoping they will get the message and leave,” she said.

“It’s the lazy option and it leads to costly consequences.”

It may end up that the people you want to stay leave, and the quiet quitters stick around.

Take working from home. Banning it could mean effective staff, who enjoy the flexibility of not going into the office for at least a few days a week, hand in their resignation letters. While disillusioned staff come to the office – and are even more disillusioned.

A lack of attention from a manager can be seen as quiet firing – even if it’s not intentional.

Unintentional quiet firing

In many cases, however, quiet firing is not a plan by managers, but a result of them managing badly.

“It can be done unintentionally, or subconsciously, by managers who are fearful or hesitant to give direct feedback when things aren’t going well with an employee,” director of people at human resources IT company HiBob Annie Rosencrans told website CNBC.

“Managers who know that someone’s not working out and know they want them to leave may]just ignore them, in hopes that they will leave on their own.

“That’s a very unhealthy thing.”

One way to avoid being quiet fired, say experts, is to talk to your boss and show some ambition and initiative.

It’s harder to neglect – unintentionally or otherwise – someone who has actively sought support, said chief customer officer at jobs website Adzuna, Paul Lewis.

“Talk to your manager, challenge them, ask for growth, continue to push, and try to show them how ambitious, how engaged and how up for the mission you are.”

But, stated Gallup’s Mr Wigert, if a staff member feels a bit of quiet firing is occurring, it could be that their boss is actually quiet quitting.

“If your managers are quiet quitting — disengaging from their roles — the effects spread to their team and the whole organisation.”