Move over, quiet quitting: ‘Quiet firing’ is the new workplace trend everyone’s worried about

From quiet quitting to quiet firing, interactions within the workplace are becoming less direct and more damaging. 

Quiet quitting is when employees create impervious boundaries between their work and personal life and avoid the concept of going above and beyond at work. Online, the conversations on the topic allude that quiet quitting occurs as a result of poor managerial skills from managers who quiet fire employees.

Quiet firing stems from managers and executives at work. When a manager is quietly firing an employee, they are intentionally distancing the employee from opportunities to further their career. Managers who obstruct employees from participating in special projects and hinder employees from getting a raise are exhibiting signs of quiet firing.

A viral TikTok video illustrated an example of quiet firing; managers who assign menial tasks, have unrealistic expectations for employees, and consistently deny time off are guilty of quiet firing.

So, what’s making managers act this way to their employees? According to Annie Rosencrans, director of people and culture at HiBob, managers who quiet fire employees do so for a few reasons. 

SEE: ‘Quiet quitting’ has nothing to do with lazy employees. It’s about rejecting broken work culture

Managers who lack confidence in their leadership skills might be more likely to quiet fire employees. Instead of taking the time to sit down and guide an employee through their shortcomings at work, managers who quiet fire will disengage entirely and hope the employee will leave on their own.

“It depends on the intentions of the manager,” Rosencrans says. “If a manager doesn’t think a person on their team is successful, rather than tell them, they create distance and disengage from the employee out of hopes that person will disengage and leave on their own.”

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It can be safe to assume that busy and overworked managers might not find the time, patience, or emotional capacity to have hard conversations with their employees about their job performance. But there is a way for managers to lessen the burden and frequency of these hard conversations. 

However, the solution is not an easy win, and managers can’t expect it to be successful overnight. Rosencrans suggests companies integrate progressive feedback into their company culture to help employees understand the gaps in their work performance. 

In an Instagram post, organizational psychiatrist Adam Grant explained that toxic work cultures deny time off to force employees to work harder to “earn” paid days off. In other posts, Grant mentioned that employees who are consistently denied time off despite doing their tasks at work are susceptible to quiet quitting their jobs.

Quiet firing employees might be viewed as a response to employees quiet quitting their jobs, while employees might quiet quit as a result of suspecting their boss is trying to quiet fire them. These actions serve as an endless, tiring, and unproductive feedback loop, but there are solutions to both scenarios.

To help employees better understand where they need improvements in their performance, Rosencrans suggests managers create time to speak with their direct reports individually. Rosencrans says these meetings should be frequent and performance reviews should occur more than once a year.

Companies may find it useful to enroll managers in feedback training to help them recognize their employees’ behavior at work and help them when they are falling behind in their work. By giving employees valuable feedback, managers are tackling the problem head-on instead of avoiding the conversation and waiting for an employee to make a move that justifies their exit. 

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Feedback is vital to keeping employees working in a hybrid or remote environment engaged and motivated. Limited face-to-face interactions between employees and managers can leave room for employees to slip through the cracks and become less involved in their work.

Rosencrans says that managers who do not meet with their direct reports regularly are responsible for employees being left in the dark about their responsibilities and their job security. Setting goals for employees, developing improvement plans, and general check-ins with employees can decrease the likelihood of quiet quitting and quiet firing, according to Rosencrans.

In both situations, the consequences of quiet quitting and quiet firing lie on the shoulders of managers and company executives. How we work is changing fast and in all facets of the workplace. Once companies embrace the new ways of working and ditch their traditional workplace cultures, the higher the possibility employee morale might finally return to normal.